Opinion | Indian election campaigns have made hate speech and the politics of division the new normal
- Politicians trading barbs at election time in the early 2000s has evolved into a vicious stridency in public discourse, even among ordinary Indians, that hinges on identity politics, fuelled by the right-wing vision of India as a Hindu nation
The first rule of the Election Commission of India’s model code of conduct for political parties is “no party or candidate shall include in any activity which may aggravate existing differences or create mutual hatred or cause tension between different castes and communities, religious or linguistic”. In other words, no hate speech.
However, identity is the lowest-hanging fruit for politicians because an Indian’s identity swings between religion, caste, place of birth and language. Communal rhetoric during elections revives the centuries-old schisms that democracy has been unable to heal.
Thus, election campaigns in India often focus on protecting or re-establishing community identity or on fomenting fear of its loss. While politicians in the 2019 national elections have not been sparing in their bigoted rhetoric, there has always been some caste and communal hate-mongering during elections.
During the 2011 India Against Corruption movement, ordinary citizens began vilifying politicians, especially those in government. Soon, BJP politicians and their sympathisers were attacking those opposed to their sectarian ideology, labelling them “presstitutes”, “libtards” and “anti-nationals”.
