In an interview to discuss and analyse the two and a half month long election campaign that ended at 5 pm on May 30 evening, historian, novelist and columnist, Mukul Kesavan has said “it was a communal and divisive campaign”. He says India emerges from the campaign as a “majoritarian democracy” which identifies itself on the basis of excluding rather than including people.
Speaking specifically about Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the speeches and comments he’s made, Kesavan said he “sees himself as a Hindu God King” and, at another point, called him “the grandmaster of majoritarian division”.
Kesavan spoke at length about the prime minister’s description of Indian Muslims, who are fellow citizens, as infiltrators (ghusapaithiya) and people who have more children than others. He said the use of the word ghusapaithiyon by the prime minister suggests he sees Muslims as “alien”, “outsiders” and “not one of us”.
Kesavan also spoke critically of Rahul Gandhi’s use of the word “chamchi” to refer to the television anchor Rubika Liyaquat. Liyaquat was the anchor to whom Modi alleged his birth was not biological. Kesavan said it would have been preferable if Gandhi had not personalised his comment and instead referred to Liyaquat as one of many sycophantic anchors that seem to proliferate in Indian television journalism.
The interview also covered how the Election Commission acquitted itself as referee, whether the Commission lacks the courage and even integrity to take tough decisions about Modi, and how the media handled the campaign and, in particular, interviews with the prime minister.
Finally, the interview raises questions about whether the campaign lived up to India’s boast of being the world’s biggest democracy, whether issues that really matter to the people were raised or whether they were circumvented by talk of mangalsutras, mutton, the Ram temple, Pakistan and Modi’s alleged immaculate conception.
Finally, Kesavan compared the majoritarian and targeted nature of the 2024 campaign to the campaign of 1984 that followed Indira Gandhi’s assassination and the Sikh pogrom of the time.
