PM's Alleged MCC Violation: Why Opposition Crybabies Should Rebut Him, Not Seek To Gag Him

Even as one waits for the Election Commission of India to decide whether the Prime Minister breached its model code of conduct (MCC) while talking about the Congress manifesto on wealth distribution, we need to ask a more important question: should elections be about freer speech or muzzling people from speaking their minds?

Among other things, Narendra Modi said that the Congress manifesto calls for redistributing wealth, and hinted that this may benefit some minorities and even infiltrators.

If free speech is at all a valuable thing in a democracy, how is a stronger gagging of political parties during election time kosher?

Also, when people can anyway convey what they want to through innuendo and dog whistles, what is the logic in disallowing people from clearly expressing themselves as long as there is no call for violence or intimidation of any segment of people?

Under the MCC, the Election Commission has warned parties against “hate speeches”, when hate speech has not been defined clearly; there can be no caste or religious appeals, when every party plans its campaigns on the basis of caste, religion and ethnicity, and no criticism of individuals can be made on the basis of his or her private life. (Really? What is Donald Trump being prosecuted for in the hush money case right now?)

One is not arguing for a verbal free for all, but issues that concern people may not always be what the Election Commission may want to hear. 

Take, for example, the restriction on caste or religion-based appeals. Now, when demands for quotas and reservations are there in every part of the country, how is this norm ever going to be enforced when the appeals will, in fact, be based on caste?

Also, if one community is worried about adverse demographic change, why is it forbidden to discuss this issue in an election, which is when the demand for enforcing border restrictions will be heard by political parties?

Isn’t the whole of Europe discussing just this: how can immigration from certain geographies be restricted in order to prevent jihadi terrorism?

Hasn’t uncontrolled migration become an issue in the US presidential elections, giving Donald Trump an advantage? On the other hand, in the absence of citizenship proof before voting is helpful to the Democrats.

So, why is it not okay to call out this illegal immigration-based vote distortion, often based on race and religion? In India, we would call this communal politics.

In the past, we have done precisely this (ie, decided citizenship based on ethnicity) in the Assam accord. Here we legally agreed to a cut-off point for detecting and deporting illegal immigrants based largely on ethnic origins.

If Hindus in Kerala and Assam, and also in some districts of West Bengal or Uttar Pradesh, are concerned about their declining numbers, how can you avoid the issue?

More so when some of these new local majorities do not accept coexistence and valid criticism of their religion, and sometimes exercising street power with the war-cry “sar tan se juda”.

When one asks for Hindu temples to be freed from government control, is this a religious issue or a secular issue, since the Constitution is supposedly secular?

Is questioning the extraordinary powers given to wakf boards a communal call, when the rights of other communities are at stake?

Is calling for the removal of the Shahi Idgah in Mathura, and the Gyan Vapi mosque, a communal clarion call, or a call for the restoration of historical rights of the Hindus?

The Election Commission should, instead of clamping down on free speech, should be telling those crybabies from the opposition baying for a ban on Narendra Modi to focus on rebutting his statements rather than demanding a gag on his campaign speeches.

As an aside one must point out that the opposition parties spent the whole of the last five years abusing Modi. Why can't they handle even a few weeks of his verbal aggression? If they can't handle his fire, they should not mind being called crybabies.