Thanks to Narendra Modi, India is witnessing a Return of the Chamcha Age

by Guest Sun Jun 19, 2016 9:17 pm

Earlier this month, in the midst of a full-blown row over the film Udta Punjab, the architect of the spat – censor board chief Pahlaj Nihalani –made an outrageous if honest admission on national television.

When asked about his response to being called the prime minister’s chamcha, Nihalani told NDTV: “Bilkul mein chamcha hoon. Apne prime minister ka chamcha hone mein mujhe koi apatti nahin hain. Kyun ki ek aadmi achcha kam kar raha hain, aur mein uske liye achcha kar raha hoon… Mein apna prime minister ka chamcha nahin hoonga to kya Italy ka prime minister ka chamcha hoonga?” (Of course, I am a chamcha. I have no objections to being my prime minister’s chamcha. He is doing good work – so I am doing good for him. If I am not expected to be my prime minister’s chamcha – whose chamcha should I be – of the prime minister of Italy?)

The censor board chief is not the sole figure in the burgeoning chest-thumping brigade of self-proclaimed chamchas. Three months ago, actor Anupam Kher too said he does not object to wearing the toady tag. “I am better off being called a chamcha of Narendra Modi, than a ‘balti’ of somebody else. They are using this word (chamcha) to put me on the defensive. I am a chamcha of thespian Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan too.”

“If you use the word ‘chamcha’ for admiration, then it is perfectly alright with me, because after a long time we now have a prime minister who has brought emotions in me for my country, a man whose career graph is not a fluke, a man who did not enter politics as part of any legacy,” Kher said on the Aap ki Adalat show. He praised Modi for working day and night. “Why can’t our children chant slogans in admiration of our prime minister in schools? As children, we used to chant slogans for Lal Bahadur Shastri in our schools. What is the problem?” asked Kher.

Modi himself of course has not lost a single opportunity to remind audiences at home and abroad that he is a 24×7 hands-on prime minister. Picking up that valuable cue, the “chamchas” are now going public with their admission of faith. No red faces, no shame-faced cringing: just the brazen acknowledgment of being a crony.

It is probably safe to assume that neither Kher and Nihalani are strangers to the deprecatory connotation of chamchas in popular vocabulary. Their embrace of the term, hence, is a fully conscious one. Chamcha is not a term to be interchangeably used with admirer. This distinction needs to be clarified in light of Kher and Nihalani defending such public expressions of sycophancy as nothing but testimonies of admiration. Consider, for instance, how the Oxford Dictionary defines a chamcha: An obsequious person – which is distinct from the definition it provides of an admirer: someone who has a particular regard for someone or something.

The ubiquitous tribe of chamchas operate in a context where the powers they bend over backwards to serve, encourage their cloying servility. Nobody is foolish enough to believe that chamchagiri is a new genre of sycophancy, suddenly mushrooming with the rise of the Modi government to power. Toadies have always existed and served their masters...

Unlike in the medieval era, today’s day toadies generally tend to operate on the sly, rather than declare their chamcha-hood from rooftops. But Nihalani, Kher et al are in a class apart. To publicly and proudly admit to being a sycophant instead of refuting such an accusation, is undoubtedly, a new manifestation, and smacks of the kind of loyalty demanded by kings and not democratically elected officials of state....

The hallmark of the toady in the present Indian context is much simpler: to eliminate his/her own identity and dissolve into the image of Modi himself. Chamchagiri, or toadying, is a vehicle to quick elevation in the power structure, especially for those who haven’t done the hard work to qualify. In this situation it would be wise to remember that even Birbal was no simple chamcha. While he might have strategically sung praises of Akbar, many of the legends revolving around them amply demonstrate that Birbal was a higher intellect who sought to challenge the emperor too. In a royal court full of sycophants, Birbal was something more. That is why we remember him today and that is why the current crop will be quickly forgotten.

http://thewire.in/43840/return-of-the-chamcha-age/