What are the current Indian elections about? About an “endangered” majority, misdeeds of the “anti-nationals” colluding with a minority, a Pakistan threatened with nuclear war, a Congress Prime Minister travelling by an aircraft-carrier in 1988, and other past events!
These elections are not about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s false promise of economic nirvana. They are not about the disastrous policy decisions taken by him, a record rise in unemployment and falling economic growth rate. They are not about rural distress and farmers’ suicides.
Language and civility are two prime victims of this vicious poll campaign. Hate speech makes a minority cower even as a vast section of the majority is made to feel insecure and besieged. Many Hindus, driven by religious fervour and nationalism, have come to support a “muscular” messiah who crushes their external and internal enemies! Their feeling, magnified many times by the slavish TV channels, newspapers and social media, gives an aura of invincibility to Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is seeking re-election after having run a presidential-style government in a parliamentary democracy.
