Dirt is the demand de jour of the War of 2014. More than campaign dust, mud flies; splattering the starched campaign costumes of political leaders battling it out for India’s 16th Parliament along the scuzzy backstreets of India’s tawdry hamlets and towns, smoky industrial outreaches and the glittering highways of swanky cities. For the first time since 1951, issues are not the issue in Indian elections, abuse is. Dirty tricks abound, dirty words even more. The government plans to embarrass its saffron tormentor and premier rival, Narendra Modi, by setting up a retired judge to snoop into Snoopgate—the alleged obsessive surveillance of a young woman architect by the Narendra Modi government. Holograms are not the only electronic weapons in this election: a video of Modi with Fatta, an alleged hawala leader, and photo leaks of Digvijaya Singh and a friend took the debate down to despicably demagogic depths.
The arsenal of adjectives is most employed in the scrimmage between Narendra Modi and the BJP versus the Gandhis and the Congress. The surprise of the season is the pleasant, ever smiling Priyanka Gandhi turning into a verbal tigress: she called the BJP panicked rats; referring to Snoopgate and Modi’s 56-inch chest comment, she insisted that a large heart was what is needed instead. In response to Modi’s derisive ‘shehazada’ tag for Rahul, the Congress labeled Modi a ‘sahebzada’. They also accused him of being a “serial liar.” Salman Khurshid had already faced censure from his own party for running Modi down as a ‘napumsak’. Jibes at Modi’s long estranged wife—“If he can’t look after his wife, how can he look after the nation?”—crossed all boundaries of public propriety. Modi is the prime target across parties. UP politicos have threatened to chop NaMo into little pieces, called him a “large dog” and warned Muslims that he will burn them with acid.
The Alchemy of Abuse
In Karnataka, the Congress called Modi a “mass murderer.” Meanwhile, the Gandhi dynasty gets its share of expletives from the South to the North. Delhi Congress Lok Sabha candidate Meenakshi Lekhi linked Sonia’s family with Italian dictator Mussolini. Read More