How does one then make sense of a political milieu which is stoutly batting for India on foreign soil but throws bouncers at each other at home with no cohesion or decorum?
It has taken a horrific terror attack and an 87-hour-long military operation against Pakistan for India’s right-wing trolls to confer a certificate of ‘nationalism’ to the Hyderabad MP and AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi. For years, Owaisi’s strident politics was demonised by the BJP as representing ‘anti-national’ sentiment. Wearing his distinct religious identity on his sherwani made him an ‘enemy’ figure for those whose politics revolves around ‘othering’ the Indian Muslim. Today, the same Owaisi is being feted as a ‘patriot’ for aggressively espousing India’s case on Pakistan-based terrorism in global fora. The articulate Hyderabad MP’s politics haven’t changed: he has on several previous occasions also taken on Pakistan and the ‘two nation’ theory, only his over-sized image as a staunch Indian Muslim opponent of the BJP meant that he is easily typecast as an advocate of narrow Muslim interests and little else. This is no image makeover, only a reflection of a post-Pahalgam political environment which remains divisive and hyper-partisan at home but united and consensual abroad.
Take also Home Minister Amit Shah’s recent remarks in West Bengal where he accused the Mamata Banerjee government of ‘vote bank politics’ over Operation Sindoor. The Trinamool Congress, like most Opposition parties, has been mostly supportive of the Modi government on the ‘war’ with Pakistan. While Shah was addressing BJP workers in Kolkata, the TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee was spewing fire against Pakistan’s Army state as part of an all-party delegation in East Asia. And yet, with elections in Bengal less than a year away, the Home Minister’s rabble rousing speech was designed to sound the election bugle.
Look also at the chaotic state of the Congress party, India’s principal Opposition. Soon after Pahalgam, the party announced that it would ‘fully support’ any action taken by the Modi government to protect the country’s ‘national interest’. And yet, when the party’s four-time Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor endorses Operation Sindoor, he is instantly branded by local Congress leaders as having become the ‘super-spokesperson’ of the BJP. While an eloquent Tharoor in Washington DC, leading another all-party delegation, refutes the charge that US President Donald Trump pushed India to agree to a ceasefire, Rahul Gandhi at a party rally in Bhopal accuses the Prime Minister of having ‘surrendered’ to the White House occupant. The confusion within its ranks is only glaringly apparent in the conflicting voices.
Switch now to the BJP, India’s dominant party of power. When Operation Sindoor was launched, the party’s official social media handle released a video lampooning the Congress while accusing Dr Manmohan Singh of being a ‘weak’ prime minister who they claimed failed the country after 26/11. Strangely, its voluble MP Nishikant Dubey is part of an all-party team abroad but that hasn’t stopped him from putting out a series of acerbic tweets accusing Congress prime ministers dating back to Jawaharlal Nehru of ‘selling’ India’s interests.
How does one then make sense of a political milieu which is stoutly batting for India on foreign soil but throws bouncers at each other at home with no cohesion or decorum? Firstly, the blame must lie with the principal stakeholders, in this instance, the Prime Minister and the leader of the Opposition. Forget about mutual respect, Prime Minister Modi and Rahul Gandhi seem to have utter contempt for each other. The Prime Minister has spared no opportunity in denigrating the Gandhi family, often in the most coarse language. The Congress leader in turn has been equally scornful of Modi, almost as if the latter has no right to occupy the prime ministerial chair. When leaders respond to each other in such crude terms, how does one expect the followers to be any different?
Secondly, there is an institutional atrophying that makes it increasingly difficult to ensure a measure of democratic accountability. Take for example the institution of Parliament which in the past decade has been reduced to a notice-board by the ruling party. There has been little or no attempt made by government lawmakers to engage in a meaningful dialogue with the Opposition on key issues. Bills are rammed through, discussions are cut short, contentious issues are disallowed. When a debate is sought on Chinese intrusions, it is instantly refused. When an all-party meeting is called to discuss Operation Sindoor, the Prime Minister doesn’t even attend it. Now, when a special session is demanded on the post-Pahalgam situation, the government ignores the plea. When debate is strangulated, democracy is weakened.
Thirdly, there is the partisan role being played by a large section of the media which must be placed under the scanner. When the media becomes a loudspeaker of the government and shuts out or relentlessly interrogates the Opposition, then there is scarcely a level-playing field in the national conversation. On Operation Sindoor too, there has been little or no attempt by the media to raise inconvenient questions of the government even while routinely amplifying state propaganda. Is it any surprise then that the Chief of Defence Staff ended up admitting to Indian jet losses to a foreign media network in Singapore and not to a home audience? When domestic media credibility is strained, it creates an information vacuum that works against public interest: the public has a right to know, not be kept in a dark tunnel of disinformation.
Finally, one key reason for the divisive nature of domestic politics is the pernicious influence of social media. This is the first India-Pakistan conflict in the age of social media, a noxious chamber of lies and abuse with no rules or filters to ensure even a semblance of due diligence or decency in public discourse. In this free-for-all whirl, there is ample space for extreme voices to get traction while expressions of moderation and nuance are increasingly marginalised.
Soundbites are craftily edited, reels go viral, tweet wars and loud name-calling debates are par for the course: who wants sense when sensation takes over? Domestic politics has become almost performative, playing to this media gallery where noise matters more than news in a post-truth society.
No surprise then that any hope for dialogue (samvaad) in our politics has gradually receded. Operation Sindoor may have united our leaders in salubrious foreign climes, on home turf we remain as bruisingly divided as ever.
Post-script: One Opposition MP who was part of the all-party delegation confided that he found his fellow BJP MP ‘a rather nice person’. “She looks at me with hostility in Parliament but on the flight she was rather pleasant to talk to!” Maybe a few more all party visits might help break the ice further!
(Rajdeep Sardesai is a senior journalist and author.)
