Yet another election is on our doorstep, this time the high stakes election in which the BJP and the Congress are battling it out for the fast developing State of Karnataka. The BJP is trying to keep hold of the southern State in a bid to maintain momentum in the run up to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls while the Congress is quite literally battling for survival in a do or die contest that if it wins will help strengthen the party’s standing as a credible contender to the BJP.
Owing to what’s at stake in the elections, unfortunately the political rhetoric is increasingly about caste, community and communal lines and less so a positive campaign by each party about what they plan to do for the voter in general.
In much of North Karnataka the BJP has been running an openly communal campaign promising to protect Hindus from the threats they say the Muslims pose -- a campaign that has been particularly visible in districts like Bijapur, Belgaum, Hubli-Dharwad and less so in other areas. It is not without reason. Running a communal campaign is what brought the BJP to power and made Bombay-Karnataka, giving them no reason to ditch a tried and tested formula that has worked for them so well so far.
Yes, the party does talk about development, bigger roads, more efficient government and better delivery of public services, but that isn’t really the main agenda and it shows.
The Congress has been raking up the reservation issue for historically oppressed communities, in a bid to endear itself to the communities. The party is also trying to woo individual communities and caste groupings to help boost its numbers ahead of the polls.
Wooing communities is a legitimate and ethical tactic. Demonising others is not. However, as political parties and their leaders begin to abandon all means of self-restraint the more intense the contest gets, the worse the rhetoric gets. From openly boasting about changing street and city names, to sneering at the practices of the ‘other’ or triumphantly claiming how a particular party has shown them their ‘place’ has become an all too common theme in the run up to the polls.
It is increasingly clear that with lack of a mechanism of restraint or means to hold politicians to account for their hate speech, the onus is now on the institutions and more importantly to people to not reward hate speech with support in the form of votes.
The success of India as a vibrant democracy lies not only on the strength of its institutions, and safeguards against misuse of power, but also on those in power to not test the limits of democracy and to instead show respect not just for the written law, but for the unwritten rules that will keep our democracy in good stead and not be reduced to a fractious one riddled with community fault lines where deep distrust is sowed between communities.
There is a lot of responsibility riding on the shoulders of those in power. The onus is on them and them alone to work towards strengthening democracy instead of actively trying to kill it from within.
