The quality of discourse in Indian democracy has been climbing steadily downhill for a while. From the erudition of Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, B.R. Ambedkar and even, before Partition, M.A. Jinnah, it has been a precipitous fall.
There can be several arguments about these leaders, but they were all men who lived by a certain code. Now, unfortunately, a high degree of cunning and a low level of intellect is what we are left with. The terms of political discourse have turned uncivil and unparliamentary.
Gujarat CM Narendra Modi’s recent reference to Sunanda Pushkar, wife of newly re-appointed Union minister Shashi Tharoor, is the latest example of such cheap talk. It little behoves a chief minister reputed to have national ambitions to talk like a street tough about a minister’s wife. But then Mr Modi has been accused of far greater crimes than mere impropriety. For the past decade, he has lived with accusations that he orchestrated mass murder. These accusations seem to have made little difference to Mr Modi or his political prospects. His party, the BJP, simply turns around and asks what action was taken against leaders believed to be behind the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, who are still in the Congress.
It may be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. But for ordinary citizens, the real tragedy is that we are left only with these blackened and empty vessels.