Had Mahatma Gandhi been alive he would have been aghast to see the horrifying spectacle of Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking votes for his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and poisoning the purity of electoral process by vilifying Muslims as infiltrators and spewing venom against them.
Gandhi would have recalled his article “A Plea For Purity,” published in Young India on November 4, 1926 in the context of elections organised then for legislature. Some of those contesting to get elected wrote to him that the electoral process got vitiated by statements and actions of several candidates in poll fray and they desperately wanted a “clean and fair fight”.
Purity of elections and attainment of Swaraj
It is indeed instructive to recall that the article, authored by Gandhi ninety eight years ago pointing out the problems gravely affecting the conduct of free and fair elections and his earnest appeal to all political parties to adopt just methods while canvassing for votes. He wrote that the problems to which his attention was drawn by several candidates were presented “ for the serious consideration of workers all over India who are taking part in the elections, no matter to what party they belong” and appealed them to realise “…that without purity of public life, swaraj is an impossibility”.
Appealing to sub-communal passions for votes
He extracted the problems from a letter of a candidate who wrote to Gandhi that his agents played false, they attributed to him virtues which he did not recognise in himself and his opponents condemned him to vice he never had been guilty of. Exasperated by those charges, the candidate expressed his earnest desire, for what he called, a “clean and a fair fight” and sincerely asked Gandhi, “Can you show a way out or will you simply say that Council-going is wrong and I must retire?”
The other complaint Gandhi received “referred to candidates and their supporters appeal to sub-communal passions.” The words used to underline the “appeal to sub-communal passions” in 1926 for votes are now playing out in 2024 in the utterances of Prime Minister Modi who is relentlessly invoking “sub-communal passions” in to target Muslims and communalise electoral process for electoral gains in total disregard of the Constitution, law and morality.
Gandhi reproduced a para of that complaint which stated, “Hindu and Muslim divisions we have, but now we have an appeal to provincial and caste jealousies and passions, that is to say, voters are asked to vote for men belonging to their own province or to their own castes and trades, and not for their intrinsic worth.”
Another complaint which Gandhi received stated that the practice of bribery badly affected the elections and some were so brazen-faced that they acted as agents and had no compunction to champion any policy jettisoning all morals.
Reasons behind the loss of purity of electoral process
Gandhi wrote with sensitivity, “When people were thoroughly apathetic and only a few men were interested in running elections and running associations, impurities remained underground”. “Now that a large body of people are taking part in these public matters,” he sharply observed, “the impurities which were hidden are coming to the surface”.
However, he, while acknowledging that the impurities were not superficial, and were there in the whole body itself hoped that things were not so bad, the body remained sound and the problems and maladies represented only isolated cases. He appealed to Congress workers to uphold the creed that required them to work for the attainment of swaraj by peaceful and legitimate means and “….realise that without purity of public life, swaraj is an impossibility.”
Gandhi would have appealed to the ECI
In 1926, Gandhi appealed to political parties contesting elections to uphold purity of public life for attainment of Swaraj. He would have appealed to the Election Commission of India (ECI) in 1924 to conduct free and fair election and uphold its purity. Specifically he would have asserted that the ECI must not spare any candidate in the poll fray including Prime Minister Modi for so brazenly asking for votes in the name of religion by contravening the Model Code of Conduct and the Representation of People’s Act 1951 which prohibits employment of religion for seeking the mandate of people. Tragically the ECI is yet to rein in the prime minister who continues to vilify Muslims and use religion with impunity while asking the voters to vote and support the BJP.
Gandhi’s appeal to vote for those upholding Hindu-Muslim unity
Slightly more than a year earlier on March 22, 1925, while addressing a public meeting in Madras (now Chennai) Gandhi dealt with a question concerning the duty of the voters in the election that was to be held for the Legislative Council. He replied that the voter should vote for a candidate after scanning his profile and getting persuaded that he upheld the ideal of unity among Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Parsis and all other religious groupings.
That vision of the father of our nation along with his appeal for purity of electoral process constitute a categorical imperative to salvage India from those who are out to negate the ideals of free and fair elections.
S.N. Sahu served as Officer on Special Duty to President of India
