BackNarendra Modi has to lift India’s political discourse
The BJP's alacrity in finding the foreign hand in domestic opposition forces is reminiscent of the 1970s
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The Gujarat election campaign has been ugly, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has escalated the bitterness in his speeches. Sharp verbal sparring has long been a feature of Indian politics, but Modi has crossed a red line by insinuating that his political rivals are working against India’s national interest. His remarks do not do justice to the constitutional position he holds.
The opposition has also called Modi ugly names. Few will forget Sonia Gandhi’s unacceptable maut ka saudagar (merchant of death) remark. Mani Shankar Aiyar is a serial offender—and his most recent remark is part of a pattern. Tej Pratap Yadav of the Rashtriya Janata Dal crossed all boundaries of decency when he threatened to skin Modi alive. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may argue that Modi is merely giving it back, but the prime minister of the country has to adhere to higher standards of conduct than others.
First, Modi has tried to link three seemingly unconnected events: 1) an unverified Twitter handle purportedly belonging to Sardar Arshad Rafiq, former director general of the Pakistan army, calling for the Congress’ Ahmed Patel to be made Gujarat’s chief minister; 2) a meeting at Aiyar’s residence featuring a former Pakistan foreign minister, the current high commissioner of Pakistan, along with former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh, former Indian vice-president Hamid Ansari, a former Indian Army chief and a few former Indian diplomats; and 3) Aiyar insulting the Prime Minister by calling him a “neech kisam ka aadmi (a low-level kind of person)" a day after this meeting. The undertone is clear: Modi is effectively accusing those present at the meeting, including Singh and Ansari, of treason. Coming from the Prime Minister, not a BJP spokesperson, this is unacceptable.
If the Prime Minister has evidence that the meeting at Aiyar’s residence was in any way linked to the Gujarat election, he should place it in the public domain and prosecute those present at the meeting. But if Modi has no evidence, he should stop building false narratives. Among those present at the meeting, respected names such as former army chief Deepak Kapoor and former top diplomat Chinmaya Gharekhan, have already clarified that the Gujarat election did not figure even remotely in the discussions. A visiting delegation from Pakistan is free to meet India’s opposition politicians and former officers as long as the discussions are not intended to destabilize Indian democracy. The Prime Minister should not milk such routine meetings for electoral purposes.
Second, Modi also brought up the issue of the Congress party’s Rahul Gandhi meeting the Chinese ambassador, Luo Zhaohui, at the peak of the Dokalam standoff. It is true that the Congress had goofed up by first denying the meeting and later admitting it took place. However, as a prominent representative of the opposition bench, Gandhi was perfectly within his rights to meet Luo. And once he had acknowledged it, the issue was over. It was completely unnecessary on Modi’s part to raise this irrelevant matter in the Gujarat election campaign.
Third, Modi used a public rally to ask former prime minister Singh why he did not use the option of surgical strikes against Pakistan after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks in 2008. This newspaper supported Modi’s decision to launch surgical strikes against Pakistan in September 2016. And it is definitely open to debate whether Singh’s decision not to retaliate after 26/11 was a wise one (we had then argued for a “muscular response"). But not only is the issue old, it is again irrelevant to the Gujarat election. In the context of other remarks Modi has been making, it seems as if he is trying to look for ulterior motives for Singh’s decision not to retaliate against Pakistan.
In response to Modi’s charges—especially the first one, of a conspiracy angle in the meeting at Aiyar’s residence—Singh has released a furious statement pointing to his five decades of service to the nation. Modi, or for that matter anyone, is allowed to critically evaluate Singh’s contributions to the country, but his patriotism should certainly not be under the scanner. As the serving prime minister, Modi should appreciate the constraints under which Singh and other people in India’s highest political office have operated in the past.
The political discourse in India is plumbing new depths one election campaign after another. No party has a clean record, and the BJP has actively contributed to the degeneration. In the Bihar election campaign of 2015, for example, BJP president Amit Shah said his party’s loss would be celebrated by the bursting of firecrackers in Pakistan. In another instance, Union home minister Rajnath Singh relied on a tweet by a fake handle to allege that the student protests at Jawaharlal Nehru University were backed by Hafiz Saeed, the chief of terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba. The BJP’s alacrity in finding a foreign hand in domestic opposition forces is reminiscent of the 1970s, when Indira Gandhi was prime minister.
It is often argued that Modi and Shah prefer to go in all guns blazing during elections—and that their actual conduct is far more restrained. For example, on Twitter, Modi recently wished Sonia Gandhi on her birthday and congratulated Rahul Gandhi on his new role in the Congress. However, accusations made for temporary electoral reasons have lingering social effects in our partisan times. The Prime Minister should realize that no election victory is worth undermining the quality of Indian democracy.
Should Narendra Modi withdraw his remarks against former prime minister Manmohan Singh? Tell us at views@livemint.com
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