Relevant debate lost in poll noise

Easily the most perverse aspect of this election campaign has been the brazenness with which politicians have said the nastiest things to pulverise one another personally and cause offence to social and public ethics, especially by taking pot-shots at religious minorities. Alas, media commentary has taken note of the vileness of language and little else. Political parties have cast aspersions on one another with abandon but have chiefly restricted their comment to boorishness of speech. In some senses the very essence of democratic practice, debating public questions of relevance, has been conspicuous by its absence. 

 

The commentariat have had little to offer on this count. Television, which loves images and drama, and hence frames questions big and small exclusively in terms of a “fight”, has had difficulty doing programmes that don’t smell of gunpowder or involve a rapier thrust. Politicians have not taken the trouble to go beyond mud-slinging, and appear to have consciously stayed away from serious debating. This marks a contrast even from the last Lok Sabha election when prices, jobs, and the nuclear debate were par for the course in the media as well as in observations made by political parties and their key leaders.

 

It is hard to think of even municipal elections in the world’s leading democracies without thinking debate. Naturally, there can be no democracy without independent elections, free speech, and unfettered media and judiciary. But can there be a meaningful democracy without multiple points of view being discussed in sufficient detail so that it is an informed electorate that goes to the polling booth? Needless to say, if the electorate is not informed, not aware of the merits and demerits of not only candidates in the fray but also the issues they espouse, voting choices that are finally made may give us a Parliament in which we cannot take pride and an executive that may not be trusted to take us on the path the nation deserves. 

 

Is there a risk of voters without sufficient information who have only consumed the propaganda of parties producing leaders who turn out to be monsters who distort the democracy they are elected to uphold? For instance, it is not enough to say we have to fight corruption. Parties must tell us what they would exactly do to make this happen. It is not enough to say the defence establishment will be strengthened. Parties must explain where the funds will come from. All in all, it is not an India enlightened on policy choices that is going to the hustings. Democracy has been reduced.