Why our politicians love hate speeches
There is a deluge of hate speeches in this General Election. Politicians are saying nasty bits about one another with elan and impunity. FIRs are being filed and complaints are forwarded to the poll panel every other day.
There is a deluge of hate speeches in this General Election. Politicians are saying nasty bits about one another with elan and impunity. FIRs are being filed and complaints are forwarded to the poll panel every other day.
There is no denying that almost every political party has been having blabbermouths, known for frequently shooting off from the hip and moving on with brazenness. The practice has its reason in history. A few young ladies in Victorian England would vouch for a chaperone with a spiteful tongue. The advantages, they argued, were many. While your foes never went without their well-deserved due; in case of doting friends, they could quickly and conveniently be disowned.
Surprisingly, the current spate of hate speeches is not restricted to point persons. The grime is being spewed also by people not known hitherto to have talent for the job.
Why?
What makes our leaders resort to a language abhorred even in squalor and voice sentiments for rivals not fit to be used even for enemy soldiers in a war?
They have nothing to say
In its poll campaign, the Congress's list of achievements, which is shorter than the numerous scams that have hit the UPA government's 10-year-rule, has taken a backseat. The poll rhetoric instead focuses on the 2002 Gujarat riots and Modi's communal image. Rahul Gandhi sleepwalking over his patented women empowerment, RTI and MGNREGA speeches is not helping the party's case either.
The BJP seems to have struck upon the philosopher's stone for all problems of the country. For everything from corruption to development to women safety, there is one panacea for all ailments: Narendra Modi. The party's manifesto which came later than even Godot left all wanting for more. Instead of being the Modi's blueprint for development, it was no different than the party's earlier manifestoes and was conveniently cornered by the party as "not being the final word".
They are not being heard
Local problems have long served as the tools of leaders to connect with people. But that seems to have been overdone and lost its utility. Hundreds of children have been dying of an unknown mystery fever in Gorakhpur, suspected by a few to be a type of Japanese Encephalitis, every year for five decades now. People in Bundelkhand region have been facing acute water crisis in summer months ever since Independence. Farmers in Vidarbha have been committing suicide every year since it was first brought to notice by journalist P Sainath in the early 1990s. The hunger deaths in the poorest K-B-K (Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput) region in Odisha, the Cauveri water dispute between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and the cancer deaths resulting from overuse of chemical pesticides and fertilizers in Malwa region of Punjab.
These problems have remained where they were over decades. The political leaders can dare not make a mention of them in electoral promises anymore. The local connect is all but gone.
A reflection of this is the trend of preferring outsiders to locals as candidates in the polls.
Shock if you cannot surprise
In their exasperation over the loss of the local connect, they are perhaps trying to shock voters in an attempt to seek their attention. This is a raw manifestation of the frustration our political class suffers right now.
And mind you, the solution is not in reinventing the rhetoric as much as it is reinventing the politics itself.
The time is running out.