Saiyed Danish | India Tomorrow
New Delhi, April 24— In the past few weeks as the General Elections 2019 campaign has intensified and the nation has completed third phase of polling, political observers and concerned citizens have noticed a major shift from the narrative of development to communal rhetoric in the language used by senior politicians of mostly the BJP. Such tendency of open spread of vitriol in the campaign has posed quite a challenge to the Election Commission’s efforts towards conducting a free and fair election.
Quite recently, Union Minister BJP’s Sultanpur candidate, Maneka Gandhi made a controversial speech in her constituency and threatened the members of minority community by stating that if Muslims will not vote for her then they “should not come” to her for any work. Similarly, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath made a statement referring Muslim political activities in India as “green virus”. Samajwadi Party leader and Rampur candidate Azam Khan also made controversial remarks for rival BJP candidate Jaya Prada. All three were banned by the Election Commission from campaigning for 2-3 days. Malegaon terror attack accused Sadhvi Pragya who recently joined the BJP and is contesting from Bhopal, said that she enjoyed participating in the demolition of Babri Mosque in 1992. BJP national president Amit Shah has been making constant jibes on alleged infiltrators of the minority community through his ‘Termite’ term. Another leader of BJP, Ranjit Bahadur Srivastava recently said, ‘Vote for the BJP if you want to destroy Muslims.’
In the light of these controversial remarks by politicians in election speeches, India Tomorrow spoke to a few civil society members and tried to know their opinions and observations on this seismic shift of language used in the on-going political campaign.
When asked about the use of the language by senior BJP politicians, civil rights activist Dr John Dayal said, “First of all, all everyone of us who had followed Indian politics at close quarters had predicted in January 2014 that because the target he (PM Narendra Modi) had set for himself was impossible, when it would come to the 2019 General Elections he would revert to the campaign procedures and issues that he had raised in the 2014 election, which was Hindutva.”
“Now our worst fears have come true. You speak of the language, the words, but I can tell you that you can switch off the sound of your TV and watch Modi, Shah and their cheerleaders. The gestures, the gesticulation, the grimacing, the aggression on their faces, the costumes…each one of them…is intimidating. You don’t have to listen to them to know that. The message is clear – both the subliminal and direct message. His message is that if you don’t vote for us, the following bad things will happen to you and if you vote for us (meant for the followers of BJP) the following bad things will happen to the people you don’t like,” he further said.
Prof. Apoorvanand, who teaches Hindi at Delhi University, appeared gravely concerned over the manner in which the BJP politicians have been conducting themselves.
“Look, in 2014, everyone wanted to believe that their leaders were talking about development and not rhetoric due to the slogan of Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas (With Everyone and Development of Everyone). But in 2014 campaign, if you recall, there was also the mentioning of Pink Revolution, white revolution and talks about foreign citizens occupying our lands and catching every Bangladeshi immigrant by one’s ear and drive them out of India were rampant. The person who was using such language in the campaign went on to become India’s Prime Minister. So this language of rhetoric is simply aimed to bring to life the agenda of majoritarianism among the people,” he said, alluding to PM Modi.
Delhi Minorities Commission Chairman, Dr. Zafarul Islam Khan also criticized the rhetorical approach taken by the BJP leaders to woo voters. “This is not something new. They have already been using words like ‘Babar ki Aulad’ or ‘Qabristan ya Pakistan’ before. But now it has gone murkier. So, we have reached a new low in political discourse of this country when people accused of heinous crimes are nominated and given tickets to contest polls. However, there are bodies like the Election Commission and Minority Commission which can register complaint of a common citizen over hate and such use of words. In fact, EC acted and banned Yogi (UP CM Yogi Adityanath) for three days. So action is taken in such matters.”
Journalist and civil rights activist Aditya Menon said, “See, there are one set of the voters which thought that by voting Modi they would get rid of the corruption and price rise and they ignored the fact that Muslims had been massacred in the past under their watch (referring to 2002 Gujarat riots under BJP rule). While another set voted the BJP in power for precisely the same reason that Muslims were killed under BJP’s rule and when they will come to power in centre, Muslims will again be shown their place. So now, the kind of campaign run by the BJP is to appease this second set of their hardcore voters with a clear message that ‘you can do anything as long as we are in power.’ They are doing this because they know that if they will contest the polls on development issue, they won’t be able to win it since they have suffered serious pushback on the development front, be it farm distress or lack of jobs.”
Commenting on the low language in election speeches, Nusrat Ali, former Vice President of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind said: “Actually, the current government has nothing to show what they have done in the last five years, nor do they have any issues. What they call their ideology is nothing but propagation of hate and creation of division among people and communities. Those who don’t have any ideology or issue or performance report card they do such things – sometimes they use hatred and sometimes terror. And recently they cited Sri Lanka bombings in their speeches for political dividends.”
If BJP Won, Their Leaders Will Express Themselves in More Sinister Way
India Tomorrow asked journalist Menon that when BJP leaders talk about changing the Constitution of India, do they think a mandate in their favour will be a mandate to alter the Constitution.
“I don’t know if they will be making changes in the Constitution but I think that if they come back to power, they will express themselves in a more sinister way than these tactics. For instance, their Citizenship Bill is making a loud announcement that India is a country meant only for Hindus. So I think they will be taking up matters like these instead of issues they were earlier obsessed with,” said Menon.
Dr Khan is also of the view that victims of hate should move appropriate authorities for justice otherwise merchants of hate will continue doing what they are doing.
“If you speak against such things, then they don’t repeat it. But if you just bear them silently, they will not only repeat but will go to next higher levels of victimization. So best thing for people who think they are being victimized is that they should go to right forums. We have got courts and minority commission in almost every state and we have National Commission for Minorities and National Human Rights Commission,” said Dr Khan.
