“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.” ~ Hanlon’s Razor
Every time I think there’s something deeper, long-term, strategic, and well-thought-out about the BJP’s actions and utterances, I am stumped at discovering that the actual intent behind it is so short-term as to defy common sense.
Take any act of theirs. Literally any.
Surgical strikes. Demonetisation. Triple Talaq bill. Article 370 abrogation. GST. CAA. Aadhar linking. Even something as chillar as Fastag rollout.
Intelligent, smart, thinking people look at their actions and try and figure out some strategic, long-term move and intent behind it. They discuss it from all angles. They dissect it. They build scenarios. They create predictive models in their heads and build counter-strategies. And then, it turns out that the whole thing seems to have been conceived and executed by a child. On a sugar high. With a wet diaper.
When the JNU fiasco was happening, the thinking was that this seems to be a strike at the roots of liberal thinking, with a specific tilt towards cutting off the roots of the leftist movement at the University level itself, thereby beginning the rollup of the communist governments to be replaced by a right-wing regime. Perhaps it was to send a message that they can enter anywhere and harm anyone and so, a fear was to be instilled in the atmosphere, putting the students’ political formations on the back foot and allowing theirs (ABVP) to sweep the next elections. Maybe, it was a pretext to close down liberal universities in India and reopen them only after a complete reorganisation from the bottom-up so that they are more subservient to the right-wing cause and are stuffed with right-wing sympathisers. Maybe this was the beginning of the Fascist regime’s crackdown on intellectuals and many even equated it with Kristallnacht.
But the BJP seems to have beaten all the so-called intellectuals at this game of outthinking the opponent. It turns out, from the various utterances of the BJP leaders this morning, that the entire fiasco was mounted as part of their campaign for the upcoming Delhi elections! Nothing more. And about Kristallnacht, the BJP planners are laughing all the way to the shakha this morning, having learnt a new word (which they still cannot pronounce) to confuse the librandus with. No Sir. The whole JNU violence was to add a campaigning point for the leadership to talk about in election rallies for the Delhi polls.
Yes, you heard that right. There was no long-term, strategic motive deeper than simply positioning Delhi under AAP’s administration as lawless and appealing to the voters that AK is incapable of even stopping a small gang war between students, in which ‘both parties’ are equally responsible, and these ‘both parties’ are the NSUI and a United Front of AISA, SFI, AISF and DSF, with the ABVP simply not being present at the spot, with the whole narrative suitably discounted with the assumption that people recognise AK does not control Delhi Police, but still having some small issue to throw at him. That is all. Yes. That small an objective. It’s almost a joke There’s nothing more to it. Nada. Zero. Sifr. Shoonya.
As for any subtle plan behind the night-time raid with armed masked men, the BJP wouldn’t recognise a subtle plan if it painted itself purple and danced naked on a harpsichord singing ‘subtle plans are here again,’ to paraphrase Blackadder. In fact, it wouldn’t be far from fact to think of the BJP hierarchy as Baldrick’s children and rightful heirs.
And history has borne this out. The entire cycle repeats frequently, where the intellectuals and politically aware people think, ‘This is going to turn the country into a theocracy, or a fascist state, or disenfranchise the minorities or Dalits, or perhaps break up the subcontinent further, or ignite a civil war, or make us an international pariah,’ while the BJP is actually thinking, ‘Maybe, if we take away all the currency, the opposition will have nothing to spend in the UP elections and we will win.’ or ‘If we fast-track citizenship to about 30,000 non-Muslims, the Bengalis will vote for us.’ or ‘Once the bullet train is ready, we can say we are better than China.’ or ‘If I sell this to Adani, we can use his aircrafts for the next elections.’
Let me attempt an approximation of their approach, hypothetically: Imagine they promise to and actually do bring a law that every Muslim male must wear a skull cap to identify himself.
Here is what we will think: ‘This is like the yellow star of David that the Jews were forced to wear. Hell. We are going towards Nazism! This is sarvanash. The end.’
Here is what they would probably have thought: ‘We will ban all manufacturers of skull caps except those licensed by the government, and we will give the contract to Adani.’
Of course, I meant it as an extreme analogy and a joke. You, like I, also know this is a ridiculous example and probably never going to happen. But I think it explains my point. Also, just to scare you some: How do you know this will never happen?
Anyway, my point is that the saner people, and the experts, who keep looking for more profound, long-term intent in their actions, those who keep seeking a sliver of foresight from which to divine their real motives miss their real motives by miles because the real motives are so shallow and short-termed that no expert worth their salt would ever think them up.
And this is how they keep catching the opposition, the international media, the general public, and the smarter ones amongst us, off guard. This is how they keep winning! And it is confounding to someone like me who tries to outthink them by using superior logic, in vain every single time, because they haven’t used absolutely any (logic) at all. Check. And mate.
Douglas Adams, my favourite author, had invented a word for this in his book, The Meaning Of Liff. He called it, ‘ABOYNE (vb.): To beat an expert at a game of skill by playing so appallingly that none of his clever tactics or strategies are of any use to him.’
Don’t get me wrong. They will probably still end up starting a war, or precipitating a famine, or sowing the seeds of a possible break-up. But my contention is that it will not be by design. They are simply incapable of such planning or conceptualising of strategy on such grand a scale. You need great strategic depth in your thinking to do that. And real depth in your leadership, as also real trust in your experts. Just being evil, while a necessary condition, is not sufficient. You have to be efficient too.
Like a child playing with matches causing a house to burn down, I believe they will stumble into a catastrophe by accident. A catastrophe that, once they initiate (without the intent to do so, obviously), they will not be able to control.
And that, my fellow citizens, would be the tragedy of India.
