“The Devil’s Syrup” is a story about the universality of deception. The syrup of propaganda produces disaffection, which erupts in an alternative narrative, points to enemies, disorients people, and delivers power to the deceivers. Truth is suppressed, incomplete information is provided, and lies are dressed up to look like “facts.” An emotional not a rational response is evoked by the deceiver.
Deception is one part of the grammar of Modi’s politics. Another is the production of division and of fear. These are the pieces of Modi’s strategy, what has enabled Modi to come to power.
There is a classic tale of the Umayad Caliph Muawiya who wanted to discredit the house of Abdul Muttalib, Muhammad’s patriarch. He asked his counsel Amr bin al-Aas to find a man from the house of Abdul Muttalib who had a character flaw. Amr recommended Aqeel bin Abi Talib, Muhammad’s cousin. When Aqeel visits Muawiya’s court, the Caliph had the Surah al-Masad (from the Quran) recited in the court:
May the hands of Abu Lahab be ruined, and ruined is he. His wealth will not avail him or that which he gained. He will [enter to] burn in a Fire of [blazing] flame and his wife [as well]—the carrier of firewood. Around her neck is a rope of [twisted] fibre.
Then Muawiya mocks Aqeel by saying, “Don’t you know Aqeel that the Abu Lahab mentioned in these verses is your paternal uncle?” Aqeel immediately quips, “Why don’t you disclose that the carrier of firewood, the woman mentioned in these verses is your paternal aunt?”
This whole display of dialogue between Muawiya and Aqeel is farcical. The idea is not to invoke an ethical debate but to suppress information, present it as banter, create an emotional upheaval through humiliation, and win legitimacy by creating a false sense of victory.
William Gibson, the science fiction writer, says perceptively, “Fascism first causes, then thrives on the chaos for which it presents itself as the sole cure.”
Modi arrives in the cow belt in Bihar during the election campaign of 2014. He invokes the “pink revolution” that will overtake the country. India, Modi says, is the largest meat exporter and he accuses meat exporters of colluding with the butchers—who are mainly Muslims. Modi didn’t say that one of the largest meat exporters is an active member of the BJP and that the other largest meat exporter is a very loud public supporter of the BJP. All the classic tropes are at play. A farcical premise is set up, a debate ensues to distract the public, information is suppressed, an element of fear is introduced, and the only savior is the perpetrator of this fear. And then there is the chilling dynamic that gets set up—six months after this speech, a man was falsely accused of storing beef in his house, then he was lynched and murdered in broad daylight.
To gaslight is a devious project—to make someone doubt what they know, play with their memory, make them feel like what they are being accused of is what they have done. The forces of Hindutva have made gaslighting part of their arsenal over the past several decades.
In the first year of independence, Rajendra Prasad—India’s first president—who sympathized with the right wing and even with Hindutva, wrote (on March 14, 1948) to India’s Home Minister Sardar Patel, who also sympathized with these forces:
I am told that RSS people have a plan of creating trouble. They have got a number of men dressed as Muslims and looking like Muslims who are to create trouble with the Hindus by attacking them and thus inciting the Hindus. Similarly there will be some Hindus among them who will attack Muslims and thus incite Muslims. The result of this kind of trouble amongst the Hindus and Muslims will be to create a conflagration.
The idea is to create suspicion, doubt, and a particular perception that establishes a stereotypical image of the other. Manufacture the image if need be even through unethical and illegitimate means because the end justifies the process. Once the stereotype is established, once people’s beliefs are firmed up then no amount of refusal, rebuttal, or corroboration by facts will matter. The narrative necessarily would transform into one of pride and feelings, glory and humiliation, and all one would care is to restore the same. The WhatsApp messages, fake news websites, tilted debates by biased news anchors, and visual depictions of a particular narrative in advertisements and billboards, serve the same purpose of stoking the manufactured perception. Once the divisiveness cleaves through the society then even genocide and homicide become legitimate. Ultimately, the ethnic cleansing will ensure a pure race, an unsullied culture, a golden age, and an Elysium where everything will be in harmony. The enemy with its filth—culture, language, stories, cuisine, symbols, and architecture—would have been flushed away.
In the epic tale of Tilism-e-Hoshruba, Amir Hamza, the lord of conjunction, is fighting the false god Laqa. When besieged, Laqa makes one of his followers, King Suleiman Amber-Hair, write a letter to Suleiman’s neighboring kingdoms,
Lord Laqa has sought refuge with me after suffering reverses at the hands of Hamza. You must needs rush to his aid, not out of any consideration for me but because he is your God. You must kill his foes and restore him to his divine throne. If you make delay after reading these words, the wrath of His Lordship will wipe you out of existence. His Lordship Laqa indulges these creatures who persecute him only out of mercy. He desists from killing them and maintains that these creatures were made in the reveries of his drunken sleep. As he was oblivious of himself in the ecstasies of his inebriation, his pen of destiny wrote them down as rebellious and vain. Now that destiny cannot be altered. It is for this reason that our Lord is unable to efface their existence and is so wroth with them that when these creatures beseech him with their contrite pleas, he scorns them and flies away from them. Seeing no hope of their redemption in Lord Laqa, these creatures have vowed wholesale rebellion against him. It is therefore incumbent upon you to arrive here post-haste to assist our Lord.
Either you are with Lord Laqa or you are against him. This is George W. Bush’s logic after 9/11—either you are with us or you are against us. It is Modi’s choice now, either you are with him or against him. If you do not stand with Lord Laqa or Bush or Modi, then the world will fall on your head. You are compelled to stand with the Lord, with Bush, with Modi. Modi’s trolls twist every debate into a binary—either support Modi and display one’s patriotism or be an anti-national and be seen as seditious. Modi is India, India is Modi. The enemy is the enemy: it must be defeated and Modi must be applauded.
Farce
Modi is the savior. He is silent. He does not denounce. He does not step into the fray.
The landscape of India is littered with horrendous lynching events, killings by “fringe” supporters of the Sangh Parivar. Littered with nonsense blabberings of Modi’s cabinet ministers and party members. Littered with threats against writers and actors. Modi says nothing. He remains silent. This litter is not to be cleaned up by his Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Mission).
Junaid Khan was lynched on a train for allegedly carrying beef. Protests took place across India—#NotInMyName. Modi issued a statement, “No one spoke about protecting cows more than Mahatma Gandhi and Acharya Vinoba Bhave. Yes. It should be done. But, killing people in the name of Gau Bhakti is not acceptable. This is not something Mahatma Gandhi would approve.” That is it. Cows should be protected. Gandhi would not approve of the killing of Junaid. But does Modi approve?