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NOT for the first time, a section of our political class has resorted to abhorrent language and hate speech in an effort to shore up its voter base, polarize the electorate and thus, influence the course of elections. When Feroze Varun Gandhi, novice politician and first-time candidate to the constituency of Pilibhit in UP, launched into a diatribe against the Muslim community, he probably felt he was only echoing what he believes are widely-held sentiments, not the least in his party.

Little surprise that, in the face of ensuring public criticism and outrage (including, fortunately, from sections within his own party), he has so far refused to be contrite, far less admit to the error of his ways. Instead, he seems to favour an aggressive defence, claiming a conspiracy to doctor the evidence available against him. Evidently, unlike the Election Commission, which for once has acted swiftly and directed the district administration to charge him under Sections 153A and 188 of the IPC as also Section 125 of the Representation of People’s Act, all non-bailable offences which can lead to imprisonment upto three years and debarment from elections, he feels he can get away, just as many other worthies similarly charged have.

If so, it would be a great tragedy, a further regression from the norm, at least formally accepted by all parties, of secularism and inclusiveness and of ‘not promoting communal disharmony’. Varun Gandhi may today be in the eye of the storm because of his family name and legacy, which like any politician he is keen to encash. But, if the allegations are proved true, he should not be permitted to escape unscathed because he has crossed a Laxman Rekha. For far too long, far too many of us have remained far too tolerant and accommodating of the intolerant amongst us. In so doing we not only debilitate our public culture, we demean ourselves and our civilizational legacy.

Many may argue that ‘too much’ is being made of words, albeit intemperate, made in the ‘heat of battle’, and that they are being read ‘out of context’. We will be reminded that Pilibhit is a border constituency whose religious demographics have changed, in part due to the recent delimitation exercise but equally because the ‘border’ is seen as ‘porus’ enabling inflow of unsavoury elements, thereby creating an altered social context which demands a strong response. This is specious, if not dangerous, thinking. Any license to a view, even if tacitly endorsed, classifying a section of our populace as ‘lesser people and citizens’, and thus deserving of a differential treatment, can only enhance social discord.

Equally, the argument that others too have used (and continue to do so) similar language against sections of the populace – Narendra Modi, Bal Thackeray against Muslims; SIMI and IM ideologues against all non-Muslims; Mayawati in an earlier incarnation against Hindu upper castes; Raj Thackeray against North Indians; the Congress campaign in 1984 against the Sikhs, and the list goes on – is hardly justification for somnolence. If at all, these instances of the past should remind us of the consequent costs of our inaction.

It is one of the less edifying aspects of Indian public life that the powerful – not just the political but equally elements in the officialdom and corporate strata – have come to believe that they no longer need be restrained in public behaviour and action by either social sanction or fear of law. They believe they stand apart and above the common citizenry.

We cannot always live in the hope of resurrecting a Gandhi or other stellar leaders of the national movement who could exercise sufficient moral authority to intervene and cool social passions even in the most charged of times. Who can forget a Gandhi in Noakhali or a Nehru charging into the midst of rioters in Delhi in 1947? Or the Mahatma’s indefinite fast to pressure the nascent Indian government, post- Partition, to repatriate the monies owed to Pakistan, a country with which we were in conflict.

Fortunately today, a growing section of the youth and middle class, aided by an independent media and new communication technologies, can access a wider range of information and views as also act on what it accepts as important and non-negotiable. Measures like the Right to Information enable us to be better informed about official thinking and action, as also hold the powerful to account. The presence of independent and autonomous actors like the Election Commission, alongside the recent laws governing political behaviour offer new sites of engagement, all increasingly activised today.

That is why one can feel somewhat more optimistic that our civil society and other institutional actors will take a cue from their compatriots across the borders – the lawyers’ movement in Pakistan, to take a case in point – and join the battle for a tolerant and inclusive society. We owe it to ourselves.

Harsh Sethi