How to Guide

A study of strategies adopted by politicians in a discussion or Citizens Guide to interpreting discussion that has politicians as participants or Anatomy of political discussion or How to be a thick skinned politicians and win a debate or Politicians perfect recipe to drive Indian citizen nuts through discussions.

Introduction All of us are familiar with TV discussion shows. The present document is intended for Discussion leaders, audience, debaters, students of journalism, politicians, spokesperson of political parties, citizens. The emphasis is on decoding political discussions with a view to give insight of such discussions to readers. A political discussion is usually one in which a naked participants laughs and ridicules nakedness of the other. There are hardly any discussions that can be put in column of healthy/constructive or meaningful discussions. The purpose appears to outsmart the opponents in confusing audience. The document guides a party spokesperson on how to participate in a discussion. The FAQ approach has been adopted to present this document.

A. Who will be my discussion leader and will he/she be unfriendly? Your first worry could be whether your discussion leader will be friendly or will shoot uncomfortable questions? Obviously you know about your can be sure about your opponents that they will not be friendly even if the discussion is regarding global warming. Well you will know about discussion leading journalist if you are in politics for quite some time. If new to politics you can consult your seniors. The journalists come in great variety They may be already loyal to your party and everyone may know this fact (including audience). You may see one of these as your colleagues in Rajya Sabha in future. Some of them may be covertly working for your party. No, do not jump to conclusion that they too will join party in near future or will be inducted in Rajya Sabha. Political parties need some journalists who can help them without joining them. This way they can take advantage of credibility of journalists in their favour. Such journalists are far more useful than those who have joined politics on full time basis. Some journalists who are considered neutral may be those who have yet not decided which party to join or still others may have calculated that major parties have several wannabe Rajyasabha members on their rolls so they do not stand a chance. The overall setup of the country leaves little room for a journalist or media house to be neutral but still some rare ones may be truly neutral. Loyal one will help you out of the way and journalists loyal to other parties will try to tear your arguments apart.

B. What are the basic postulates? To be a successful debater you should keep the following things in mind Audience is ignorant, dumb and idiot. It will know only what you allow them to know. It will believe whatever you want it to believe and this you can do by speaking lie, half truths etc. 2

Discussion leader, if investigating a matter against your party, is biased, misinformed, suffers from a lynch mob mentality and runs a kangaroo court. If the same journalist is investigating a case against your opponents, is true savior of democracy. Each member of your party says absolutely sane and appropriate things. Your party has done nothing wrong in past. You are devoted to cause of service of common people. Whatever your opponents do or say is wrong. They can never be right. When your opponents aspire to form government, they are hungry for power and when you do the same, you do it for the welfare of public. When your opponents lose elections or seat it is disapproval of their policies and outright rejection by citizens. When your party loses seats or election it is immaterial as it could be due to caste politics not working your way, petty regional issues getting priority over noble issues that you work for, anti-incumbency factor, not being able to convey achievements to masses, opposition succeeding in its malicious agenda etc. Do not restrain yourself in alleging others fearing that you will be dragged in further discussion if you utter something that was patently wrong. Rely on frequent events that keep media busy. You will certainly receive a call from media house but not to try you on something that you spoke during last discussion but to give your learned comments on new incident that perplexes country.

C. Should I participate in debate if I am under prepared or my part is entirely on wrong side? Whether prepared or unprepared, whether your party is wrong or right you must not miss any opportunity to appear on a TV show, be viewed by public, sacrifice yourself for your party. If not convinced I have the following points for your perusal You can count on under preparedness of your opponents. Think about your level of confidence if you are able to do well in spite of being underprepared. Your party expects that you should return the favours. Should I remind you about the Lion and Rabbit story of Panchatantra. You are expected to play a role of poor sacrificial animals (party spokesperson) to save others (party and alleged leaders), mass destruction (exposes) or have to overcome by driving the cruel and ruthless lion to well (misleading media and public). Just think about the relief that you will be able to give to your party if you are able drown the lion in the well. If you are sure that your opponents shall be armed to the teeth and you will be like a sacrificial lamb even then you should not decline the offer. Your party will look at you as fair weather friend and absence of your party's representative shall be treated as accepting the allegations. So what? Should you go and make yourself a target of bashing? Yes, try to see the advantages. Try to look beyond yourself. The common man does not want to find out 3

who the culprit is. It gives vicarious pleasure to him to see the politicians getting insulted in public view. He knows that if corrupt politicians cannot be brought to justice at least they should be insulted. So someone has to bear the anger of public. Is it insulting or demeaning? No, it is a management strategy. Nowadays all corporate houses promote employees to vent their anger against bosses by various means (beating a doll, hitting picture of boss with darts etc). This is a nonviolent method. No bloodsheds. Everyone comes angry, vents his/her anger goes back to work with offloading himself/herself with pent-up anger. I know you are not a selfish person but just look at the view point of a selfish person. The heavier beating you receive at discussion show and the more you try to defend the undefendable the more will your stature grow in your party. Just imagine where you can be if you keep on doing this. You will certainly be elevated to a minister from a mere spokesperson. Even if you see your party as a thankless party that does not reward party loyalists just think about your personal gains. More and more people will recognize your face. Your party may not be willing to reward you but in public opinion you will be treated as someone very close to party. This will make you entitled to many benefits that come from route of namedropping and being connected. If you are able to show your skills in being loyal to your party and able to defend the undefendable other parties may want a loyalist like you in their party and you can take a jump by shifting to other parties. If you keep on arguing like this your lungs will function effectively. You can learn skills of stress management. You will have fewer heart attacks. You will live longer.

D. During the discussion Basics 1. Gesture and Posture: Gesture and posture reveal you discomfort. If you want to see yourself amongst high ranked scoundrel politicians you have to master your gestures and postures. No party likes a politician whose gesture and posture reveal the truth. To be a successful politician you should not only learn to speak lie from your mouth but the entire body should be in tune with your lie-shooting mouth. Sit very comfortably. Wear a smile on your face. The bigger the charge the bigger the smile should be. Behave as if you are not at all perturbed by the charges and the situation is well under control. Nothing better than that if you can give a look as if you are thoroughly enjoying the situation and seeing this as an opportunity to expose your opponent. 2. Ploy of opposition (Vipaksha ki chaal): Whenever a charge is leveled against your party simply disown it in first round and tell that it has no substance in it. Remind that the opposition is hell bent to come back to power so they are leveling unfounded charges against your party. Not much time will pass before your arguments of allegation being unfounded will explode as people will come up with proofs, sequence of events, etc. The

next good strategy is not to directly answer a question but remind them about misdeeds of others. 3. Allege someone else for which you have been alleged: This may appear to be a very naive, foolish and out-of-fashion strategy but it still works. It is like a steam engine that is inefficient but still delivering. Try to turn any allegation raised against you or your party towards opposition, journalists, media, judicial activism, lynch mob mentality, kangaroo court, belligerent nations, election commission, CBI, etc. It will be difficult initially but it will come through practice. There can be two strategies for doing soa. Head first: Decide the logic first and then the target. I mean decide the logic by which you can allege someone else first and then find the target. b. Leg first: This strategy takes birth from logic that there is no need to be logical for doing something illogical. For this you are required to decide your adversary first and then think as to how you can allege this enemy for allegations made against you. Examples: Discussion touches issue of audit of accounts of political parties. Niramla Sitaraman alleges Election Commission for this (37.13 m). When asked a question about buying votes of MPs in 2008 Manish Tiwari alleges BJP for the entire episode. (4.40 m ) Later Prakash Javdekar says- Ulta chor kotwal ko dante. Watch same video to see Sudhindra Kulkarni and Prakash Javdekar alleging Congress (8 m). Journalists alleges that BJP was looking for buyers on this Prakash alleges Congress. (14.50 m). Fortunately each party has a repertoire of misdeeds; wrong-doings and violations so make prior preparation and find out the suitable case. The charges may be corruption, misappropriation, violation of procedure, disobeying court verdicts, playing dilatory tactics, nepotism, cronyism, favouratism, high handedness, destruction of public property etc. The phrases you may use Look who is talking. (This will be more effective if you can garnish it with appropriate hand movements and facial expressions. Pot calling the cattle black. Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones at others. What is good for the Peter should be good for Paul. Running with hare and hunting with hound What to do when I am not prepared? 4. Ask for adequate time: Just start with saying "I hope you will give me fair chance to put forth my point" or "I hope you will give me at least half the time that you have given to other panelists". After this say "let me put in right perspective" and then start from big-bang theory or from origin of universe. Somebody would surely interrupt and relieve you. If the discussion passes on to this speaker you can allege (i) the discussion leader for being unfair, (ii) the opponents for being unruly. 5. I have not read it: If you are asked to comment on a judgment/report regarding which your party is at receiving end do not accept the fact that you have seen/read the report/judgment 5

(even if you remember everything by heart). Your first sentence should be that you have not read the report or it has yet not been made public and you have not read this. Tell them that you and your party will study the report and come back to you. You can also tell them that you have just returned from a busy and responsible assignment (ek teer se do nishanedisclaimer plus showing that you are important and (yet) responsible). After announcing all these disclaimers now defend the report point by point. If someone dares you ask as to how you know all these things tell them that you were listening to TV discussion throughout the day. Can someone ask you that how come you could not get the copy be dishonest and tell him that you are not as resourceful as him. What if you disclose something that was not part of media debate? Do not worry no one will come to know. No one can scan all channels; moreover you can always implicate a journalist who phoned you to invite your reaction on this so far unrevealed point. 6. I have read it: If you are not on receiving end of the report than it is obvious that you have received and read the report. A point of caution, if it is improper to get a leaked report do not miss to mention that your media friends have made the report available to you and that you do not know whether it is the genuine report of a fake one (even though you know that the official that you had obliged during your term has given you the report against favour done to him/her). Remember the ground ruleIf the report is against you or your party then you have not read it. If the report is against your rivals you have read each word of it. 7. Resort to History: Know history, episodes etc. Repeat them to instigate and send your opponent off-balance. 8. When you are hit make everyone a party- If someone hits you or your political party, adopt a strategy that has worked well till date in India. Tell your opponent that you will not tolerate insult of your religion or of your State (prant) or your language. Tell him/her that he/she has hurt asmita of your State/religion/language.

Denials and disowning 9. Deny everything: There is not an iota of evidence. Manish Tiwari on outsourcing operation of Cash for Votes to Amar Singh So ridiculous that I will not respond. (22.05 m) 10. Disowning what you have said: You will be required to disown things that you have said earlier. What you will say in context of your opponents shall be reminded to you in terms of your allies/party man. The venom that you eject for your opponent will become your liability once this person joins your party. Your party will change its stand. There shall be innumerous reasons for you to disown your statement or for rather derogatory thook-chat. What should you do? a. Be dishonest and tell that you never said that. b. If played to you again and it matches word to word remind about the context and lines spoken before or after it (some of the scoundrel journalists may not be 6

interested in Rajya Sabha or may have sensed that they will not get a seat since queue is very long). If not, tell them what you meant and not what people understood. Do not spare any effort to confuse. c. If it is private telephonic conversation wholly disowns the conversation. You never talked to this person. You do not know him/her. This is not your voice. The audio can be alleged to have been morphed/doctored/alleged etc. ( do not say everything in one go, use the options in chronological order- initially say that you do not know this person and later on keep changing the versions as it suits you). d. If someone comes out with test report question intentions and authenticity.

Techniques to confuse discussion leader, opponents and ultimately the audience 11. Let us concentrate on lager issues: When asked about specific issues that are starkly against you, use this method. 12. Keeping shuttling between broader issues to specific issues: When asked about specific issue answer general issues. When question is raised about general or broader question confuse audience by drawing attention to specific issues. When asked a broader question as to why MLAs are escorted to safe locations just before a crucial vote Prakash Javadekar demands a CBI inquiry into 2008 Cash for vote issue (28.30m). 13. Logical doublespeak use of 'Having said that': This phrase is very useful when you are pushed to wall and have to accept a thing that is certainly against stand taken by you/your party. In such a case begin carefully by saying things which are prudent and that fall in line with public opinion. Once you have showcased yourself and your party as fair, democratic and law abiding party use the phrase 'having said that' and now try to justify everything by citing all wrong deeds or opponents, blaming compulsion of circumstances, extraordinary conditions, etc. 14. Confuse them by telling who you represent: You can easily ward off 50% of attacks by telling that you represent party and not the government or government not the party. No one will mind even if later in discussion you make claims on behalf of one that you do not represent. No one will ask you that you represent a party who is in ruling so you should be able to speak on behalf of both. (Sometimes be specific about your own party sometimes talk about parties in general. Do whatever is convenient to you. See how Nirmala Sitaraman avoids a tricky question. http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/the-big-fight/how-to-clean-upindian-politics/198199?hp 30.30 m) 15. Give new Definitions: Watch Prakash Javadekar defining entrapment.(8.45m). People have done this very successfully for 'what is terrorism', 'who is Hindu', 'what is corruption', etc. 16. Global phenomenon: One naked person will feel not feel ashamed when in company of persons with no clothes. So reduce your shame by proving the point that corruption, misappropriation etc are global phenomenon. example http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/the-big-fight/how-to-clean-up-indianpolitics/198199?hp (listen from 3.30 m to 4.05 m) How to handle interruptions and sharp arguments 7

17. When interrupted by the discussion leader : When you get interrupted by the discussion leader adopt one of the following strategiesa. Do not listen to the leader continue with what you want to say. Keep blaring with your malicious agenda, mudslinging, misinforming etc. Some TV channels resort to foul tactic of muting your microphone. In that case do either of the followingnegotiate in advance that this shall not be done or take a chance and shoot as much as you can before the microphone is muted. b. The leader shall tell you that you are beating about the bush and have not answered the question in that case tell the discussion leader that you are coming to the point now you can take some more seconds to continue with your agenda and then declare that now you are coming to the point. Do it as if you are obliging the discussion leader and the audience by doing so and act as if all these irrelevant things were necessary to set the background of whatever you are going to say after this. It is not necessary to answer the real question even now. Instead you can raise some more questions and try to divert the debate. c. Allege the discussion leader for being party or not being fair. You can directly allege that you know the inclination of the channel or discussion leader or complain that you have constantly been interrupted and have not been given even half the time that has been given to your opponents. Once in a programme you can also threaten the discussion leader that you will keep mum if nobody is going d. Play a victim: You can also play a victim on a particular day when facts and opinion are against you. Try to speak irrelevant things (no need to put extra effort this will come automatically since you have no arguments to refute) and very soon you will get interrupted. Let it happen sometimes and then start complaining about being victim of participants and media persons joining hands, jingoism, non-democratic forces, lynch mob mentality, party bashing, etc. 18. When interrupted by opponent: When you get disturbed by the fellow participant you have several options with youe. Do not stop talking simply bulldoze him/her by keeping talking. f. You can also give him/her very denigrating look and throw mud on him/her by reminding that this has been culture of his/her party. g. A sophisticated version is to massage the part that you are going to hit heavily. Remind the man/lady about his/her caliber and culture and that it does not suite him/her to interrupt in this uncivilized manner. You can even proclaim that you did not interrupt when s/he was speaking even though you did. Even some ones says, you did, tell that you objected to patently wrong and misleading arguments. h. Play a victim: As explained earlier. How to duck or derail a discussion if it is not going your way 19. Play a game of uproar: It is a popular tactic. Cooperation of at least two opponents is necessary. Audience simply loves this. Just keep on repeating one phrase to do this. This technique may appear outdate but is very effective. It is employed when8

You have run out of arguments You feel that your opponent is going to say something which may harm your reputation.

20. Instigate: Identify certain things in advance that are likely to instigate your opponents. When the arguments seem to go out of hand crack these. It is likely to enrage the participant and turn the focus of debate. Your objective should be clear that a scene should be created. You will be regarded successful if your opponent throws a tantrum. There is imminent danger of you being seen as vicious person but at least you will be able to keep the wolf at the door. Manish Tiwari trying to instigate by saying. An elderly gentleman in BJP was in hurry to become Prime Minister (19.29) 21. What to do when a opponent hits on bull's eye: If you feel that the opponent is going to hit on a very pertinent point that is likely to clinch the argument or will be like check-mate you can do any of the following thingsi. Raise your hand: If you want to give an impression of very law abiding debater immediately raise your hand as if the argument/fact raised by your opponent has flaws and you are ready with counter-arguments. Do this even if you do not have any valid points. Am I asking you to commit suicide? No. Firstly you can count on compulsions of the discussion leader. S/he may have to give chance to someone else before allowing you a rebuttal. Secondly, the speaker himself/herself may take long time to complete and by that time you can think of some arguments. Thirdly, other participants may get enraged by statements of the present speaker and may jump in and thus relieve you. Fourthly the speaker may get distracted by seeing you look confident against an argument that s/he thought would have devastating effects. Moreover there are chances that this speaker will finish with some other point and even if you are given chance immediately after him/her you can always respond on other points raised by him/her. Should I remind you about the strategy adopted by teachers and students in a classroom? Teachers in a class room try to prove a point that entire class is not well prepared. Whenever they target the question to a student who in their opinion is not prepared to answer. They do not want the show to get spoiled by students who can perfectly answer the question. Taking advantage of this situation some illprepared students also raise their hands. The questions are not out-of-the-world so teachers cannot take risk to ask them even when they are suspicious. Why? Because this will spoil the stage. The point they are trying to prove that there is need to work hard since answers are not known to many. If a mediocre or poor student is able to answer it in first attempt the entire purpose of raising question gets defeated. This mind-set generally comes to rescue to students who have mastered art of faking knowing the answers. Remember the point is not whether you are able to offer right rebuttals or not. What matters here is public perception. The audience should get an idea that you had arguments but were not allowed a fair chance. 9

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Missing audio: (applicable only when interviewed from remote location) If you are a very safe player or do not have authority to speak on a topic or are completely blank on the topic do not reveal your inner feelings. Do not react to an uncomfortable argument for which you have no answer. When asked to give your reactions do not react at all. Stay as you were before just prior to hearing that sentence. Air time is costly so the discussion leader will soon shift to someone else promising to resolve technical snag. You may ask me what about the technicians who are with you and who are getting the audio link in his/her headphone? Do not worry about his/her reactions s/he will not appear on TV. Moreover your headphone may miss audio at anytime due to loose contacts. How can I ward-of an aggressive journalists-Radia tape reminder: Sometimes journalists leading discussions also start participating in debate (now a day's all of them in fact). Gradually they have mastered the art of finding counter arguments and sometimes their arguments are sharper than arguments of your opponents. Do not feel that you are on a butcher's table and about to be sacrificed. Show some guts and retaliate. From 2010 you have a new weapon in your armoury. Remind him/her about Radia tapes, tell everyone that even journalists as a class are not absolutely above suspicion. This is sure to send the journalist reeling back. S/He will go into 'introspective acceptance mode' and will say that certainly there are some journalists who are tainted but 'his/her channel does not practice that' etc. This will buy you some time and give you upper hand in discussion. This is very effective weapon and there are enough chances that the discussion leader will accept that the entire political class cannot be treated as being corrupt since one has been identified as corrupt, if so even s/he as journalist should be treated as partisan/corrupt since a few have been exposed. Now the leader will start treating you as fellow human being and you will find way to come back into fighting arena. How to counter an aggressive citizen- Lay a trap, If anyone raises voice against you he/she certainly is undermining democracy and does not represent people: If the person raising voice against you happens to be citizen immediately discard him as if he is an insect since s/he does not represent any one. S/he is not an elected representative. Ask the actor inside you to get ready and think that you are sitting next to an insect who stinks of antidemocratic values, separatism, naxalism and try to fake such feelings. Don't worry this man will never ask you in return that you too do not represent entire country nor even 50% voters of your constituency. Join and clean argument: If any participant who is not a politician can be tackled easily. Challenge him/her by telling that if he/she is so keen to change the system s/he should join the system and clean it from inside. Do not worry till date no one has questioned this argument. The following counter arguments have not occurred to anyone thata. by the same argument if one wants to clean bureaucracy s/he should first contest Civil Service examination and join the service and try to clean the system from inside. By same argument one should join judiciary to change judiciary. b. If someone complains against corruption in a ration shop s/he should first get permission to run a ration shop and then complain. We followed what predecessors did: You may still be left with one option even when you are finally held responsible for something wrong and have no way of denying it. The 10

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frequent changes in governments may come to your rescue. Simply declare that you followed policies and decisions of your predecessors. This need not be always true. 26. Global phenomenon: This point has been explained earlier. 27. Learn sophisticated equivalents to abusive words: When faced with a camera your body should be trained to turn abusive words into sophisticated words just like body reflexes. "My learned friend" is a flexi equivalent that is good replacement for any of the following'son-of-bitch', bastard, idiot, moron, fool, ..... . "X is a good friend of mine" does mean that you had close encounters of this kind with this person earlier as well and fear him like a cobra and you want to show that you are not hurt by his argument or are now going to hit him below the belt (since he has crossed a certain imaginary line). Miscellaneous 28. Do's c. Be future oriented: Do not allege anyone in particular. Try to allege no one in particular: This is a very sound strategy. There are many advantages because (i) Your facts may not be right (ii) hitting a specific person will turn this man into a guided missile against you and your party (iii) you will be closing doors for this man joining your party ones he/she is expelled from his/her party due to charges of corruption. If such a corrupt coveted person joins your party then you can defend by saying that this person was made a scapegoat by his earlier masters. It will be difficult to defend direct assaults if news channels start playing them. If you want to cover a great distance in politics learn to say unspecific things. Learn the skill of converting specific in to unspecific. 29. Don'ts : Remember however the terse arguments turn do not do the followingd. Do not reveal closely guarded secrets about each other that have not yet been revealed as yet. This is real test of your class. If you are someone who gets easily hurt by criticism and start revealing things which should not be revealed you are not fit to be in politics. Remember that not only your opponents but your own party will not tolerate such irresponsible behaviour. You will not only create a liability for your party for sitting over the information but this may also set a chain of disclosures. So remember the golden rule of politics, defend, discuss, criticize only what has come in public domain and has been established beyond doubt. Example : i. See how cleverly Nirmala Sitaraman avoids answering Vikram Chandra's question about politicians making money for themselves or for their parties? around 30.30 m ii. The audience is asked to vote about their views whether the MP/MLAs are brought and sold. 100% audience says yes. Now watch Manish Tiwari avoiding question of Vikram: Are MPs bought and sold . He says- Let us not generalize an isolated incidence. ( See 25.25m) iii. Surprisingly Prakash Javadekar who was leveling charge against Congress also sings the same song that MPs and MLAs are not bought and sold He adds on to say that it is not rule but exception. (27.00m). 11

e. Do not be fooled by the idea that you have to always oppose other political parties. Show solidarity with other political parties when journalists or citizens raise question of wide spread corruption in political parties, culture of sycophancy, misuse of discretionary quotas. You may have alleged all your opponents of corruption, misusing power or discretionary quotas but if anyone asks you a question whether all political parties suffer from maladies immediately and need introspection or major reforms, say no immediately in same breath. Try to see the mischievous attempts of media and public to derail the democratic process. They may be undermining our highly valued democracy. They may be colluding to usurp rights of parliament and legislative assemblies. They have this congenital tendency which emerges out as soon as they see politicians fighting over issue of corruption. Remember that even street dogs while engaged in bloody fight take care not to get trampled by vehicles. f. Do not make promises to change the system in haste. These promises could be like judicial reforms, electoral reforms, independent investigative agency, greater transparency, surrendering discretionary quotas, etc. Don't you know that after a brief or long period your party will be ruling the State/nation singly or as coalition partner and you will need all these privileges then? No one ever cuts the branch that one is sitting on. g. Do not make any hasty attempts to remove ambiguity in constitution, rules etc. Its suits all of us not having clearly defined jurisdictions, responsibilities etc. If an issue encompasses multiple departments do not make one department responsible for start-to-end process. It will be difficult to confuse judiciary, media and public if anything goes wrong. If a subject is on concurrent list it will be suitable for both State and Centre to shift responsibility on each other. This is especially very useful if different political parties are ruling at two ends. If same party is ruling the State and Centre than the debate may shifted to systems and mechanisms (fine tuning, making effective, revamping, making functional, over hauling radically changing etc). h. Do not try to be innovative, use time tested strategies. Resorting to old strategies may look stereotyped but they are more accepted than innovative strategies adopted by innovative individuals. Stick to copy book style. i. Do not listen to inner conscious. This may have hazardous consequences. Remember that you are not entrusted with ordinary responsibilities. Your task is not to build a nation. Moreover, no one knows how to do that. Perhaps great nations are democratic and democracies need political parties. Your inner voice of conscious can jeopardize future of your party and thus possibility of building a great democratic nation. Party hai to democracy hai, democracy hai to nation hai.

Dhirendra Devarshi

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