Flavour of Election 2009: Hate speech

Across the country, and, indeed, cutting across party lines, politicians are grabbing media headlines by spewing venom; some giving communally charged speeches while others are simply shooting their mouths. And promptly each time their opponents have complained to the EC and filed FIRs.

Updated on: Apr 7, 2009, 23:03:05 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

Bijli, sadak and paani are passé. In Elections 2009, hate speeches are ruling the roost.

Across the country — and, indeed, cutting across party lines — politicians are grabbing media headlines by spewing venom; some giving communally charged speeches while others are simply shooting their mouths. And promptly each time their opponents have complained to the EC and filed FIRs.

The latest such instance was that of both complaint and FIR being lodged against Railway Minister Lalu Prasad on Tuesday, for saying he would have crushed Varun Gandhi under a road roller for his anti Muslim remarks had he been union home minister.

The man who began it all was BJP’s Pilibhit candidate Varun Gandhi, but his example has proved contagious. In early March he allegedly delivered a series of speeches in Pilibhit which included offensive remarks against Muslims.

The virus has spread so much, and so quickly, that the EC on Tuesday warned leaders to be cautious while making speeches.

Hate campaigns, however, are not new in Indian politics. Shiv Sena boss Bal Thackeray was de-franchised for a hate speech he made in 1987. But, Jagdeep Chokar of National Election Watch, a body of 1,200 NGOs monitoring candidates, said people have become more sensitive towards attempts by political leaders to spread hatred to garner votes. And such awareness has resulted in prompt action by the EC.

But the commission still lacks teeth to competitively tackle hate speeches. Unless there is a law vested with the commission enabling it to debar a candidate found guilty of hate speech, said Supreme Court lawyer Rajiv Dhawan, preventing it would be difficult.

The commission was not able to debar Varun from contesting, though it found him guilty of spreading communal hatred. It only issued an advisory to the party to not nominate him from the constituency.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Check India news real-time updates, latest news on Hindustan Times and more across India.