There are rumours of war...

Harish Khare

Since the times of the Mahabharata when false news of Ashwatthama’s death was manufactured, we have known that misinformation and rumours do play an important part in the conduct of wars between nations and armies. In the wars of the twentieth century, the leaders and generals have devoted considerable importance and resources to propaganda battles. Propaganda is important as much for reassuring citizens as for confusing and demoralising the enemy.

In the twenty-first century, this game has now acquired an altogether chaotic dimension. The governments all over the world — with the possible exception of China — have lost their monopoly over the outflow of information. Now, the social media has created a million warriors, each equally capable of floating a rumour of war, battles won and lost or imminent. 

Anyone spending fifteen minutes in front of an Indian television channel this week would have had the powerful impression that we are about to have a total, all-out war with Pakistan. Since the Uri outrage, the television news industry has whipped up a mood of revenge, retaliation and retribution. The social media warriors have pitched in and a frenzy has come to take possession of our collective fortitude. How to defuse this dangerous mood? The Army has rightly asserted that India would respond to the Uri provocation at a time and place of its choosing. But the ultra-nationalist social media warriors would not be so easily palmed off. They want action, here and now. 

Very sensibly, the Modi government is not allowing itself to be swamped by the war noises in the television studios. Every senior political leader in this country is aware of the Kandahar episode, when the Vajpayee government succumbed to the hysteria whipped up by the television channels. Every single member of the Vajpayee government regrets, at least in the privacy of his drawing room, that shameful day when India had to release four hardcore terrorists. On that fateful day, the gains of the Kargil War got dissipated — Pakistan regained its psychological cockiness, and its Army discovered the usefulness of terror groups. 

The twenty-first century is a deadly century. Governments and responsible leaders have to learn how to keep their cool, how not to surrender their considered judgment to emotional tsunamis. Some leaders feel that they have a reputation to keep and get tempted to take unwise decisions. 

It is increasingly recognised that professional agencies across the world are engaged in manipulating the internet and its latest cousin, the social media, to spread rumours and half-truths. The Pakistanis’ capacity to play with this game competently and sophisticatedly should not be underestimated. They surely are able to play games with our minds. Take, for example, the Friday morning convulsions. Our television news channels got all excited because of a Pakistani journalist’s tweet, with an unverified — and unverifiable — claim of having spotted Pakistan air force’s F-16 fighter planes over Islamabad. Just a tweet! Not more than 140 characters. And the entire Indian television world spent its energy and its breadth in drawing fabulous inferences.

In this mood of super-anxiety and suppressed anger, the Indian citizen becomes vulnerable to any rumour. If the storytellers in the social media are to be believed, we have already waged a covert war on Pakistan and won it. 

And, the charm of a good rumour is that it can neither be denied nor acknowledged. So be it. 

On Saturday morning, I had called up Natwar Singh to ask him whether he had received the honorarium cheque The Tribune had sent him a few days ago. In turn, he asked me: “Are we going to go to war with Pakistan?” Taken aback, I said: “Sir, you are a wise man, an experienced diplomat and a former foreign affairs minister. I should be asking you that question.”

He lamented all this war-talk after the Uri attack. “Seventy policemen were killed by the extremists in Chhattisgarh and no one got excited, angry.” 

Natwar Singh is one of the few men in India who are well-versed in the history of warfare in the twentieth century. He indignantly asked me: “What is all this loose talk of teaching Pakistan this or that lesson? Illiterate editors and writers are quoting Chanakya and arguing about how to go to war. Do these people understand that Chanakya’s advice was relevant to his time and age? It is amazing that people are always quoting Chanakya — or Machiavelli — to sound knowledgeable, without realising how the times have changed, how much the technology of war and diplomacy has changed.”

It was not for me to quarrel with this wise man’s very valid indictment of our cultivated blood-thirstiness.  

Navtej Sarna will be our new man in Washington. An ambassadorial assignment in the United States is the second-most coveted posting for an Indian Foreign Service officer. 

India has had a string of distinguished men and women represent the country in Washington. Asaf Ali, Vijay Laxmi Pandit, BK Nehru, Abid Hussain, Naresh Chandra, Siddharth Shankar Ray, Meera Shanker, Nirupama Rao. A veritable roster of talent, experience and professionalism. 

Sarna will be the first turbaned Sikh to join the distinguished band. Kewal Singh, though, was the first Sikh to be our envoy in Washington. When he joined the Indian Foreign Service, Kewal Singh used to sport the mandatory turban and beard, but soon thereafter chose to become a ‘mona.’

Besides being a first-rate professional diplomat, Sarna is also widely respected as a man of letters. I first came to know Navtej as a literary critic when I was working for The Hindu. He wrote a regular books column for The Hindu. 

It is a redeeming sign indeed that a first-rate literary reputation has not come in the way of his professional advancement.

I return once again to Ms Priyanka Chopra, who the other day hogged the limelight as a presenter at the Emmy Awards show. She deserves every bit of attention and praise, not just as a celebrity but also as a symbol of a new generation of talented Indians who are not afraid to go out and test themselves against competition on the world stage. What lends loads of oomph to Ms Chopra is the self-assurance and confidence that she possesses.

Priyanka Chopra’s appearance at the Emmy Awards night in Los Angeles stands out in very, very sharp contrast to the ugly noises being heard in a section of Bollywood about the presence of Pakistani artistes in Mumbai. While our talented artistes, intellectuals, writers and professionals avail themselves of the opportunities offered by the openness in the West, we want to shut our doors on the creative outsiders, especially if they happen to be Pakistani. Second-rate minds and mediocre artistes invoke patriotism and nationalism to badmouth artistic talent from Pakistan. This kind of phony indignation and xenophobic righteousness sits unhappily with our claims of being a rising global power. Ms Chopra quietly tells a different story. 

I am sure very many Indians must have found totally incomprehensible an Indian diplomat’s charge that Pakistan was “host to Ivy League of Terrorism.” Perhaps, the convoluted formulation was meant for the American ears. 

As a product of the original “Ivy League”, I think a bit of explaining is in order.

The term “Ivy League” is used for eight centres of higher learning on the north-east coast of America, but its reputation and record of exclusiveness, excellence, and elitism are best personified by three universities — Harvard, Princeton and Yale. Between the three of them, these universities have supplied the best of talent for the United States in all walks of life. Almost every outstanding president in last hundred years – Woodrow Wilson, FD Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Clinton, the two Bushes, Barrack Obama — have had their education or association with one of these three centres of learning. 

I am not sure that anyone with an Ivy League education would be thrilled by the reference to Pakistan and its institutionalised addiction to terrorism. But these are times of over-excitement and over-speak. 

Let all this rumour-mongering not spoil the taste for a cup of good coffee. Do join me. 

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