How Personality Superseded Principles Back in India as a Result of Modi’s Pak Stopover.

Just as the news about Mr Modi’s stopping over at Lahore and meeting Nawaz Sharif broke, I was reminded of a famous dialogue by Kinsley Shaklebolt in Harry Potter and the Order of The Phoenix  which goes as

“You may Not like him Minister, but you can’t deny,  Dumbledore‘s got style”,

this phrase totally rings true in case of Modi as whether you hate him or love him, making an impromptu plan to stopover in Pakistan and travel with Sharif in a Pakistani chopper was pretty suave.

Now coming to the fun part, a normal run of the mill SM user like me expected the Right Wingers to be skeptical, if not critical of Mr Modi’s recent gesture, after all most were vehemently opposed to even the idea of cricketing ties being restored between India and Pakistan unless the perpetrators of 26/11 were brought to justice and Pakistan held accountable for its crimes but most were conspicuously silent over this angle and were wholeheartedly supporting Mr Modi’s gesture. Now coming to the mother of all hypocrisies, the Congress party, these guys, yes the same guys who engaged in Biryani diplomacy after 2 of our soldiers were brutally beheaded were vehemently against the meeting. It might be passed off as an act of petty politics but what was even more shocking that the so called tolerant, Aman Ki Aasha liberals were even up in arms against this move.

The biggest takeaway from this exercise was how personality superseded any principles one might have, the Right Wing which while justifying its status with valid points broke away from its statement of Terror and talks can’t go hand in hand and similarly the other side drifted away from its toe line of whatever happens, talks should continue. We all did see how the whole Pak cricket controversy played out on expected line with each side holding on to its expected ground as the vital element Mr Narendra Modi was missing from the whole scenario. Had Modi tweeted that he welcomed cricketing ties between the two nations, I feel the outcome would have been similar. And one might agree that a cricket match would definitely be a lower level of diplomacy than PM level talks.

The truth of the matter is that one doesn’t  follow a set of principles because he follows a personality with those principles rather one follows a personality because his principles match with that of the personality’s. And at the end of the day our principles and beliefs are what make us, us. We definitely don’t need to always oppose or support someone all throughout however big he/she might be.

At the end of the day though even if this visit might not yield much, after all the civilian government hardly has much say in Pakistan but one should agree that it was a bold attempt on part of our Prime Minister and what the consequences are only time will tell.