Rajiv Desai is president of Comma Consulting and a well-known Delhi-based columnist Long years ago, I was at lunch with Michael McGuire, foreign editor of Chicago Tribune, a newspaper that published and syndicated my columns. The venue was Sayat Nova, an Armenian restaurant on Ohio Street in the buzzy Streeterville neighbourhood, a lively luncheon place for those of us fortunate enough to have offices on Michigan Avenue, the glittering street that is Chicago’s answer to New York’s Fifth Avenue. Dotted with fabulous stores, boutiques, restaurants, and buildings including landmarks like the Wrigley Building and the Tribune Tower plus the riverfront One Illinois Center, a slick modern glass structure where my office was, Michigan Avenue was famous. The name was used as a title for an instrumental piece in a Rolling Stones album. To walk up and down the avenue was a distinct privilege; we were an enviable lot. We lunched almost daily on Armenian delicacies at Sayat Nova. For our loyal custom, we were invariably rewarded with an after-lunch cognac by Arsen Demirdjian, the owner. It was truly the best of times. Usually, we just sat at the bar counter and talked about this and that. On that afternoon, though, we sat at a table talking about world affairs, especially India’s dashing new leader Rajiv Gandhi. I had just written a cover story on him for the paper’s Sunday magazine. Unsurprisingly, Mike led with a question: will Rajiv change things? The conversation veered round to the Indian government’s notorious chip on the shoulder foreign policy. Indeed, Mike had often been at the receiving end of complaints from the Indian consul general about critical coverage of the jerry-rigged Janata governments of the late 1970s. And about feature stories on child marriages and bride burning. Through Rajiv Gandhi’s term, however, the external affairs ministry remained admirably quiet and dealt with the world in a mature way. The Sayat Nova interlude came to mind when I witnessed the entire weight of the Modi government and its fanboys and chorus girls lean on Rihanna, the pop singer who tweeted in favour of the ongoing farmers’ protest on the outskirts of Delhi. It’s beyond ridiculous the government, which said nothing about Chinese aggression on the Himalayan borders or the coup in Burma, kicked up a royal fuss about Rihanna. The chip on the shoulder is back big time. It is a sign of the leadership’s deep anxiety about India’s English-speaking sophisticates, who stride the world with consummate ease and breezy confidence. With notable exceptions, this small but influential segment of the population has proved immune to the virus of communal politics. It stands in marked contrast to the sullen resentment of the saffron crowd who see their parochial lifestyles including diet and habits as a handicap in global circles. It’s a cassoulet of political psychology that combines inferiority complex with a search for standing. Search for status seems to drive the current dispensation. A clue can be derived from the changed appearance of the leader:…
