Information and facts don’t necessarily make up the truth
It is reassuring that India has a Right to Information Act but not a Right to Truth law. Information assembles sifted facts; truth demands the strength of confession in public. Priests extol truth as a moral virtue; politicians understand its limitations. The full truth is often deeply unsettling. The shaded lie, on the other hand, nestles in a comfort zone, whether the subject be critical or trivial. A lie can be socially useful, and the key to civilised behaviour. You don’t go to a deathbed to announce the time of the funeral. Suppressed truth is continually essential for peaceful coexistence. A well thought-through lie can create a misty fragrance around facts which makes truth a little more palatable. It also helps us fool ourselves, which is pretty much the starting point of any communication.
Oscar Wilde is not the best advertisement for morality, but I am sure he would be delighted to learn that his familiar adage from The Importance of Being Earnest (“The truth is rarely pure, and never simple”) was extremely useful in dissecting an airline menu. High philosophy comes more naturally when you are airborne, and I was encouraged during a recent flight into a Socratic mood by this description of the entrée during a late-ish lunch: “Tender pieces of lamb cooked in an aromatic and delicate Kashmiri red chilli gravy.”
If, through some epiphany, the scriptwriter had been honest, this is what he would have written: “Tough pieces of lamb cooked on an assembly line which trainees have tried to soften as much as they could, dumped in the same gravy used for a dozen different preparations.” But this would have ruined the passenger’s need for suspension of disbelief and hurt airline revenues. It served neither passenger nor airline to face the truth.
The shaded lie, or the protected truth—use whichever phrase you find more comforting—
is necessary in all forms of public life, whether commerce, media, governance or politics. There should be just enough veracity in the proposition to justify elliptical exaggeration. The red chilli must have actually come from Kashmir, but quite possibly only because it was the cheapest chilli in the market. A little trick of prosody turned that economic compulsion into subliminal visions of peaks glistening in Himalayan sunshine and a scented evening breeze wafting across Dal Lake, even though chillies grow neither on hillside nor under a lake.
The gap between information and truth is quintessential to the art of diplomacy. Sometimes, this is no more than a notional exercise, meant as a survival tool in a complex jungle. Take a relatively harmless recent instance, drawn from the celestial heights of world affairs. India’s ambassador to the United nations, the excellent and estimable Hardeep Puri, said in a formal speech that reform was essential in the Security Council, and it must expand from five to 25 or 26 members.
Ambassadors do not make off-the-cuff remarks on such august occasions. They read from prepared texts, either sent from or checked by Delhi. So Delhi has a list, then, of nations it wants to see in the new Security Council. The intriguing question lies in the tail. Delhi is certain about 25 nations. Which, do you think, is the 26th, the iffy one? Could it be Iran? Too toxic. South Africa? By any reasonable measure South Africa should be high on the list of contenders, not at the end. it is a good lunchtime guessing game, in any case. Probably has them rolling over the aisles in the UN canteen.
Alas, space for humour has been squeezed out of India-Pakistan diplomacy, except, regrettably, in post-mortem on sms by sharpies. We would be shocked if Pak President Asif Zardari wandered anywhere close to the truth on what he can possibly do about Hafiz Saeed, since the answer is ‘nothing’. Such an admission would end the goodwill in any goodwill trip pretty rapidly. Both establishments, in Islamabad and Delhi, are content with atmospherics as a substitute for substance, on the reasonably valid assumption that something is better than nothing.
Moreover, atmospherics photograph well, which appeases the media: not a bad side-effect. It is not that the truth is a terribly secretive secret. Saeed has warned India that his shadow armies will concentrate on Kashmir once the Americans leave Afghanistan. He means 2014, by which time there could possibly be new governments in both Delhi and Islamabad, so why bother. In the short term, President Zardari has provided the perfect rationale for a Dr Manmohan Singh visit to Pakistan. If Zardari can come to India, ostensibly to pray at Ajmer Sharif, Dr Singh has an even better reason: A pilgrimage to Guru nanak’s birthplace and gurdwara.
One hyperactive wit circulated an sms after the visit: ‘President Zardari told Dr Singh over lunch that he was as sincere about curbing terrorism as his host was about ending corruption.’ That is neither information nor fact. But who knows, it just might be the truth.
The columnist is editor of The Sunday Guardian, published from Delhi, India on Sunday, published from London and Editorial Director, India Today and Headlines Today.