The Hindu Business Line : Why is political discourse getting vitriolic?

With the pressure and stakes mounting for politicians to be in power their attacks on one another are becoming virulent. This does not bode well for the polity.

Rasheeda Bhagat

As the stakes in running governments at the Centre or in the States have grown, the level of political discourse or verbal exchanges between political rivals has only deteriorated.

In 1996, after the DMK wrested power in Tamil Nadu from the AIADMK, the former party’s chief, Mr M. Karunanidhi, had told this correspondent in an interview how the late MGR, even after they had fallen out and the latter had left the DMK to form the AIADMK, gave him the utmost respect and addressed him by the reverential title ‘Kalaingnar’ whenever they met.

But the AIADMK General Secretary, Ms Jayalalithaa, complained the Mr Karunanidhi would only turn away, whenever they met, either in the Assembly or at any social function.

Indeed, the two leaders have outdone each other in not only avoiding each other at social functions — each will find out when the other is scheduled to make an appearance and studiously avoid that time-frame — but also indulging in personal attacks which is not confined to election campaigns when anyway political rivals pull out all the stops.

With the Tamil Nadu electorate alternating between the DMK and the AIADMK, both the leaders have had ample opportunity not only to exchange all kinds of wild charges but also put each other behind bars.

Mr Karunanidhi’s midnight arrest, and the manner in which it was carried out, was of course the low point of this rivalry, as also the manner in which Ms Jayalalithaa’s footwear was bandied around on a TV channel .

Another practice peculiar to party bosses in Tamil Nadu is that when out of power they do not attend Assembly sessions. Fortunately this time around, as Opposition leader, Ms Jayalalithaa, has made a departure from the practice of turning up once at the House just to sign the register so as not to lose the office of an elected MLA.

YSR’s outburst

While in Tamil Nadu the acrimony between the two leaders has prevailed for long, in the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh the Chief Minister, Dr Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, suddenly lost his cool and indulged in an attack on his bete noir an d chief of the Telugu Desam Party, Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu.

In full glare of TV cameras, Dr Reddy gesticulated wildly at Mr Naidu, in response to the latter’s charge of irregularities and corruption in a mining deal, and said: “I will see to it that you are wiped out of politics… and you will regret the day you came out of your mother’s womb.”

As a Telugu colleague pointed out, in translation into English, the import of the Telugu sentence gets harsher. Still, the very fact that a chief minister should express such a sentiment towards the Opposition leader in a legislature is a telling comment on the depths to which political discourse has sunk.

Within 24 hours of making the comment, Dr Reddy apologised and, as happens in such cases, he went overboard, saying: “I have highest regard for motherhood. His mother is like my mother. I only said that after I expose him he would regret his birth. But if he thinks that I insulted him and passed derogatory remark about his mother, I am tendering an unconditional apology.”

Meanwhile there had been enough drama in the Assembly with the TDP MLAs creating a ruckus over the chief minister’s remarks; they were suspended from the session. Mr Naidu, as expected, made full political capital out of his opponent’s outburst and said that he was so deeply hurt “as he dragged my late mother into the debate,” that he would not attend the rest of the session.

Interestingly, the shoe had been on the other foot in September 2005 when YSR had demanded an apology from the TDP chief for saying that in the election voters had been lured by liquor and money given by the ruling party.

An indignant YSR had thundered: “For nine years, he has been Chief Minister of the State. Is this the way he rewards people for keeping him in power? Who has been caught with liquor and money? Aren’t they mostly TDP leaders? What kind of a leader can allege that people vote for the sake of money or liquor?”

Moving up North, the trading of charges and use of unsavoury language is common when it comes to the battle for the most populous State — Uttar Pradesh.

The Samajwadi Party chief, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, and the Bahujan Samaj Party leader, Ms Mayawati, are constantly slugging it out. Among women politicians Ms Mayawati perhaps uses the harshest language. Though Uma Bharti is well known for her sarcasm and hard-hitting words — usually reserved for Mr Mulayam Singh — she has faded from both public memory and political importance.

But after her recent victory in the UP Assembly polls, it was vitriol of another variety that Ms Mayawati reserved for Mr Mulayam Singh.

Mayawati-speak

When asked by mediapersons whether she would probe corruption charges against him and his family and “punish” him as she had vowed in her election campaign, without raising her voice, and smiling, she said: “Ab marey hu ey aadmi ko mujhe kya maarna hai? The public has already punished him with their votes, why should I punish him any further?”

At least on the day of victory, which was hers despite the entire media, pollsters and politic analysts not having forecast any such possibility, Ms Mayawati was well composed.

She was aware that getting a clear majority for her party was nothing short of a feat; after all for 14 long years no one party has won absolute majority in UP, but her criticism of the media for not seeing the wave in favour of the BSP was sarcastic rather than shrill.

On persistent questioning if she had seen such a sweep coming, she replied: “You media people have been asking me, ‘Bahenji, give us some time’, and I thought why should I disturb you? After all, you are already pu tting out all sorts of stories about me and my party, without my help. You were putting out assessments about how the parties would fare, and who would form the next government and I thought why bother you with my thoughts, why disturb you?”

But how long will high-strung politicians such as Ms Mayawati stick to such subdued language is anybody’s guess. An attack on her in the UP Assembly by Mr Mulayam Singh might yet bring out vintage Mayawati salvos.

On the gender front, unfortunately, our women politicians can give their male counterparts a run for their money when it comes to personal attacks, in tones that are shriller, and sometimes in language that should find no place in political discourse.
Response may be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in

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