Back to forward: Word for word

Even after today’s voting, there will be two more rounds of polling in the next fortnight. Something even worse might yet happen in this last lap of the rather protracted 16th parliamentary poll. But I must confess that never before have I felt so depressed and disgusted. For, the tone and tenor of the current election campaign has already plummeted to the worst since the first general election in 1952.

To be sure, there is plenty of scope, indeed necessity, for cut and thrust and also sharp exchanges in election battles provided these take place with elementary decency and in a civilised tone. Wit — in short supply in this country, alas — can be devastating. In the first general election, for instance, Jawaharlal Nehru had upset the applecart of the then undivided Communist Party of India, in its stronghold of Kerala, by simply pointing to the cluster of red flags with hammer and sickle on them, and asking his audience: “What is this foreign flag doing here?” Invective, too, has a place in political contention, but even invective has to be used, not abused. Sadly, foul abuse abounds.

At one level, the slugfest between the Congress led by the party president, Sonia Gandhi, and vice-president Rahul Gandhi most of the time but recently joined by a more spirited Priyanka Gandhi Vadra — and the Bharatiya Janata Party, virtually personified by its prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi — has escalated exponentially and is growing uglier. Both sides deplore any personal attack. But each blames the other for resorting to precisely that. The Congress, principally Mrs Vadra, condemns the BJP’s “personal attack” on her husband’s land deals but happily retaliates by accusing Mr Modi of giving away thousands of acres of land to a corporate crony. Every Congress spokesperson has mocked him for having concealed for long his marital status.

There can be no objection to Mrs Gandhi’s invocation to the Almighty to “save the country from the Gujarat model”. But when senior Congress leaders constantly compare Mr Modi to “Hitler, Mussolini and Idi Amin who were also elected”, they cannot protest against the BJP’s retort that “fascism is in Mrs Gandhi’s genes” because “her father had worn Mussolini’s brown shirt”.

This pales, however, when compared with the torrent of vile and vicious words and sentiments flowing from the tongues of leaders and foot soldiers of almost all political parties. These are designed wilfully to polarise and divide Indian society, to threaten voters with dire consequences if they fail to vote as ordered, and even to politicise, communalise and demoralise the Indian Army which is highly respected for its integrity, integration and adherence to secular values. Since the number of such disgraceful and dangerous pronouncements is very large and those guilty of making them are also many, to make my point in available space, I will have to be both selective and very brief.

Two terribly disgusting things happened in Uttar Pradesh at roughly the same time. Amit Shah, Mr Modi’s Man Friday, deployed in the state that sends 80 members to the Lok Sabha, went to the sites of recent communal carnage to urge one particular community to “take revenge” from its tormentors. Simultaneou-sly, Azam Khan, a senior minister in the Samaj-wadi Party government in Uttar Pradesh, lustily declared that during the Kargil War (1999) “no Hindu had won back the hills from Pakistan; these were liberated by only those shouting Allah-o-Akbar”.

Mr Shah apologised to the Election Commission, promised to follow the model code of conduct and got his right to address public rallies restored. Mr Khan refused to do so. Instead he iterated his statement, which is both factually wrong and an insult to the Army. The Samajwadi Party’s sup-reme leader, Mulayam Singh Yadav, a former defence minister, disregarded all appeals to discipline Mr Khan. Yoga guru Baba Ramdev is yet to be punished adequately for his reprehensible remarks on Mr Gandhi’s visits to dalit homes.

All this has been overshadowed, however, by arguably the most abominable declaration by Giriraj Singh, a BJP state leader in Bihar. “Whoever tries to stop (Mr) Modi,” he underscored, “is a Pakistan-lover. There will be no place for such people in India. They all must go to Pakistan.” Be it noted that he addressed this warning not to the Muslim minority alone but to every Indian opposed to Mr Modi. All that the BJP president Rajnath Singh did was to “disassociate the party completely” from Mr Singh’s statement. Mr Modi said nothing on this subject for many days.

Only after Hindutva hotheads in other parts of the country had added fuel to the fire lit by Mr Singh did the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate react. Without naming anyone he merely “disapproved of these petty and irresponsible statements”.

No wonder the reaction across the country has been strong, particularly in the sensitive state of Kashmir where chief minister Omar Abdullah and his father and Union minister Farooq Abdullah have made some very sharp remarks.

The elder Mr Abdullah has even declared that Kashmir won’t be a part of a “communal India”. Mr Modi and his Hindutva herds should realise that they are not only losing votes but also endangering Indian unity.

One question to which the champions of Hindutva seem to have paid no attention is: why will Pakistan admit millions and millions whom they want to extern from India, especially at a time when Pakistan’s interest in Indian elections is visibly limited. Eminent Pakistani commentator Ayesha Siddiqa attributes this to Pakistanis’ worry about their own future in the face of the Taliban’s lethal challenge. Some Pakistani experts feel that if they could work with Atal Behari Vajpayee’s BJP government, they could do so also with the BJP government under Mr Modi. Some months ago, Sartaj Aziz, foreign policy and defence adviser to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, was asked what he thought of Mr Modi as India’s Prime Minister. His reply: “Modi is India’s problem, not Pakistan’s.”