India shouting and we?re all ears!

Choose a reason if you may-One for protest, another for education, one for declaration and another for rights plus several others for several other things. No, this is not about books relating to Political Science but the ?art? of-slogan shouting!

Choose a reason if you may-One for protest, another for education, one for declaration and another for rights plus several others for several other things. No, this is not about books relating to Political Science but the ‘art’ of-slogan shouting!

HT Image

Political parties are known to employ creative slogan-writers who have the knack of firing the janta’s imagination, playing on their emotion and garnering er… the support.

But slogan-shouting, like the country's economy, has evolved over the past six decades.

Actually speaking, from the mild, gentlemanly ‘Simon go back’ we went to the belligerent ‘Tilak, taraju aur talwar…’. The arrogance has surely gone up.

It was Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi who sparked the genre with slogan-shouting figuring in his non-violent arsenal. Those were the days in Gujarat (post Sabarmati-violence) of ‘Hatya nahi narsanhar hai, Hinduon ki har hai’ and similar slogans that led to riots. Religion was always a keystone in coining of the slogans. So, while it was once the motif for uniting the country, it was also used for dividing the country as well. Sample: ‘Hati nahi Ganesh hai, Brahma Vishnu Mahesh hai’! From national to regional to local, at all levels, these slogans became more and more dominant in the post-Independence era.

But slogans are of no consistent emotion. They can be used to lash out at someone and then, with changing situations, praise the same person. For instance, Indira Gandhi was bitterly criticised openly with ‘Kha gayi shakkar pee gayee telm ye dheko Indira ka khel’ and was eulogised and immortalised in public memory with ‘Jab tak suraj chand rahega Indira ji ka nam rahega’ and ‘Ma beta ka yeh balidan yad karega Hindustan’ after the assassinations of the mother and son.

Listening up slogans is like listening to handful of shell-littered sand. You get everything. From criticising the government (Congress Party against the Jan Sangh (earlier BJP) in the early 50s: Is diye me tel nahi, sarkar badalna khoi khel nahi') to the government supporting peace in conjuction with its international policies like (During 1960s: ‘Hindi Chinee Bhai Bhai’) But those were the times when Indira Gandhi was called the ‘Goongi gudia’ both within and outside Parliament.

Corruption has been the ever-populars idea to spark slogans. Check (Janta Party) ‘Sadi gali sarkar ko eik dhakka aur do’ and (Bofors scam) ‘Brashtachar ka bhai hai top dalali khai hai’. Then, there were the pure language skill slogans like during the General Elections of 1989 when major prominent leaders left Congress and joined Janta Dal it was ‘Desh ka bal, Janta Dal’.

By the 1990s, the slogan mania was in full swing. There were the ones with both regional and national appeal like ‘VP ke zamena me Rubi phash gayi thane mein’ and some slogans that changed the fate of Uttar Pradesh were ‘Bhajpa ke teen sapoot Atal Adavni Ramdoot’, ‘Ram lehar’ etc. In 1993, when SP allied with BSP it was, ‘Milay Mulayam Kanshi Ram, hava me udh gaya Jai Shri Ram’ and ‘UP ki majburi hai Mayawati zaruri hai’. The slogan given by Congress ‘Tum hame vote do, hum tumhey pyaz denge’ was popular during the 1995 Delhi elections due to the incredible rise in the prices of onions. Congress won the elections convincingly. The slogan ‘Raj tilak ki karo tayaree, abki bari Atal Bihari’ and ‘Sabko dekha bar bar, humko dekho eik bar’ brought the ‘Party with the difference’ prominently on the national political scene. Playing on public sentiment, whether it is by using the current economic crisis or picking up a hit Bollywood jingle or movie or dialogue has also been the finesse of slogan-shouting.

So, from ‘Feel good factor’ to the jingoistic Generation X ‘India Shining’, slogan-shouting has come into its own, indeed!We look forward to more.