NARRATIVES, PRETENSIONS AND REALITY

From claims of US decline to India's great-power ambitions, propaganda and perception often outpace reality, while true influence still rests on strategy, capability and institutional strength.

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YES, yes, Bharat is mahan, very great, aspires to be vishwaguru or world teacher.

And our leadership is also the best and smartest in the world, with every other great world leader a personal friend. We garner awards from all corners of the world, even countries ordinary citizens may never have heard of. All in the nation's name, of course; nothing personal about it.

And, if we are to believe an overwhelming section of the media and the commentariat, the United States is not only a declining power but has already lost its war with Iran. Notwithstanding the stark reality of a decimated Iranian leadership, air defence totally destroyed and the missile capacity degraded substantially No, it's not a case of wishful thinking or mass delusion. People believe whatever they need to. Those who lose wars-hot or cold-must content themselves with preaching and propaganda. Narratives as the opiate of the masses. He who shall not be named said something similar, remember, but about religion? It has happened before. The erstwhile Soviet Union lost to the US, but its leftist supporters found cushy and tenured positions in Western academia as postcolonialists. Closer to our own pain point, the progressive Muslim Left lost to their sectarian and separatist Partition-mongering co-religionists. Pakistan was born a day before India, a bloodsoaked severance of the sacred soil of Mother India. But they captured Bollywood. Lahore penetrated Mumbai.