In India, to become a successful politician, you need to master the art of oration. You need to be able to hook the audience on your speech and persuade them in your favour. All great politicians of India have been great orators. Since speech is such an important component of politics, it is a good idea to take a break and carefully analyse it.
Two thousand years ago Aristotle tried to answer the question on how to get something that one wants by merely using words. He came up with the ‘Treatise on Rhetoric’. In this he described three types of persuasive speech. The one we are concerned with is ‘Deliberative Rhetoric’, which tries to judge what impact any action would have on a society. To make it effective, there are three steps involved.
The first is ‘Ethos’. This is when you convince the audience of your credibility. The speakers will often try to present themselves as having no personal stake in the situation. Narendra Modi declaring himself as a chowkidar (watchman of the country) is his way of convincing the audience that he is not motivated by personal gain to stay in power.
The second step is ‘Logos’, in which logic is used to win support for one’s argument. Data is presented in a factual manner to make it look like the gospel truth. It can be used to manipulate the public using false information. Rahul Gandhi unveiled the Nyuntam Aay Yojana (NYAY) scheme as Congress party’s surgical strike on poverty. Whether it will actually be effective in poverty alleviation or not is yet to be confirmed. The party has backed it with data and a plan of action which looks very credible and may actually help it garner votes.
The third is ‘Pathos’. This is a method of appealing directly to the emotions of the audience. At a recent rally in West Bengal, Amit Shah claimed that India was in danger because a lot of illegal migrants had come into the country and that BJP, if voted to power, will evict them. He went on to mention two minorities while leaving the rest unmentioned. Given where Shah was at the time, he was appealing to those voters that believe that Mamata Banerjee has given a large number of illegal migrants of Islamic faith from Bangladesh asylum in West Bengal to groom itself a vote bank. Shah’s claim is not backed by credible facts.
People often forget the power of mass media. Manipulated information can give a politician the edge they need to win the election. A political speech combined with Ethos, Logos and Pathos is a very dangerous tool. It can have far reaching consequences which will not get subdued as the poll fever will after the elections are over.
In these times, it is a voters duty to not get swayed by such rhetoric. Any outrageous claim cannot be taken at its face value. Such rhetoric only deepens the social fault lines in our societies.
