India's shining darkness

"Shining India" and "Incredible India" are the two famous tag lines of Indian Advertisements that heralded India's rise on the world stage in the last two decades. For the first time, in 2 decades, the shine is fading as the darkness of the world's best kept secret makes its way through the shallow veneer of moderation and modernization. The New York Times: "India loses Dogfight to Pakistan, Questions Arise about its Vintage military". The Guardian writes: "Kashmir is in a perilous state because of India's pivot Nationalism," and the latest UN report warns India on "increasing harassment and targeting of minorities".
India's evolution has been remarkable. It changed its philosophy from a closed, centralized economy to an open economy under the then Congress prime minister Narasimha Rao. Dr Manmohan Singh, who was India's two-time prime minister till the 2014 general elections, was the architect of the reform process in the 1990s as a Finance minister in Rao's cabinet. By 2015 India had outpaced China in its growth trajectory. It became a story that the world wanted to hear and it was a story that India propelled by its massive marketing skills.
In a world that bows to power based on money, market, media, and military might India became the buzzword to hum for a world suffering from materialism overdose. In contrast to the Rising India, Pakistan was facing a hangover of post-Zia legacy of fundamentalism and a struggling democracy. The 90s when India invested in its economy and human development, Pakistan was going through a 'revolving door government' where each democratic ruler in a hurry to make money for themselves, was ousted frequently to make way for the Musharraf era. India meantime developed not only a marketing muscle but great international diplomacy skills to constantly highlight Pakistan's weaknesses of being run by dictators.
Participation on war on terror created internal terrorist groups of TTP and many other terror outfits that were exploited by India and other forces to create instability in Pakistan. They slickly develop this whole narrative about Pakistan being the villain who was behind every attack in India, Afghanistan, Iran and the rest of the world. Despite having democratic governments since 2008, Pakistan failed to act consistently against these outfits due to a lack of political will till the APS tragedy in 2015. This tragedy resulted in the formation of the National Action Plan with 20 clearly defined actions. The military part was done well but working on terror narrative and terror financing actions etc was not undertaken as money laundering was considered a norm by the political governments in those eras. This provided fodder to Indian, Israeli and US think tanks and media houses to portray Pakistan as an exporter of terror and India as victim.
Modi's rise in politics was marked by his economic prowess and his Muslim repression in Gujarat. He took over the government and further nourished the radical nationalism doctrine. Former Union minister Yashwant Sinha recently in his interview said that Modi's government had a formal policy of 'Using Force as a State tool" to achieve his goals. The Indian media meantime had become this booming, blind, yeller of "Down" with anything that exposes the dark side of their country. Kashmir had been branded as an "enfant Terrible" that was fed anti-India rhetoric by Pakistan. Thus all force was used on Kashmir as it was a rebellion fed by the enemy. With India's market might and glossy projection, it sold.
However, forced, faked, fraudulent actions, words and policies do not last in the long run. India was so used to getting away with any and every news and narrative they built, especially about Pakistan and Kashmir, that they expected to sail through with the "kill Pakistanis, kill terrorism" slogan post-Pulwama. The mask finally slipped. As India reverted to the force methodology and made aerial strikes followed by a hysteria of "crushing victory", the calmness in Pakistan made the world curious. What India had forgotton was that force and fake are now easily detectable; satellites are picked through sensors; photo-shops are dissected; dates and time are encrypted; and whatever you say or utter is recordable, reproducible and re usable.
The Indian perception manufacturing machine finally broke down. The 'Shining India' became the 'Screaming India'. The Incredible India produced incredibly fake evidence, news, videos to substantiate incredibly untruthful news. The anchors went on a boiling feverish pitch on shouting out for blood, war and destruction. The actors joined in. The politicians blasted. The public vomited venom. But amid this incredible paranoia the international voices and a more coordinated response by Pakistan media and diplomacy started creeping in after the euphoria petered out on staring facts. The Indian denial continued both at state and media level. In today's informed world the best way to start a war on facts is by denying and presenting faked facts. The counter evidence presented by experts is damning for Indian false claims.
For the first time the world, and a small minority of Indians, are accepting that they have lived in self - for too long. Reality Fact Check-Microsoft report says India leads in fake news in the world with 64% Indians encountering fake news compared to world average of 57%. As India tries to show off its empowered females through Bollywood and poses Pakistani women in hijab as suppressed, the World Index for the most dangerous countries in the world places India at number one. The 2017 PEW report ranks India as the worst placed in 198 countries on two indices-the Government Restriction Index (GRI), measuring government restriction on free practice of religion, and the Social Hostilities Index (SHI) that looks at hostilities around the issue of religion. India fares poorly on both counts but the score is abysmal in case of the SHI index. India ranked "very high" on the SHI index with an index value of 8.7 out of 10.
This is the real reality of "Incredible India". Yes, it is incredible that how a country with the highest level of intolerance can be termed as progressive. Yes, it is incredible that how a country that is the most dangerous place for women in the world can make any claims of social moderation. Yes, it is incredible that how a country with the most faked news in the world can keep on calling others liars and deceivers. Yes, it is incredible how India having a Prime minister who is himself an extremist and promoter of terror. This paradox has reached its expiry date. In the Indian elections due in a few weeks, the twitter trend of GoBackModi just may become an electoral reality.
(The writer can be reached at [email protected])