Ramachandra Guha – ‘Eminent Distortian’on Ahmedabad

If ever Chris Nolan needed to make ‘Inception-II’ no one could be more handy than Ramachandra Guha. Planting of spurious theories and dreams, Guha excels at it. He passes himself off as a historian and a cricket commentator. Hmmm! ‘Distortian’ may not be a word you’ll find in a dictionary but that is what Guha and his ilk are. Distort facts, distort truth, write history from figments of imagination and see ‘windmills’ where there are none. Paint places and people in colours that thrive only in the most prejudiced of minds, sometimes bordering on hatred. (Read my post ‘Ramachandra Guha’s Paintings’).

Ramachandra Guha - 'Eminent Distortian'

As a school kid you may have written essays on your trips. My trip to the zoo, my first trip to the railway station or even my first visit to an airport. Ramachandra Guha has now written an essay on his visit to Ahmedabad, probably the 21^st one. Well, it starts off with a few words on Ahmedabad and then as usual with the Distortians it degenerates into a rant about Narendra Modi. It’s called  ‘Delusions of grandeur - The curious transformation of Narendra Modi’ in the Telegraph. Delusions? Oh yeah! We’ll find out who’s deluded. Here are some excerpts from the distortian’s write:

“Ahmedabad is a city I know well. I must have made at least 20 trips there in the last 30 years. Going back last month, I found signs marking the distance to a certain ‘Mahatma Mandir’..... What was this landmark that I had not heard of and which was apparently so important that it had to be advertised every so often on city roads? My Amdavadi friends supplied the answer.....The first major building had been completed in time for the ‘Vibrant Gujarat’ summit held in early January; .....In this time, Modi has made a sort of reverse journey, from being a media-shy if hard-working Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh pracharak to the most self-confident and publicity-seeking of modern politicians. Viewing his position today, I am reminded of the one occasion, some 12 years ago, when I found myself in the same room as him. It was in a television studio in New Delhi, which was hosting a debate between Madhavrao Scindia of the Congress, Pramod Mahajan of the BJP, and myself (representing no party at all)....Now, of course, Modi is arrogance personified.....Narendra Modi may wish to compare himself to Mahatma Gandhi, but to this historian, he is more akin to another Gandhi, namely, Indira.....Between 1971 and 1977, Indira thought she was India, and vice versa. Modi merely thinks he is Gujarat.......Neither Mrs Gandhi then, nor Modi now, can allow that their critics may have a honest or valid point or two. By definition, all patriotic Indians had to be behind Mrs Gandhi, all Gujaratis (100 to 0) have to rally around Modi. The mandir being built 37.9 km from the hotel where I stayed in Ahmedabad is a monument not to Mahatma Gandhi, but to Narendra Modi’s megalomania....... Here is a tip to first-time visitors to Ahmedabad. If you go in search of the Mahatma, disregard the blue signs, and ask an autorickshaw to take you to the Sabarmati Ashram instead. The experience shall be nourishing, perhaps even transformative. For one thing, unlike that “mandir”, this ashram is on the human scale, with low, modest buildings and green trees around them. For another, there are no policemen either inside or outside the place. For a third, Gandhi actually lived there”.

I recommend you read the whole crap at the Telegraph so you know what this distortian is talking about. What starts off as a write on a trip to Ahmedabad turns into a deliberate and manufactured nonsense about Narendra Modi. Let’s see what Ahmedabad holds and I can confidently tell Ramchandra the spiteful that I’ve been to Ahmedabad a lot more than he ever will in his life. Here are some questions for the distortian:

1.   From your drive from the airport or railway station to your hotel, how many times did the traffic hold you up? Wherever you travelled in Ahmedabad or Gujarat did you find plenty of potholes on the roads? Was your drive smooth or was it bumpy? Did you discover that?

2.   How many beggars did you find in Ahmedabad during your stay? That’s right, how many beggars? Did they bother you all the time you commuted the streets of Ahmedabad? Unlike your communist states Gujarat does not breed beggars, no self-respecting Gujarati will ever beg. Did you discover that Mr.Distortian?

3.   How many times did the power go off in the hotel you stayed in? Did you see any UPS equipment or any generators asshole? Did you stay in comfort in your hotel with the power never going off? Gujarat is probably one state where generators don’t sell much except in case of emergency services. Did you discover that?

4.   Any average media man or so-called historian who follows the news knows about ‘Vibrant Gujarat’ and the Mahatma Mandir. Are you so dumb, ignorant and uninformed that you knew nothing about the event or the name of the place where it was being held? Are most of your writings laced with such ignorance of basic information about major events in this country? I feel confident that is how you write history too, with a jaundiced mind.

5.   In Ahmedabad, did you notice the BRTS (Bus rapid transport system) on the wide roads where good quality public buses run uninterrupted? Did you?

6.   Finally, since when did you become a shrink? You have diagnosed Modi as suffering from megalomania. What evil prejudices are you suffering from Mr. Distortian? So much that you made Ahmedabad all about Modi and nothing else! And all the other Gujaratis and other citizens are stupid puppets?

I choose not to make any comments about the nonsense Guha has written about Narendra Modi because it’s not worth it. However, imagine I had made a trip to New York sometime back and was writing about the place and my whole piece is dedicated to the sexual orientations of Rudi Guiliani. That’s how Ramachandra Guha has used his trip. He went to Ahmedabad for some purpose but the evil mind was so obsessed with Narendra Modi that he had to turn his trip into a rant against Modi. So much so that he could not see anything else about Ahmedabad and Gujarat that most visitors take back with them.

In implying ‘Modi is Gujarat and Gujarat is Modi’ like the sycophants of Indira Gandhi used to say about India, Ramachandra Guha chooses to insult the very intelligence of Gujaratis. Nobody in Ahmedabad or Gujarat puts Modi over the state. People respect him for his work, that’s all! It is Ramachandra Guha who has chosen to see Gujarat and Gujaratis through his evil obsession with Narendra Modi. Most of all Mr. Distortian, next time you go to a place, go to discover and not go with prejudices. If you want to write crap about Narendra Modi you don’t have to visit Ahmedabad, you can do that from a laptop anywhere. Which is what most of your likes do, don’t they?

Ramachandra Guha’s Paintings

If you are looking for some information on an exhibition by Ramachandra Guha (RG) or pictures, you are mistaken. This one is about how some historians also become ‘painters’ in their own write. They ‘paint’ history. Communists and “eminent” historians of the JNU class have been doing it for ages. Modern day painters will include the likes of Arundhati Roy and Ramachandra Guha. Both are similar in many ways, though RG is often very critical of Arundhati. Their paintings are full of emotions, sentimentalism, falsehoods and a deep dislike for facts. Both are frequent guests at Outlook Magazine which recently carried one of RG’s paintings. You can read the piece titled ‘A nation consumed by the State’ at Outlook.

This particular rant by RG is about ‘three enemies of India’ or probably the idea of India. Here’s a paragraph from this rant:

“The plural, inclusive idea of India has three enemies. The best known is the notion of a Hindu rashtra, as represented in an erratic fashion by the Bharatiya Janata Party and in a more resolute (or more bigoted) manner by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Bajrang Dal and other associated organisations. When Khilnani published his book in 1997, Hindutva appeared to be the major challenge to the idea of India. To the “theoretically untidy, improvising, pluralist approach” of Gandhi and Nehru, he wrote, the Sangh parivar offered the alternative of “a culturally and ethnically cleaned-up homogeneous community with a singular Indian citizenship, defended by a state that had both God and nuclear warheads on its side”.

That pretty much sums up the central idea of the entire piece itself and you can guess where his entire argument or theory will go from there. Of course, he manages to sprinkle it with bits of Maoism and Corruption destroying the idea of India, but that is more like an afterthought. So, when the basic premise of a painting starts with a half-truth one can understand the persuasion of its author. Where it lies is that it doesn’t recognise the fact Hinduism is essentially secular. RG goes on to mention that many religions flourished in India but refuses to recognise that it is Hinduism that allowed that in the first place. Writers like RG will spare no effort to distinguish between Hinduism and Hindutva. Their entire theory is based on this superficial and non-existent distinction. They will not recognise the fact that our society has existed as a pluralist, multicultural society for centuries because of Hindutva and not otherwise.

As for the “theoretically untidy, improvising, pluralist approach” of Gandhi and Nehru our historians typically whitewash the many ideological mistakes that the two have made in their pursuit of this ‘untidy’ approach. Mind you, secularism is not bad, but it is bad the way it was practiced and is still being practiced by the party that claims the legacy of Gandhi and Nehru. First and foremost, the Gandhi-Nehru idolisation has been taken to such an extent that our “eminent” historians will not even question or explore many of their mistakes. The RSS, BJP and other outfits RG refers to were born in the 20^th century much after the Congress. And there is a reason why those ideologies were conceived. To equate this with Maoism or Communism shows the warped logic employed to decipher the perceived threat to the idea of India.

Nowhere in his entire piece does RG try to explain why the BJP, a political party, which had just two seats in 1984 in the parliament has come to not only become the main Opposition party but was also in power from 1998 to 2004. He would like us to believe that the ugly head of Hindutva or the Rath Yatras of L.K. Advani were core reasons. And most of all ‘Islamic Terror’ or ‘Islamofascism’ is not even a threat to the idea of India.

RG is typically not a historian in the league of “eminent” ones such as Romila Thapar. But he continues their cause by not recognising the failures of Gandhi-Nehru which has contributed to the ills of India. If it took a foreigner to make a film about ‘Gandhi’ then it also took a foreigner to analyse the mistakes of Gandhi. No one has chronicled it better than Konrad Elst in his piece “Learning from Mahatma Gandhi’s mistakes”. There are many others too. But like the enthusiastic IPS officer who wanted the ‘I hate Gandhi’ page removed from Facebook and filed a criminal complaint, our historians tend to completely overlook the mistakes of Gandhi-Nehru which have contributed to the divisiveness of India. (And by the way that IPS officer may need to file criminal complaints against Facebook pages like ‘I hate Sonia Gandhi’ and ‘I hate Rahul Gandhi’ and others that abound in there.)

RG likes to fault RSS or the BJP for their ideology. One has yet to hear from him or from any other historian what exactly is the ideology of the present Congress (I). That is more important given that it is the ruling party and may come to power in the future too. He is not a bad writer. He indulges in erudite, sentimental and intellectual claptrap as much as the Arundhatis do. Ramachandra Guha denies he is a socialist or a communist but his writings don’t back that. The greatest award he received for literary work was for his cricket history. Maybe he should stick to cricket. He might win more awards.