The guiding principle of the Modi government is ‘If you can’t fix it, bury it.’ Information is power, so suck up as much of it as you can, keep it to yourself, do your best not to let anyone else have any, and reshape or discredit as necessary any that does make it out into the world. Sit on NSSO unemployment data until after an election, don’t release the yearly National Crime Records Bureau statistics, omit to show on the PM’s website that he spent much more time making election speeches than on attending Parliament, and take down an expert report on the subsidence in Joshimath.
And if someone should make a documentary recalling the sordid, violent history of Modi’s rise to power, thus flying in the face of a two-decades-long and, let’s face it, very expensive whitewashing exercise, have the link taken down repeatedly, and then send out spokespeople to bang on about colonial mindsets.
I just received a ‘Notice of Withholding’ from Twitter, informing me that they have received a request from the Indian government claiming that the contents of my tweet violates the laws of India. The tweet retweets a 2019 article in Caravan about the amnesia surrounding Modi, and links to the BBC documentary ‘India: The Modi Question’. First, I doubled up in laughter, then I consulted a lawyer, and now I’m doubled up in laughter again. Are they spending their time sending emails to Twitter about every account that links to that rather well-done documentary? It’s as if they’ve never heard of the Streisand Effect. I think I’ll send a counter-notice to the government to the effect that they should cease and desist from withholding ‘Achhe Din’.
At the ongoing Jaipur Literary Festival, the Tanzanian-born Nobel prize-winning writer Abdulrazak Gurnah made three points about writing as resistance. He said that it is firstly resistance to forgetfulness: “Resistance to not allowing what we know and what we remember, to pass away unnoticed…there is a kind of responsibility in that.” Second, it is “resistance to distraction” by things that appear “more appealing or more pleasant and more immediate”. And third, it is “resistance to neglect, to ensure that the things we care for…are not pushed away by people who wish to inform us that the world is different from what all knowledge tells us.”
Words for the ages, eh? Truth, and the memory of truth, are public enemy number one for authoritarian governments today. The most relentless Swachh Bharat programme has been a campaign against Sachh Bharat. The Modi government has taken a huge technological jhaadu to the country, and spends a staggering amount of time and effort uprooting, scrubbing, and sanitising fact and history for its own purposes. Amit Shah said as much the other day, at the launch of a book presenting what he called “the right message of history” about the fight for Independence. In his best Orwellian avatar, he said that it is not enough for everyone to understand this—they must also accept it. And when Amit Shah says this, he doesn’t mean “Please consider this version also.” The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has just proposed changes that allow the government to “fact-check” news stories and take down any that it considers to be fake news. You can imagine how that might play out.
One nation, One Version! The only way you can do this is not just by putting out your own version, but actively censoring and criminalising different versions—but while you can persuade and steer some minds, you simply cannot control others. If you’re persuaded of your own credentials and efficacy, why do you need to stamp on other people’s opinions? Democracy is multiplicity, kids. And there’s no point kissing the steps of Parliament if all you mean to do is kick democracy in the delicates.