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The art of self-defence

Kautilya once said that self-defence is the greatest art. This was obvious last week when several well-known Indians, responding to charges against them, demonstrated the simple fact that how you defend yourself makes all the difference to your case. The facts are irrelevant. People judge you by your defence.

We saw Kapil Dev, first on BBC, bawling his heart out before Karan Thapar and trying to convince the viewers what a great patriot he was, how Manoj Prabhakar had unjustly badnamoed him. A few days later, his simpering wife told Mid-Day how the Haryana Hurricane kept howling into the mutton curry every time she laid out a meal for him.

In less than a week, however, Kapil metamorphosed. We saw him on Star TV addressing a crowded press conference in a five-star hotel, where he was extremely belligerent. He promised Prabhakar a resounding whack across his ears if he persisted with the charges. That was not all.

The angry Jat announced before the cameras how he had grown up on his mother's milk, not goat's milk. I have not been able to yet figure out the connection between that and the match-fixing charges against him.

This quicksilver change of mood did not succeed in endearing Paaji to the masses. In fact, everyone who saw the former Indian captain alternately howling and ranting before the cameras came away with the distinct impression that he was trying to hide something. Lending further credence to Prabhakar's charges.

Even a legal notice sent to Prabhakar thereafter did not succeed in redeeming his image. He is now cold meat, as far as people are concerned. Tried and convicted.

Prabhakar, on the other hand, has had a sharp rise in credibility after he released his surreptitious video recordings, which offered no hard evidence against Kapil but managed to establish quite clearly that everyone in the Indian cricket establishment was hiding something he knew.

The unanimous opinion was that Prabhakar had transgressed the ethics of journalism as we know it, but, despite that, most people believed he was defending his honour and was thus entitled to his somewhat unorthodox way of proving that everyone had a vested interest in protecting Kapil and making him look a liar.

Prabhakar was successful in projecting himself as a man wronged, whereas Kapil, the icon, failed miserably.

But cricket is not the only war zone. Amitabh Bachchan, who for some strange reason has been defending himself on a million counts for almost a decade now, suddenly gave an uncharacteristically blistering interview to The Times of India last week. The interview was amazing because Bachchan, after years, decided to bat straight and instead of playing out his usual humble routine, which can be quite tiresome, went straight for the jugular.

He hit every ball for a sixer. But the one that got the most acclaim was when he stepped out of the crease and, without a warning, whacked Subhash Ghai over the pavilion. He tried to, typically, tone it down thereafter. But the deed was done and with that one amazing hit, Bachchan has doubled his fan following. People were sick of his obfuscations, his charming humility, his dodging every uncomfortable question. They wanted him, for once, to show his old, swashbuckling self. He did, and came out a clear winner.

The third defender was Yashwant Sinha, who demonstrated how by overreacting to an utterly irresponsible charge, one can actually lend it far greater respectability than it deserves. The Great Mauritius Scam was no story and would have got no serious media attention if the finance minister had not hurriedly held a press conference on a Sunday and alleged that his political rivals were out to besmirch his reputation.

The case was simple. About 525 FIIs operate in India. Of which, 136 come through Mauritius, using the double tax avoidance treaty to bypass our high taxes and complex regulations. The government encourages this to attract more dollars into India. When income-tax authorities decided to step in and harass the Mauritius-based entities, the bourses crashed. The ministry then issued a clarification, which sorted out the matter.

Unfortunately, Sinha's daughter-in-law happens to be a high-profile fund manager in Boston whose fund operates through Mauritius. The fund also happens to be one of the best performers and this has earned the company she works for a huge bonus. Some sections of the media (and I daresay some elements in the Sangh Parivar) tried to tie this whole thing in and prove that Sinha had a vested interest in stopping investigations into the activities of Mauritius-based FIIs in India.

It was a weak story, but simply by overreacting to it, Sinha has allowed it to reach the front pages of newspapers.

That is exactly the point. No one has time to evaluate charges. People look at how public figures respond. And that is how they make up their minds as to who is guilty, who is not.

Pritish Nandy

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