How Sushma Swaraj wasted time at UN REPLY TO ALL
By resorting to histrionics, the minister might have provided catharsis but won very little for our nation
The difference between a Japanese wife and an Indian one (true story) was once described roughly thus. The Japanese woman, according to Chie Nakane in her work Japanese Society, was culturally forced to be a silent sufferer. She had no recourse to externalise her frustrations, and any expression of anger was throttled by the rigid protocols of her society.
The Indian woman, Ms Nakane said, could and would loudly complain when breaking point arrived. In slums and such close-spaced urban neighbourhoods, Ms Nakane, observed the frequently heard shrieking and recriminations of abused Indian women and thought it cathartic and wonderful.
We treated an unsuspecting global audience to this Indian spectacle at the United Nations this month. India took the world stage and let out a hysterical wail that was awkward (listening to it was like being forced to listen to one of Ms Nakane’s subjects at close quarters), out of place and overly theatrical.
The speech was delivered by foreign minister Sushma Swaraj, but it could have been anyone in the Bharatiya Janata Party so far as content goes. It was widely praised for being combative but as such it was quite empty and wasted an opportunity.
Let’s begin by examining it forensically. The full speech is 21 minutes long. After the pleasantries, for some reason, Ms Swaraj begins listing her government’s schemes as if this were a campaign speech. “We are giving free gas cylinders”, “we did notebandi”, “we have Skill India”, “we’re implementing GST”, and so on.
Ms Swaraj recognised that her Hindutva Hindi was in parts convoluted. This led her to translate her own words into English. And, so “parmanu prasar” was followed by “nuclear proliferation”, “arthik samavesh” by “financial inclusion”.
Seven and a half minutes into the talk, Ms Swaraj picks up her main theme: Pakistan. This had two bits: first the insistence that India and Pakistan were bound by treaties such as Simla and Lahore to not raise issues in multilateral fora (presumably like the UN General Assembly she was addressing). And, second that while Pakistan was such an awful hell-hole, India was a wonderful place. “We are an IT superpower, you are a terrorist state. We produced scholars and scientists, you produced terrorists. We built IIT, you built LeT”, and so on. Here the tone takes on the unhinged quality described in the opening paragraphs. It is a personal fight made loudly public.
Having put Pakistan in its place, Ms Swaraj makes the claim that the United Nations had been seeking solutions to its biggest problem, which she says is terrorism. That is – how to put it politely? – not true. Such thinking is driven essentially by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s paranoia and bigotry. The data proves this. Outside our decades-old conflicts in the Adivasi belt, Jammu and Kashmir, and the Northeast, “Islamist terror” has accounted for zero civilian deaths in 2017 and zero civilian deaths in 2016, two in 2015 and two in 2014. The total number of security forces killed since 2012 is four. Is this a crisis? How?
The lecture to Pakistan on terrorism continues till the 17th minute. Across the final five minutes are scattered some banal observations on climate change, expanding the Security Council, asking for UN peacekeeping reforms (without specifying what).
The end is punctuated by hypocritical Sanskrit mumbo jumbo about all humanity being a family. Hypocritical because it comes from a religious political party which openly and actively and proudly discriminates against other Indians, leave alone the foreigner.
Words have real meanings, though the Brahmin ritually regurgitating shloks often doesn’t grasp that. What place inside vasudhaiva kutumbakam does Ms Swaraj grant the Rohingyas, a people fleeing mass rape and mass murder?
Wouldn’t that have been a more appropriate issue to take to the world in September 2017: The plight of over a million people being currently cleansed ethnically in our neighbourhood? Would it not have made sense to show in full India’s commitment (assuming we have it, apart from casual assertions) to climate change, a subject obsessed over by Europe and Africa? What about India’s position on the totally idiotic posturing between US President Donald Trump and North Korea, with casual references to nuclear war?
What is the UN General Assembly for? Surely it is a stage for India to demonstrate global leadership and vision. Do we not have the appetite for this?
The point is not whether Pakistan has wronged us and itself. It has. Haven’t we said this to the world before? The other thing is that India hates being clubbed with Pakistan (“hyphenated” in the patois of our midget Curzons). Then why are we insisting on coupling ourselves with Pakistan in the UN General Assembly? It is a puzzling strategy, particularly if we ask who the speech was written for and what impact it made.
Forget the reactions in India’s studio asylums, which were undoubtedly orgasmic (alas, I missed the shows, having other things to do that night, and actually every night). The tone from Ms Swaraj was lifted directly from Super Prime Time.
Question is: Did the thing make any impact globally? No. A cursory look shows almost no reportage of the speech in the American press.
Of course, this outburst from us delighted the Pakistanis and they responded with something equally hysterical, and less than competent. Their media also thought their performance was absolutely brilliant and Pakistan had totally exposed its enemy before the world. All of it was comical.
We must ask ourselves if this is how an aspiring great power – “world’s largest democracy”, “one bright spot in the world’s economy” etc – wants to be seen. As a whiny bit player, unable to manage or come to terms with its neighbours? And if not, then whether we can coolly reassess who we are and what we want.
Ms Swaraj accepted she was forced to rattle through the final five minutes by saying the time she had been given was limited. Of course it was. All nations must get a chance to speak to the world. In 2017, Ms Swaraj squandered ours. It was cathartic, but otherwise useless.