Vitriolic Election Campaigns Are a Sign of Our Moral Decay

Public discourse hitting a new low in Gujarat sets a bad precedent for Indian politics.

Elections are messy affairs. The poll rhetoric, of late, has ranged from appeasement to open threats, and it has been unfortunate that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has led the charge on this count.

A while back, Modi and his colleagues attempted to shame the state of Kerala by comparing it with Somalia; brought shamshan ghats and kabristans in Uttar Pradesh during campaigning; predicted jubilations and fireworks in Pakistan if the BJP lost in Bihar; and auctioned central assistance to Bihar.

More recently, political opponents have been equated to ‘termites’ in Himachal Pradesh, and in Gujarat, well, the language has been such that it has shamed even some of those who were famously ‘neutral’ to the rise of Narendra Modi’s brand of politics in 2013-14.

Gujarat Campaign Hits a New Low

The Gujarat campaign has been an absolute disaster and reflects the moral degradation that voters in India seem to have made peace with. The barbs directed at former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the aspersions cast on political opponents in general, the predictable and tiresome invocation of Pakistan, and reinvigorating the mandir-masjid argument – all of this also marks the return of the earlier avatar of Narendra Modi, sans the mask of ‘sabka saath, sabka vikas’.

Where does this leave us, the citizens of India? Are such invectives meant to convey that only the Bharatiya Janata Party has the right to rule? Or is it meant to instil the fear that if you vote for an opposition party, there would be zero cooperation from the Government of India?

We were once a country where decency in public discourse was appreciated and where there was a sense of morality. No longer is that the case.

Vitriolic Rhetoric at Play

This has serious implications for governance in India. Cooperative federalism cannot be reduced to a hollow slogan – it needs to be practised in reality. When the Prime Minister sours the pitch in this manner, it is hard to see political parties cooperating meaningfully.

It is one thing for the states to go to elections and witness bitter contests, quite different when the Prime Minister of the country turns up and converts state elections into a race of competitive populism, or worse, lowers the discourse further by indulging in name-calling and attempts to polarise the electorate.

The larger question remains – why has it become okay to indulge in this kind of vitriolic rhetoric? Those arguing that the insecurity exhibited by Modi was a hallmark of politics in India in the 70s are doing us a disservice. The world, as we know it, was not the same in the 1970s. India was not an “emerging superpower” and we were far from claiming a stake at the high table of global leadership.

For an inward-focused economy, sovereignty was a pre-occupation and politicians excelled in capitalising on the prevailing global tug-of-war between superpowers of the Cold War era. Unfortunately for us, it seems to have been a successful political strategy and has made a lasting impression on those who were part of the Opposition back then.

Upholding the Principles of Democracy

India in the 21st century ought to have moved beyond such impulses. A nation where over 50 percent of the population is below the age of 35 years should not be emulating the political discourse prevalent forty years ago. This then, should be seen as one of the biggest failures of the current dispensation.

It is evident that the global perception of India is being affected as well. The Indian state, through the Constitution of India, sought to articulate a vision for the country that was not shackled by the conservative moorings of its people at that time.

Today, those attributes appear to be fading away, under attack from what looks like a state that is turning its back on scientific temper and syncretic culture. We are increasingly being perceived as a country where the state sanctions and abets communal propaganda, and where the pressures of domestic politics have tempted the government to encroach on the integrity of institutions that were critical to the country’s reputation. Our leaders need to be extremely careful about the brand of politics they would like to see emulated by future generations. A moral decay has set in, and needs to be reversed. The onus lies at the top.

(Suvojit Chattopadhyay works on public policy and development, and is currently based in Dhaka. He blogs here on development and politics; and tweets from @suvojitc. This is a personal blog and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)

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