“The worst part about being lied to is knowing that you weren’t worth the truth”- Jean-Paul Sartre
Rahul Gandhi met ex-Defense Minister of the Narendra Modi government, Mr Manohar Parikkar yesterday, in Goa. The minister, back from the union cabinet, in Goa as the CM of the state, suffering from ill-health and valiantly fighting against cancer, must have been surprised by the unannounced visit and against all his wisdom. He must have credited the visit to a rare human empathy which might have awoken in the shrewd, uncaring, cheap political mind of the out-of-power politician who is still seemingly nursing the grudge against the citizens of India for keeping him away from his presumed divine right to rule.
It hardly took him twenty-four hours to realize the evil mind that works behind that dimpled face, fast slipping into the worse side of middle-age with zero achievements to his credit, unless we consider folding up the Congress party as per the wishes of the Mahatma an achievement. Rahul Gandhi lied again. This time he lied about Manohar Parikkar claiming that he was kept in dark about the Rafale deal. Rahul Gandhi has been, of late, lying with such brazenness and such frequency that Rahul Gandhi speaking a lie is no longer a newsworthy thing. In fact, things have come to a stage that Rahul Gandhi speaking the truth will be headline material.
I have been thinking that Rahul Gandhi has been lying out of political necessity. That could be the reason for his lies, but that is not sufficient to explain the propensity with which he lies. I came across this quote of Sartre, which actually explains it much better. A liar lies mostly because he or she thinks so little about the recipient of his or her falsehoods- the electorate of this nation. The worst thing that the centuries of slavery did to us as a nation is that we began believing in the divine right of some people to rule over us and our divine duty to accept their lies, their curses, the humiliations they heaped over us but their blatant falsehoods.
This acceptance of political and intellectual zamindari by the masses emboldens men like Rahul Gandhi to lie to us with impunity. A wily politician like Rahul could not have thought that he would not be caught. He must have thought that it hardly mattered that he would be caught. His act of blatant lie does not demonstrate his political desperation, as I once believed. It barely exposes the derision with which he looks at the Indian people at large- uneducated, unsuspecting, idiots. From fake EVM expose, to the fake claim of meeting the Chinese (if it wasn’t fake, it was a security concern) and now quoting this discussion which never happened.
All Rahul Gandhi is concerned about is bombarding the masses with fake news, hoping some of it will stick someplace. Parikkar has written to Rahul Gandhi, a straight-forward man that he is, stating that in the five minutes impromptu meeting which they had, not a word about Rafale deal was spoken. Rahul knew he would be called out. Just as he knew that the fake EVM expose by a fake ex-ECIL employee will be called out. It did not matter to him. It was enough to create yet another Whatsapp video to circulate among the masses. He has learnt from the compromised media the art of lying on the front page and apologizing on the tiniest corner of the ninth page. He loses reputation, but that is of no consequence to him. He is the ruler and as a King or at least from the class of kings, he cares little about the opinion of his subjects.
His advisers know that fake news can make committed Modi voters hesitate and fumble. They know how fake news works. He has long used the conniving media to expand and propagate his political lies, sometimes yielding political dividends. The words of great satirist and writer Jonathan Swift plays in my mind as I look at the man-child leader of Congress, somersaulting from one lie to another, without even a trace of moral remorse on getting caught. Rahul Gandhi perfectly fits in the description of an uncouth politician who Swift claims to be most likely originator of a political lie when he writes in his famed essay “The Art of Political Lying”, “A political lie is sometimes borne out of a discarded statesman’s head, and thence delivered to be nursed and dandled by the mob.” The description so perfectly fits Rahul Gandhi and the Congress today.
It is not that we want a one-party democracy. At least, I do not want that kind of democracy. I want a decent opposition party, but decent is the key word here. We do need a strong opposition for a healthy democracy. But Rahul Gandhi, we deserve someone better than you. When Indira was in power, we had Vajpayee, Lohia and JP against her. They opposed her, but they respected their electorate, even when they were out of power. You can not deride the people you want to rule over with such blatant disregard for public probity and morality. Standing on his long feet of his lies, Rahul stakes claim at greatness, buoyed by his strange victories in recent polls, playing on the insecurity of the masses, leveraging the greed of the few. An obedient media, desperate and frustrated with his failures, claimed that Rahul has arrived. But in the end, we as citizen do know, to quote again from Swift, “The superiority of his genius consists in nothing else but an inexhaustible fund of political lies, which he plentifully distributes every minute he speaks, and by an unparalleled generosity forgets, and consequently contradicts, the next half hour.”
We have had enough, Rahul Gandhi. Of course, he neither listens nor cares. The man is without a modicum of morality. It is now incumbent on us as a common citizen to be watchful and call him out every time he utters a lie. Let us remember as I close again with Swift, “If a lie be believed only for an hour, it hath done its work…Falsehood flies and truth comes limping after it.” Let us pledge not to give falsehood in public polity that one hour. Rahul Gandhi has now got his gloves off and is bereft of even a shred of empathy even for an ailing man, and we have a great nation to guard. The idea of India is too precious a dream to be surrendered to the greed of an immoral politician.
