The time for polite politics appears to be decidedly over. This week, a Union minister has been calling non Hindus illegitimate.
And a chief minister has been talking about shoving bamboo up the rear while making curious hand gestures.
Both happen to be women traditionally the gentler, more civil sex. It is of course deeply depressing to see that the highest leaders of our country cannot express themselves except by using the language of the gutter.
“Look what you have done,” you tell yourself, “of the more than one billion people of the land you have chosen gutter bugs as you leaders!”
Over the last few years, there has been an indisputable decay in democratic discourse. This is worrying, of course, but even more worrying is the way such atrocious behaviour is rewarded.
Goons have been propping up our democracy for decades now so foul language has had a place in Indian politics for quite a while. But that was not a hallowed place.
Gutter speech belonged to the dark alleys, to the boondocks, to hushed voices, to hired goons. Leaders themselves kept a respectable distance from such uncouth behaviour.
They would not be caught with blood on their hands or filth in their mouths. They would pay others for the dirty work. They pretended to be respectable.
Especially those aspiring to be elected to Parliament or Legislative Assemblies. Because Indian voters were discriminating they had memories of parliamentarians like Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, A.K. Gopalan or G.V. Mavlankar, they expected a certain respectability from their leaders.
Over the decades, as politics steadily fell from grace, as our democratic process became increasingly burdened by undemocratic acts, as might determined right, that expectation was eroded. But even then, there was a certain decorum maintained by politicians, even if it was pretence.
There was a sense of shame, a belief that showcasing yourself as a crass hooligan would perhaps not be conducive to getting elected as an honourable representative of the people of India. That has changed.
In a sense, these are more honest times. Now the ministers themselves flaunt muscle, talk dirty and have no pretence of being genteel. We have video cameras in mobile phones, and mobile phones everywhere.
You never know when the vulgar, lumpen like behaviour in dark alleys and boondocks will feature on the news, complete with videos. There is very little point in pretending to be decent.
Or so we may feel. Fortunately, that is not entirely true yet. We still have a multi-party democracy, we do have seats of governance like our Parliament, where there are Opposition members who vehemently object to such crassness.
Like in the case of Union minister Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti. The lady in saffron merely did what politicians and their henchmen have been doing for years catering strictly to one’s narrow constituency, appeasing their voters, building on the party’s strengths.
So speaking at a rally in Delhi, the poor BJP minister did what the BJP had been doing for years speaking to Hindus as the legitimate citizens of India and slighting non Hindus.
“The people of Delhi have to decide whether they want a government of ‘Ramzadon’ (descendants of Ram) or ‘haramzadon’ (those illegitimately born).” In one fell swoop, 20 per cent of India’s 1.3 billion people had been labelled as illegitimate. If you were not a Hindu, you were not a legitimate Indian.
This is not a new sentiment. It is not even new as a sentiment aired by a minister. In its deeds and speeches, the BJP has been for years promoting this dangerous belief that goes against the idea of India.
Even Narendra Modi, then chief minister of Gujarat and prime ministerial candidate, had when asked if he felt sorry for the Gujarat violence of 2002,said, sure he felt sad, because “even if you are in a car and a small dog (kutta ka bachcha) comes under the wheel it is sad.” In the new scheme of things, being aggressive and vulgar is equated with machismo, with efficiency and capability.
Which explains why Mamata Banerjee, Chief Minister of Bengal who continues to act like an Opposition leader, has no time for grace or decorum in her speeches. She has built her career on being brash, and is not ready to change her style now.
In a rally this week she hit out at her Opposition, without naming them. Was it the BJP she was attacking, or was it her pet peeve, the CPI(M)? Perhaps both.
“They couldn’t do anything themselves,” she said, “instead they are busy trying to figure out how to shove bamboos up the rear of those who are doing something.”
She also made alarmingly rude gestures with her fist as she spoke these fine words of wisdom.
The chief minister then warned her opponents, via a curious tale of bamboos, how when these bamboos started chasing them, they wouldn’t know where to hide.
Once this was done, everything else she said seemed refined. Like her response to the BJP’s threats of chasing her out of Bengal, following Amit Shah’s recent rally there.
“If a dog comes and bites us, we don’t go chasing the dog to bite it back,” she said with smug sophistication. A few days earlier, she had used an expletive against some leaders in a rally, but had apologised soon after.
Which was not what the other lady caught cussing this week has done. Sadhvi Jyoti’s half-apology came after all else failed to calm the Opposition. And the PM didn’t condemn it till both Houses of Parliament were paralysed by protest.
And even now, the government refuses to sack the Sadhvi. There is now a case against her for hurting religious sentiments and defamation.
This refusal to punish those who hit out against the pluralistic values and decency of India is the root cause of the worrying decay in democratic discourse. Giriraj Singh, who had declared that anyone who did not want Narendra Modi to be PM should go to Pakistan, was made a minister.
Yogi Adityanath, known for his anti Muslim tirades, is a favoured BJP parliamentarian and campaigner. Bad behaviour is almost always rewarded.
We are getting so used to it, that we don’t always recognise atrocious behaviour as such. We clap and laugh when non Hindus are being called illegitimate.
Unless we as a nation try to put a stop to this we may soon lose our perspective altogether. That would firmly end our democratic dreams and pave the way for fascism.
The writer is editor of The Little Magazine. She can be contacted at: sen@littlemag.com
