In a different, pre-live television time, this writer had occasion to cover many an election rally. Then, as much as now, the public meeting was the best way for a candidate to reach out to the masses, except that in contemporary times parties can also use television and social media to spread the message wider. Yet there is nothing like the buzz of a fiery speech to thousands of people who often sit for hours to listen to a leader making a pitch for his party.
One particular worthy in Mumbai used to attract massive crowds to his public meetings. He was a fine orator and knew that he had to keep his message simple — he delivered bite-sized quotes instead of long, complex arguments that his faithful followers lapped up. His one unique characteristic was crudity — his one-liners were literally below the belt and cringe worthy. I often wondered how the women in the audience must have felt.
But, as mentioned, these were pre-hyper media times and those speeches, once made, vanished from public record, since no newspaper would ever be able to print any of those comments. Imagine the nightly outrage had television cameras been present at those meetings.
Today, politicians and others cannot escape 24x7 scrutiny of everything they say, everything they do. Even if there are no news cameras, someone will whip out a cellphone and record a speech, a comment, a bit of bad behaviour. Indeed, it is quite probable that rivals plant people in the crowd with this precise objective.
The presence of a captive and potentially excitable audience gets speakers worked up and often they lose their sense of judgement. They want not just to speak of lofty policy matters, but also to amuse the janta and this leads to making statements that they would have otherwise desisted from making. Imagine a leader, in front of a rustic crowd in a far away village in the middle of nowhere — he is bound to slip into colloquial and use phrases that are familiar to his constituents. A day or two later a video of his speech leaks out and is shown on some channel or the other. The result? Instant outrage and anger. Lest one thinks that the speaker is an innocent caught due to no fault of his, far from it — he knew what he was saying but never in his wildest dreams did he think that a stray remark or two made in the sticks would be on national television.
Imran Masood, the Congress candidate in Saharanpur must be thinking just that. He had given a speech some eight months ago (when he was with the Samajwadi Party) warning that Narendra Modi would be “chopped to pieces” if he tried to convert Uttar Pradesh into Gujarat (presumably meaning if he tried to stoke communal trouble.) This kind of remark under any circumstances is unacceptable and Mr Masood cannot get away with it. He claims that he was using local lingo implying “we will show Modi”, but to even an untrained ear, it sounds like a threat. Mr Masood has gone too far, but this was inevitable after the rising pitch of the past few months. The BJP, happily pointing fingers at Mr Masood cannot get away so easily after its own prime ministerial candidate has been going around the country with some seriously underhand comments about his political rivals.
Mr Modi and his speech writers may be chuckling at their wit by calling A.K. Antony and AK-49 (a reference to Arvind Kejriwal) helpful to Pakistan, but does this suit someone who hopes to be Prime Minister of the country a few weeks later. Is this the kind of speech he will make at an international summit, with a pun here and a cheap shot there?
Most parties (the Left is an honourable exception, as are a few other leaders) are guilty of this type of misbehaviour and often, when one sees their spokespersons battle it out on the television screen one can only be amused at their complete shamelessness. The difference is, some parties at least try and drum up some embarrassment and criticise their members for having used unparliamentary language. But there are others who will brazen it out and defend their leaders no matter what. That is where the difference lies.
It seems to be a hopeless situation. The nightly battles on television are but a reflection of the larger reality, that today, only extreme positions, shouted as loudly as possible, with no respect for a rival or another point of view, are the only way to put across a message. A civil discussion is simply not possible; soon enough these deteriorate into a shouting match. If this kind of thing happens in Parliament, what hope is there in the heat of an election campaign? Nor is this limited to politicians — Baba Ramdev, for example, has been going around the country using the foulest language and we know where his sympathies lie. Sundry yogis and maulanas make incendiary speeches. Minority bashing goes on unabated. The troubling part is that no one seems to be able to take any action — yes, Mr Masood has been arrested, but that is an exception rather than the rule.
But going too far can rebound. Sonia Gandhi’s “Maut ka Saudagar” comment rebounded badly and undoubtedly, many a Modi supporter, who is backing him for his so-called development agenda, must be squirming at some of his speeches. Mr Kejriwal got a lot of sympathy when he was attacked as a Pakistani agent — some of it may even translate into votes.
Will politicians take a step back and tone down the rhetoric and personal attacks? Highly unlikely, given how polarising this election is — the real worry is that even after the elections are over, such behaviour will become the norm in our public life.
