Into a battle of ideas, Narendra Modi brings hate speech
The word ‘redistribution’ (or variants thereof) does not appear in the Congress party’s manifesto (Nyay Patra) even once. And yet, Modi seized on it to unleash an ugly and communal hate speech.
The reactions to the Congress party’s election manifesto from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP tell a sad tale of how India’s public discourse has plumbed the depths. Soon after the manifesto was released, PM Modi bizarrely called it a manifesto that had the divisive imprint of the ‘Muslim League’. While that sounded outlandish, the Prime Minister carried on – and in what can only be deemed a clear instance of hate speech, speaking in an election rally in Rajasthan, he claimed that the Congress party was going to snatch away gold (and mangalsutra) from Hindu households and redistribute the wealth among Muslims, ‘infiltrators’ and ‘those who produce more children’. He went on to falsely claim that this was a continuation of the Congress party’s policy articulated by former PM Manmohan Singh in 2006 (what Singh said in reality was that all backward sections of the society, in the interest of equity, should have the first claim on the fruits of development).
This was hardly the first time that the Prime Minister had resorted to crude hate speech. PM Modi is a habitual offender. He also repeatedly lies about everything possible – his own previous campaign promises, the opposition’s agenda, spreading propaganda to demonise minorities, etc. After a decade where Narendra Modi has firmly established himself as a foremost political figure in India, India’s political culture has been damaged irreversibly, and a spirit of healthy debate has all but vanished. Never mind that the Congress party’s manifesto does not even contain the word ‘redistribution’. And it is evident to any serious observer that at no point is Rahul Gandhi suggesting a policy of robbing Amar to pay Anthony, let alone Akbar. What the Congress have articulated in their manifesto is an extension of their theme of ‘welfarism’ which has been their pitch over several elections in recent years.
All is not well with the economy
In March 2024, the World Inequality Database reported that in 2022-23, the share of wealth of the top 1% of India’s population stood at 40%. India’s unequal growth story should be one of grave concern and should invite serious public debate. This also reflects an underlying fragility in the state of our economy. Recent economic data also shows that household savings as well as household consumption have declined, as has private investment. India’s economy is being driven largely by government expenditure in infrastructure. It is worth noting that private investment has not increased despite tax breaks given to corporations.
A 2022 World Bank report, titled “Correcting Course”, using data from Consumer Pyramids Household Survey (CPHS) by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), showed that 5.6 crore people had likely slipped into poverty in 2020-21. Covid19 was perhaps a culmination of economic factors that worsened for the poorest sections of the population that had already been suffering as a result of policies that disproportionately affected the informal sector of the economy.
The BJP’s economic policy has been heavily loaded in favour of loyal oligarchs, which has roundly failed to generate jobs and broad-based economic prosperity. Given this, and also given the Congress party’s ideological proclivities, it was no surprise that their election manifesto for 2024 emphasised equity and social justice. They outline several measures, among them are affirmative action policies that would be designed based on a socio-economic caste census in India.
Much to argue about (civilly)!
Actually, the substance of the Congress party’s manifesto (as well as its diagnosis of what ails India and its causes) aren’t very different this time around from what it was in 2019. Before the last general election, Congress offered a ‘minimum income guarantee’ (called NYAY). Back then too, it was clear that Modinomics had failed – rural wages were depressed, the agriculture sector as a whole was languishing, unemployment was at record levels, etc. The Congress party rightly called for a social welfare agenda to deliver what it called ‘justice’. Five years on, many of the problems with the economy have worsened – 83 crore Indians depend on free rations from the government. Even in 2019, PM Modi and his party members criticised Congress party’s NYAY on the grounds that it amounted to distributing freebies.
The Congress party’s diagnosis is spot on. Crony capitalism is the mainstay of political funding, a lion’s share of which is going to the BJP. But one can justifiably accuse the Congress party of lacking imagination in their conceptualisation of a new economic model for India – what they call the Nav Sankalp Economic Policy. Their emphasis on the socio-economic caste census, which according to the recent CSDS survey is hardly a priority for voters, is not a direct-enough message to the voters. The election manifesto could have aimed at voters as well as key economic players (companies, cooperatives, traders’ associations, exporters, start-ups, gig workers, etc) through a set of coherent and better articulated proposals. Their political opponents, critics and analysts would have challenged these proposals, and a healthy public debate could have ensued. Instead, what we got is hate speech, that has just compounded the ugly communal campaigning tactics of the BJP and the despicable use of the Ram Mandir as a rallying cry.
Public debate in India is now so hollow that no substantive argument is required in an electoral battle, even when the subject of argument is something as important as economic policy. Already, we have a paucity of both reliable data and reliable expertise in India. The campaigns for general elections are supposed to showcase alternate and competing vision statements from different political parties. But the Prime Minister’s remarks this week (and the deafening silence of India’s constitutional watchdogs) were yet another indicator of the complete dominance of a shameful political culture, a core feature of which is a complete disregard for any form of public debate.