One of the things the 20th century is supposed to have taught us is that few things in life are black and white, that much of human reality involves complex alternating shades of grey. The one field, however, that is exempt from this simple principle is Indian politics. Our political life and discourse are the last refuge of Manichaeism, the doctrine that divided the world into mutually incompatible ideas of good and evil.Consider the evidence from last week. I found myself launching and discussing a book by the scholar and columnist Raja Mohan, "Modi's World", on the NDA government's foreign policy. Since what was expected was an overall assessment, I began by crediting the Prime Minister for the personal energy he has brought to the conduct of policy, with his wide-ranging travels which had made a positive impression on the countries receiving him, and for having leveraged India's soft power as an instrument of our diplomacy through such initiatives as International Yoga Day - though I qualified that by observing that the pursuit of the Guinness Book of World Records was unnecessarily tacky and unworthy of a government. I then went on to point out that the Modi Government had not only continued the foreign policy of the UPA, but done so by reversing most of the BJP's positions in Opposition on issues ranging from the Indo-US nuclear deal to the Bangladesh Land Boundary Agreement.Even the emphasis on economic diplomacy with which the Prime Minister was being credited, I said, was nothing more than the implementation of what I have dubbed the Manmohan Doctrine, which posits that the overriding objective of Indian foreign policy is the economic transformation and development of India. I added, for good measure, that where the Modi Government had departed from its predecessor, it had embarrassed itself and the nation - pointing, in detail, to the yo-yo-like pendulum swings of our policy pronouncements and actions on Pakistan and Israel.It was, in other words, a nuanced analysis, mixed but far more critical than laudatory, as anyone present in the audience (or a glance at the video - where I start at 5:50 and go on for eight minutes). What I wasn't prepared for was the slew of "Tharoor praises Modi again" headlines that promptly followed my remarks. "Tharoor sings Modi's tune again, says he's leaving 'positive impression'", declared ANI. "PM leaves 'positive impression' during foreign visits: Tharoor", echoed PTI. "Modi's 'Personal Energy' Brought New Dimension to Diplomatic Relations: Tharoor", announced Outlook. There were several more in similar vein, all omitting the 80% of my speech that fell short of praise. It was as if all I had done that evening was to applaud Mr Modi. There were a couple of exceptions - one headlined a "sharp debate on Modi's Foreign Policy" and another declared "Tharoor slams 'yo yo' on Pakistan." But these more accurate, if still partial, stories got far less traction; accuracy isn't saleable in the world of political news.The reason is clear: our politics is not supposed to be nuanced. Our media sees every debate in the binary terms made famous by George W. Bush: "are you with us or against us?" (It is said, apocryphally, that when asked this question by former US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, Nehruji replied: "Yes".) Our media analysis admits of no other possibilities: one must be either for Modi, or against Modi; seeing 20% worth praising, 60% worth criticising and 20% neither-good-nor-bad in his statements and policies is too complicated for our scribes and analysts to digest. Even the Wire and the IANS the more balanced stories referred to above fell into the same trap; where other journalists had reported only my praise, these outlets had room only for my criticism. Whereas I had admitted some positives before weighing in strongly on the shortcomings of Mr Modi's foreign policy, readers of the news would only think that I had "again" praised him or attacked him - nothing in between.The problem became more acute a few days later when Prime Minister Modi was kind enough to speak positively at a public forum about a speech of mine in Oxford that had "gone viral". Immediately speculation began that I must be about to switch sides; indeed television anchors asked me if I was about to do so. I pointed out that I had thirty years of published work at odds with what Mr Modi and his party stood for, but that was irrelevant to the commentators: the Prime Minister had praised me, so that must mean I was on his side.There's something terribly wrong with this picture. Why shouldn't our politics allow for mutual expressions of respect across the political divide? Why shouldn't we be able to see or hear the good things said or done by those we fundamentally disagree with and oppose? Nehruji was remarkably cordial to, and respectful of, the Opposition parliamentarians who routinely savaged him and his policies, and even took criticism on the chin from some of his own Party MPs. One could disagree with a party's ideology, worldview or policies as a whole, but find common ground with it on some things. But we have reduced our politics to black and white today: either for or against, nothing in between. "Fifty Shades of Grey" could never be the title of a book about Indian politics.This view of our politics, reinforced daily by the reports in our media, vitiates our political discourse. It reduces democracy to a zero-sum game where everything done by one side is automatically bad and unacceptable to the other. It explains the destructive Opposition politics of the last ten years, when the BJP ferociously opposed even policies it had itself worked for, merely because they were being implemented by the UPA. It precludes the possibility of fair-minded debate and prevents the public from seeing our politicians as well-rounded human beings with minds of their own. Instead, everyone is reduced to a stock caricature, defined in absolute terms by their party affiliation alone.This is a disservice to our democracy - which, as Amartya Sen has pointed out, is supposed to be a process of deliberative reasoning, resulting in the best outcomes for the nation as a whole. Democracy is supposed to be an ongoing process, one in which there must be give-and-take, dialogue and compromise among differing interests. Let us not reduce it to a game of kabbadi. Though unlike kabaddi, don't hold your breath expecting the score to change.(Dr Shashi Tharoor is a two-time MP from Thiruvananthapuram, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, the former Union Minister of State for External Affairs and Human Resource Development and the former UN Under-Secretary-General. He has written 15 books, including, most recently, India Shastra: Reflections On the Nation in Our Time.)