Almost all exit polls at the end of voting in the country’s 16th general elections on Monday handed a handsome victory to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial nominee and three-time Gujarat chief minister, Narendra Modi. They have also predicted for the Congress Party and such allies as it still has in the United Progressive Alliance, not just defeat, but a thorough drubbing.
This seems in sync with the public mood. Yet it will be unfair and wrong to discuss the post-election scenario at this stage. For the margin of error in exit polls in the past has varied from 10 to 30 per cent. Until the official declaration of election results on Friday, restraint would be the best policy.
However, the interval must be used to draw attention to the terrible consequences of what has unquestionably been the foulest election campaign in this country since it embarked on elections on the basis of adult suffrage in 1952. The worst of these is the most dangerous polarisation of India since the ‘90s, when the combat between the votaries of Mandal and Mandir respectively led to the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992 and to the serial bombings in Bombay (now Mumbai) in March 1993, to say nothing about the senseless slaughter elsewhere. Travelling in Germany then, I was asked by several German friends and colleagues: “Has India Gone Mad?”
Sadly, a similar situation has been created again because of reprehensible attempts, for the sake of garnering votes, to create intense communal rivalry on purely religious grounds. In Uttar Pradesh, for instance, there have been a large number of communal riots in recent times. Those in Muzaffarnagar and adjoining districts in September last were so vicious that victims of the clashes preferred to languish in camps to going back to their homes because of fear for their lives. The Samajwadi Party that rules UP and claims to be a great upholder of secularism shut down the camps and drove the inmates out.
It was in such a tense atmosphere that Amit Shah, Modi’s Man Friday, advised a particular community’s sufferers to “take revenge” on their tormentors. Around the same time, the BJP ‘honoured’ at a special rally, two of its members accused of inciting and taking part in the communal killing. So did the ruling SP, whose men had also promoted communal carnage and were charged with the same offence.
Even this paled compared with what followed. Giriraj Singh, a senior BJP leader in Bihar, as also a candidate in the parliamentary election, repeatedly declared: “Whoever tries to stop Modi is a Pakistan-lover. There will soon be no place for such people in India. They must all go to Pakistan.” The BJP president, Rajnath Singh, contented himself with “completely disassociating” the party with the other Singh’s statement. Modi, enviably eloquent on every subject at his all-too frequent rallies, maintained silence on the subject of forcing millions of Indian to migrate to Pakistan for many days. Only when Hindutva hotheads elsewhere started making equally offensive remarks, did he break his silence to “disapprove” such “petty and “irresponsible” statements.
How potentially explosive this situation is should be obvious from the reactions to it in the sensitive state of Jammu and Kashmir, that is ruled by a coalition of the J&K National Conference and the Congress Party. Omar Abdullah, chief minister of the state, declared that he would “rather go to Pakistan than stop opposing Modi”. And he added, for good measure, that he would do so “across the LoC” without having to go to Delhi.
His father and Union minister, Farooq Abdullah, went so far as to say that Kashmir “would not be a part of communal India.” This is only one side of the deeply distressing story. The other is the prescription of Abu Azmi, a leader of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party, that any Muslim who does not vote for his party “is not a real Muslim and his DNA should be tested.” The horror is that there was absolutely no horror among those heading the party of either Giriraj Singh or Abu Azmi, who are the two sides of the same coin.
In his book, An Unrecorded Wonder, a fine biography of the Indian electoral machine, the Election Commission, that has ensured free and fair elections, despite many roadblocks, S Y Quraishi has recorded that the “quaint expression” booth-capturing is not being heard any longer. Sadly, it has suddenly reappeared during the latest poll. However, incorrigible goons from outside haven’t forcibly taken over booths now. The allegation, particularly in West Bengal and UP, is that the booths were taken over “non-violently” by officials of the state government on election duty. It was that elections were rigged for the benefit of the ruling party of the state.
As for West Bengal, it is being said that the usual pattern of violence between the Communist Party of India (Marxist) that ruled the state for three decades running and the Trinamool Congress Party of the present chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, has been repeated. However, there were two differences this time. First, apart from stones, lathis and knives, even guns were used. Secondly, and more importantly, the roles of two sides seem to have been reversed. Marxist leaders have been crying hoarse that they repeatedly appealed to the EC, but to no avail. Unfortunately, the EC has drawn criticism from other sources, too. The BJP has accused it of double standards by favouring the Congress. The situation worsened when one of the two election commissioners publicly criticised the Chief Election Commissioner. Such a situation should be avoided in future to maintain the integrity of the Indian elections.
The paramount task, however, is that new government and other political parties must first get rid of the dangerous polarisation I have drawn attention to. There can be neither development nor governance if the country is overtaken by lawlessness.
Inder Malhotra
