Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, May 4, 2024

Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, May 4, 2024

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to be leading the show and outshining all with his hateful & divisive speeches in the 2024 national election campaign. Starting with his speech on April 21 at Banswada, Rajasthan where he expressly named ‘the Muslims’ alluding to them as infiltrators and as ones who produce more children and making wildly misleading claims on the opposition Congress party [1] came in for widespread criticism in society and by all opposition parties. The opposition and civil society complained about the speech to the Election Commission of India (ECI) which should have taken action for violations under the Representation of People Act, 1951, Sec 153A & 505(2) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Model Code of Conduct. No action was taken by ECI and It even declined comment. Inaction by the ECI has brought much discredit to the institution. When Mr Usman Gani, a leader of the Rajasthan unit of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), also the president of the BJP Bikaner minority cell expressed dismay over the speech of the Prime Minister he was expelled from his party. A week later Mr Gani was arrested [2] under preventive arrest provisions on charges of breach of peace. It was naively thought by many that since the Banswada speech came in for such wide criticism there may be course correction by Prime Minister Modi, the star campaigner of the BJP. Since then Mr Modi has delivered multiple campaign speeches at diverse locations April 22, Aligarh [3], April 23, Tonk-Sawai Madhopur [4], April 24, Sagar [5], April 24, Surguja [6], April 24, Betul [7], April 25, Agra [8], April 25, Morena [9], April 25, Aonla [10] practically all of them are on the same violent wave-length where India’s largest Minority group —the Muslim community is targeted and cooked up facts are served about the Congress Party, all opposition parties. Till 2014 such overtly ‘Communal’ and hateful language was the preserve of junior-level hardliners inside the BJP or extremist groups associated with the RSS family, outside the BJP but that fringe discourse has now become normalised. The language of senior BJP leaders Mr Narendra Modi and even his deputy Mr Amit Shah or Yogi Adityanath, the Chief Minister of BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh seems to be getting closer to Hindutva hardliners T Raja Singh, Yati Naraginghanand, Pragya Thakur and others. This will give confidence to hardliners to cross the remaining red lines. [11] Readers must recall the violent language of speeches made at religious parliaments, in the city of Haridwar, Uttrakhand, and at Raipur, Chhattisgarh, where saints and holy men representing Hindu sects, took allegiance to oaths “to annihilate the Muslims and Christians to protect Hinduism”. After two consecutive terms of 2014, 2019, ‘power’ seems to have has gone to the head of senior leaders of the BJP and they seem to be exceeding all limits in their language and actions not compatible with a secular democracy. Recent events from two BJP-ruled states point at ‘unfair practices’ in the election process — in Surat, Gujarat all eight opposition candidates standing against a BJP candidate for the Parliamentary election, withdrew from the race, leaving the lone BJP candidate being declared elected. Subsequently in another BJP-ruled state of Madhya Pradesh, in Indore the Congress candidate the main opponent against the ruling BJP backed out of the election and then announced he was joining the BJP [12]. Now new reports [13] are pointing at Gandhinagar in Gujarat, the parliamentary constituency of senior BJP leader and India’s home minister Amit Shah, where some 16 people have withdrawn their candidatures from the electoral race. The ECI must investigate any wrongdoing if there is arm-twisting, bribery, or pressure from the Police or arms of the state, but alas, the expectations are running low with the currently tame ECI. The opposition and civil society groups must continue to point out wherever they suspect unfair practices and convey their message to the independent media, and to the electorate to take note.

May 4, 2024 —HK