Amit Kushari (IAS Retd.)
The state and Parliament elections have now really come very close. The state elections in 5 states is only 3 weeks away and the Parliament elections are likely to start after 4 months from now. The whole country is now in an election mood and the media, both print and visual have gone into election mode. All the big leaders at the state and national levels have started addressing massive election rallies in every corner of the country and these are being beamed to the entire population by the television channels. Now almost every Indian comes to know immediately which leader has said what. It is almost like a daily door to door campaigning by all the leaders. Technological advances have brought all the leaders to our doorsteps. The leaders of the earlier generations did not have this advantage.
Our leaders must realise that this advantage must be coupled with additional responsibilities also. The standard of the speeches should be such that a certain decent standard should be maintained and the leaders should not pass derogatory comments about their political adversaries. In the recent past we saw responsible Union Ministers, like Kapil Sibal and Manish Tiwari stooping very low to find fault unnecessarily with speeches of Narendra Modi. They alleged that Narendra Modi did not study History and Geography properly in his school because he had said in his speech that the people of Bihar gave us universities like Nalanda and Taxila and that Alexander had to retreat from the bank of the Ganges because of the bravery and sacrifices of the people of UP and Bihar . The learned Kapil Sibal commented arrogantly,” He does not even know that Taxila is located in Pakistan and not in Bihar. He does not know that Alexander retreated from the river Sutluj in Punjab and not from the banks of the Ganges in UP and Bihar. He must have studied in some Saraswati Vidya Mandir!” Mr. Sibal is the son of a well to do father and had studied in a good English medium school of Delhi and the elite St. Stephens college of Delhi and so he mocks the education received by Shri Narendra Modi in a Hindi medium school, being the son of a poor tea vendor. Mr. Sibal forgets that in speeches quite often some factual inaccuracies do occur inadvertently and one should not take any exaggerated notice of these minor lapses. The audience will surely ignore these things and appreciate the sincerity of the orator. Shri Manish Tiwari and Shri Digvijay Singh also make mean, biased and derogatory statements on a daily basis, little realising that these comments only boost the image of their opponents. One good thing about Rahul Gandhi is that he does not call anyone names and that certainly is his big plus point.His speeches show that he is as sincere as Narendra Modi is although he lacks depth in politics and administration, perhaps because of his young age and lack of political and administrative experience. Even a widely admired leader like Narendra Modi some times makes inappropriate comments in his speech. He should never have called Dr. Manmohan Singh,”Night chowkidaar”, or he should not have called Rahul Gandhi,”Shehzada”. How would he like it if Rahul Gandhi called him ,”Laadla puttar” of RSS? Narendra Modi must remember that he is the most probable future Prime Minister of India and he should maintain the strictest code of propriety and decency as Nehru, Vajpayee and Indira Gandhi did.
In the states the language used against each other is even more abominable. In Bengal the Communists don’t miss a single opportunity to abuse Miss Mamata Bannerjee who had destroyed their 35 year old citadel of power. I heard a Communist leader saying in his speech, “Mamata does not like the red colour of the Communists because she could never get a pinch of red sindoor in her whole life,” mocking Mamata for not getting married. This is another example of shameless incursion into the personal lives of opponents . A minister of Mamata also said,”I don’t want our supporters to have any social relations with Communists. Do not ever dine or drink tea with the Communists.”
We Indians are generally abusive and foul mouthed in our personal lives also when personal interests are affected. Perhaps this mentality is getting reflected in our political lives also.
Feedback to the author at 09748635185 or amitkus@hotmail.com
The author is former Financial Commissioner, J&K
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