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PERPLEXITY surrounds the recent and very public acceptance of Narendra Modi by the European diplomatic community in Delhi. The developments might have even caused heartburn among a set of Modi-baiters. But should they? It is a banality of foreign relations that there are no permanent friends or foes, only permanent interests. Seen through this prism, the European initiative to humour Modi falls in place. Shall we say the smarter of the lot, the United Kingdom, saw Modi winning and just made the first move even before the 2012 Assembly campaign rolled.

In this context, I recall a meeting with American Consul General Michael Owens in 2007. I was the State correspondent with The Indian Express covering Gandhinagar then. One day, Michael Newbill, Secretary for political affairs at the American Consulate in Mumbai, called, wanting to know whether I would be able to meet his boss Owens while on a visit to Ahmedabad. Newbill happened to be an acquaintance through common friend professor Dilip Mohite, former Dean of M S University’s Arts faculty.

The meeting happened at Hotel Haveli over lunch. Both Owens and Newbill had just wrapped up a visit to Modi at his Sachivalaya office. While it is difficult to say what went in their minds, Owens looked particularly grumpy. Someone at Modi office had just slipped into his hands a booklet that compiled newspaper reports on how denial of visa had the Indian government standing solidly behind the Gujarat Chief Minister! The cover page had a picture of Manmohan Singh and a quote from PMO that denial of visa was against true spirit of relations between the two nations. Modi was using even visa denial to his advantage.

As the meeting began following exchange of niceties, the Consul General revealed his purpose. He was only interested in knowing where Modi was headed? Owens basically wanted to see through the hype. While the rest of the discussion followed the agenda, what I told Owens, little in jest, perhaps struck a chord. For the crux of it found mention in one of his cables on Modi, subsequently revealed through wikileaks. The crux was that Modi's rise in national politics was a reality only waiting to happen, and that US would only get to choose the time to engage with him, and not whether they could. Thankfully, my name did not appear in the cable, and hence on wikileaks, possibly because the meeting was through a friend in Newbill.

But coming to the joke. I told Owens that just like the United States of America, India too was evolving into a system of government where there was just one political party – the corporate sector – with two wings. While in the USA it was the Republicans and Democrats, in India the role was with the BJP and Congress – the NDA and UPA being mere alliances of convenience with no permanent face.

But that is exactly what seems to be happening. A fed up corporate India is betting on the two individuals: Modi (on the NDA side) and P Chidambaram (on the UPA side). And that has led to the decision of the Ambassadors in Delhi, with their ear to the ground, to cultivate the two. Which ever way the electorate turns in 2014 - whether its NDA-II or UPA-III - the diplomats would have their finger in the pie.

A Period of Darkness

THAT history fascinates could be a trite observation. But if the period under review is close say by only a couple of generations, the allurement can get an equal doze of incredulity as well. Darkness At Noon by Arthur Koestler, which I just finished reading, gives such moments with an occasional stomach churn as one goes through it. The novel is a much celebrated work and finds mention in most top-100 lists of books from the 20^th century.

It’s a fictionalized account of the period of Great Purge and the Moscow trials of Stalinist Russia. Koestler himself was a member of the Communist party during this period, only to turn a heretic and escape first to France, then to England via Portugal. For the record, Russia is not named. Neither is Stalin. But all characters bear Russian names and the dictator is called No. 1 as an allusion to Stalin.

Through the protagonist, N S Rubashov, Koestler paints a narrative that though focusing on Stalin’s regime, presents the deep conflict that Communism was going through only two decades into its life. The title itself underscores the short life span of the ideology as the dark period came too early, within the life time, and to the mortal shock, of starry eyed Bolsheviks, represented by Rubashov.

A former central committee member of the party who commanded a division of the Revolutionary Army, Rubashov is executed for his political deviations, of course only after extracting a confession. Soviet Russia was seen such a miracle of planned economy that it inspired a whole generation from Nehru to my granddad. Yet, seen through the eyes of Rubashov, the material culture post revolution still presents a picture of second world. The police is using American cars, drivers crib about bad roads, power supply is low voltage and prone to fluctuations, and ah the comrades smoke American cigarettes!

After Rubashov is picked up and lodged in solitary confinement the narrative turns into a dialogue of sorts between the new and the old order. Rubashov finds his young tormentor Gletkin as distant and uncouth as to call him a Neanderthal. Increasingly, he finds that the people for whom they brought about the revolution are least concerned, and only tolerate the party just the way they had the feudals and the czars.

Koestler’s work gives a peep into the Marxist theoretical construct as well. For the upholders of the ideology, there is almost an obsession to treat history as some kind of science. It’s variously called arithmetic, physics, or algebra with equations, where people can be put on x-axis and played around. History is supposed to have empirical laws. Like it says in one of the pages, History knows no scruples and no hesitation. I have seen this kind of fixation to treat history without any moral compass in some of my left leaning friends here as well.

The only difference between a communist dictatorship like Stalinist Russia and the ones in Germany or Italy was that of national romanticism. But while the former could be justified as an empirical construct of history, the latter were to be scorned and despised for attaching sentimentality to fatherland. Essentially, sentimentality of any kind is to be eschewed. That’s why perhaps, sex, like all pleasures in much of communist literature, is treated perfunctorily. Though in one of the most innovative usage read by yours truly, Rubashov compares the shape of his secretary Arlova’s breasts to that of champagne glasses.

On death row, Rubashov asks questions of himself that prince Siddharth would have asked before he became Buddha. What is suffering? Is the world infinite? Should we not believe in the relative maturity of the masses (religion?) over ideology? From science, history becomes metaphysics. Exactly the opposite of first commandment of communism: the world is not to be seen as a metaphysical brothel for emotions.

And how can as intense an internal conflict as this, miss out on Gandhi as one of the frames of reference. The Mahatma, still alive in those times, is termed the greatest catastrophe, his inner voice a criminality that prevented liberation of India by the still enthusiastic Ivanov. That is what perhaps makes some of our left leaning intellectuals in India speak of cow-eating and Gandhi in the same breath. No elaboration is made beyond this on Gandhi. But Koestler makes a point through Rubashov’s confession in which he talks about the relative maturity of the masses. Was it not a Gandhian idea to let villages rule themselves? Well no ideology was needed for them. That’s why perhaps Marxism is dead. And an inconvenient Gandhi living through Panchayats.

Fire Proof Modi

THE PM-chants began at the victory speech on December 20 and have only got shriller depending on the audience. The most dramatic must have been at the Jaipur venue of an all Congress social affair – the wedding of Governor Kamla’s grand daughter. But the 48-hours of February 6-7 have made Narendra Modi burn-proof against the fires that had till only sometime ago threatened to engulf his career. Well, almost.

I am talking about the triad of events during this period - the clamour at Allahabad, soft-launch at SRCC, and the European Union (EU) disclosure of ending Modi’s isolation. And the fires am talking about are those of the judicial procedures related to riots and encounters going on in various courts.

Till before this period Modi’s national role was a matter of political speculation, journalistic supposition, and general conjecture. With the SRCC speech, the diplomatic acceptability, and the Sangh blessings it has become an existing reality, overnight. Purely because of the broth around his name, touching Modi can easily get branded as a conspiracy now.

The way national media treated the three events, it can be safely concluded that “Jolt-to-Modi” headlines could become a restrained, if not totally shunned habit very soon. Like the EU, the Delhi media has only started to learn to live with Modi. It might take a while but it would happen. Politically, the 48-hours have cemented a scenario most parties were already anticipating.

And that brings me to the conclusion. From here on, no one can stop Modi from becoming the Prime Ministerial candidate of the BJP (am not saying NDA yet). And, while it can be dangerous in politics to stick your neck out, let me wager: Modi’s Agni Pariksha might not be over yet, but he can take it easy. The fires are not going to singe him any more.

Beyonce, Christina, and The Star Spangled Banner

WHAT’S with the US national anthem? Singer Beyonce Knowles has been hauled up for lip-syncing a pre-recorded version at the second inauguration ceremony of President Barack Obama, rather than singing it extempore. In 2006, another diva Christina Aguilera tried heroically only to jumble up the lyrics during the Superbowl inaugural, creating similar controversy in the American media.

Well, I researched. And here are the facts. What can one expect from a song written by a lawyer? The notoriously difficult song – both in its wordings and music – was lawyer Francis Scott Key’s tribute to a solitary American flag flying despite a night’s bombardment of Fort McHenry by the British during the Battle for Baltimore in 1812.

Essentially a war song, only one of the four stanzas is sung – much like our national anthem Vande Mataram – and yet such is the difficulty that much to its chagrin, the US government found in 2005 (thru a poll) that as many as 61 per cent Americans could not recall even that stanza correctly. Road shows were launched in response to this to educate Americans about their anthem.

The folklore on the difficulty of the American anthem has found its way into literature and satire as well. It has been humored that the British lost the battle of fort McHenry not because of the American weaponry but because they got scared of the song composed by the young lawyer! And interestingly, though the British were the enemies in that battle, the music for the anthem is borrowed from a London club song! Also, a short story by American writer Isaac Asimov on World War-II by the name ‘No Refuge Could Save’ has a German spy nabbed for he sings the third stanza of the anthem to prove his Americans, something no real American can do!