Chennai: Justice N. Kirubakaran on Wednesday deprecated the growing practice of rival politicians indulging in ‘hate politics’ and warned that this could lead to social unrest unless the leaders arrest the dangerous trend. Highlighting the importance of responsible leadership for democracy to function well, the judge said the leaders of all parties should “exhibit restraint, decorum, decency, etc in criticising other parties and leaders and their speeches and actions should be model for others, including the cadres, and be hallmarks of democracy”.
The judge was expressing his anguish after dismissing a ‘hate’ petition from an AIADMK functionary in Kanyakumari district seeking action against DMK treasurer M. K. Stalin for staying in a PWD bungalow during his campaign in the 2014 Lok Sabha poll. It turned out that the DMK leader had stayed in that building for just 20 minutes, perhaps to ease himself or for a short rest.
Justice Kirubakaran stressed that political parties “can be opposing parties but not inimical parties”. But then, such animosity “is being cultivated, totally losing sight that they represent people’s cause”.
If a ruling party loses the elections, the outgoing chief minister neither participates in the official swearing-in function of the new government nor participates in the newly constituted assembly and discharges the democratic duty, even though he or she is elected as MLA. “It is very unfortunate that the leaders neither exchange pleasantries nor participate together in any function including official functions. The cadres, taking cue from the conduct of their leaders, also exhibit similar adversarial reaction”, the judge said.
“Days of Rajaji-Periyar, Kamaraj-Anna, healthy politics had gone by and adversarial atmosphere has come into existence right from 70s in Tamil Nadu. It is very common in the meetings of political parties, broad attacks are being made personally abusing opposition party leaders using intemperate, disrespectful and inappropriate language in derogatory manner which an ordinary man cannot even imagine. The sad part of it is that the attacks are being made in the presence of top leaders who also seem to enjoy the offensive remarks/allegations made against opposition leaders”, Justice Kirubakaran said, adding that “majority parties” are now “governed by dynasty”.
He also called upon the Election Commission to monitor the conduct of political parties and leaders against such abuse of democratic values and take action, which would go a long way to prevent unhealthy politics. Justice Kirubakaran also recalled one ‘heartening’ exception to this trend of hate politics. When a derogatory article against the then chief minister (Jayalalithaa) was posted on Sri Lankan government’s defence ministry website in July 2014, all the political leaders unanimously condemned that, leading to Colombo withdrawing the article and tendering apology to the Prime Minister of India and TN CM. “This court hopes that this trend continues forever”.
