POLITICAL DISCOURSE

When K Kamaraj was the Chief Minister of the state of Tamilnadu, the DMK was the opposition party  who had only five seats in the assembly.  The leader of the party was C N Annadurai.  Once when he rose to speak, the congress members were making such a racket in the house that his was voice was drowned. Kamaraj got up and shouted at his party members to keep quiet and listen to what Annadurai had to say. He said that was the way to develop the leaders in the parties in a healthy democracy.  

In UK when Gladstone was the prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli was in the opposition. Gladstone in the parliament mockingly told Disraeli that either he would die of madness or of a sexually transmitted disease.  Disrareli was known for his high morals and very hard work. Disraeli immediately retorted, "It may be because I either embrace your policies or your mistress." 

Such bonhomie or repartee is hard to find among the politicians of the country either in the past or in the present. Also the level of respect the politicians had for their political rivals also is waning to the extent that it has become absolutely non existent now.  There is no bonhomie among many top leaders of different parties except greeting each other on occasions.  This has rendered the parties to which these leaders belong as arch rivals fighting for their sheer existence.  The enmity among the nations may not be a match to the parties' rivalry and animosity between them.  This has lead to a new low in political discourse.

The stage was set in 2002 and post Godhra incident in Gujarat where communal flare up  as a reaction to the burning alive of passengers in the train on a February early morning as the train was about to leave for Ahmedabad in which many Muslims died.  The political pundits were immediately up on their feet to blame the newly appointed Chief Minister and the media which had been partial to the GOP in the country took the cue and started putting out stories which were much exaggerated.  There were NGOs who were funded from abroad to tarnish the image of the Chief Minister.  Incidentally he went onto win the election to the state legislative assembly for three consecutive terms and there had been no communal violence in the state since then.  Any way this write up is not about the achievements of the individual.

In one of the south Indian states, when a lady member of the opposition asked the treasury benches some clarification, the leader of the party and the then Chief Minister was not only very arrogant but extremely vulgar in his quip.  There was another incident when a respected lady member was molested inside the legislative assembly by the members of the treasury benches while the chief minister was witnessing the entire episode; she went onto become a chief minister of the state later is a different story altogether.

In one of the Lok Sabha election campaign the then president of the GOP referred to the Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat as "Maut ka Saudagar" clearly indicating that the CM was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Muslims in the communal violence of 2002.  She might have or might not have understood the derogatory usage of the term.  But the usage started the decline in political discourse in the country over the years.

The then Vice President of the GOP taunted the Prime Minister who was earlier Chief Minister of Gujarat as "Khoon ka Dalal" (Agent of blood) in obvious reference to the soldiers getting killed in the border skirmishes. His party leader and a Rajya Sabha MP called the Prime Minister "Neech" again a very derogatory reference.  In the recently concluded election campaign in the states of Gujarat, Karnataka etc. the speakers of the opposition parties were heaping such nonsensical diatribes on the person of the Prime Minister it is better not sully this writing reproducing them.  All of them were lead by the earlier Vice President and now President of the GOP.  His party leader, on a reportedly personal visit to Pakistan was speaking in a meeting with the leaders of that country in a TV debate,  had asked their help to remove the elected prime minister of the country. Can there be anything more treasonous than this?

The Prime Minister had all along kept a studied silence on all these barbs and taunts.  In one of the campaign meetings during the elections to the legislative assembly in Karnataka, even he lost his countenance and warned the opposition party leaders and speakers and reminded them the position regarding the members of the first family of GOP; recounting how the mother son duo are out on bail; telling them explicitly that if he started talking, that would be the end of all political leaders.  Immediately, the leaders of GOP. obviously hurt at the reference to the mother son duo on bail, went to the President of the country to submit a memorandum that the Prime Minister is threatening and abusing the opposition leaders.

What does the above scenario explain to us?  The opposition parties chiefly the GOP and its leaders feel it is their birthright to abuse the leaders of the ruling party and such leaders should take it lying down without retort.  Who gave them this right to abuse and expect no reply?  The continued sycophancy in the GOP has made the members of the first family arrogate to themselves non existent powers under the Sun.  The president of the GOP has openly said that he is ready to be the prime minister, if the party is able to muster enough seats in the next election to parliament. They feel that their family members alone have a right to rule the country.  If any ordinary citizen gets elected to the parliament it is because of their benevolence, is what they feel.  They had been cultivating the media to such an extent that today the media, especially the English one, is totally biased in favour of GOP.

When the Chief of Army Staff voiced his concern in the escalating violence in the border state of J&K and reminded that the army will not be a mute spectator but will reply accordingly, one of the leaders of the GOP described the speech and actions of the COAS as that of a street rowdy.

The GOP went to the SC to demand that the verdict in the Ayodhya land dispute case be pronounced only after the elections to the Lok Sabha completed in 2019.  They had arrogated to themselves such authority and arrogance that they dictated to the CJI on this issue.  The CJI ticked the senior advocate from the GOP off, who had joined as a party to the suit, who was earlier employed as an advocate by one of the parties to the title suit.  The GOP immediately felt slighted and started the work on getting the CJI impeached.  When the petition to impeach the CJI did not even pass muster with the chairman of the Rajya Sabha, they went to the same CJI demanding that the chairman be directed to accept their petition to impeach CJI.  Can there be anything more absurd than this?  This shows that the GOP has been highly arrogant and cornered now losing their sheen.

The loud cackle of murder of democracy in Karnataka heard in the few days post poll-verdict again show the frustration of the GOP in not able to get to the winning post by itself.  Therefore, it cobbled up a post poll alliance with a party,  which it referred to as B Team of BJP in the campaign, promising the leader the post of CM of the state.  Is it not murder of democracy? The governor's action came up for lots of criticism by the leaders of GOP and the vested interests in the media.  After the earlier appointed CM of the state tendered his resignation without a floor test, a la A B Vajpayee in the national parliament in 1996, the governor asked the regional party leader to form the government.  One of the leaders of the GOP referred to the governor as a lap dog of BJP. 

All these go to show that the GOP is getting irritated in being out of power for more than four years now and there is a possibility that despite its attempts to bring all the parties opposed to BJP under one roof, still it may not be able to get back to ruling the country and be all the more powerful once again.  It is a sad state of affairs that the political discourse in the country is going down the drain with all and sundry including the senior leaders and party presidents of GOP speaking ill of elected Prime Minister or the constitutional appointments.  The language used by the parties especially the GOP has lost all its subtlety in the barbs and the attacks are becoming more and more viciously personal than on the policies or the working of the government.  The frustration of the GOP and its leaders is likely to go up in the coming years post the next election to the Lok Sabha, when BJP is likely retain the power, may be with a reduced margin. This portends a scenario where the political discourse may even get lower demeaning the country and its constitutional appointments.  The president of the GOP will do well to stay out of commenting on anything and everything especially about the armed forces as his knowledge of armed forces is next to nothing.  He had openly admitted that he knows nothing about NCC and could not answer the question put before him.  With such knowledge levels about the affairs of the country, heaping abuses on the elected Prime Minister and other constitutional authorities is not in good taste and rankles the common man.