SC is right: Onus on politicians to refrain from weaponising religion

The 2024 Lok Sabha election campaign witnessed a desperate game of political brinkmanship, where the leading political lights, both from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress-led Opposition INDIA bloc, weaponised the country’s diversity with their divisive political speeches. On Monday, the Supreme Court brought the trend into sharper focus when it admonished Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu over his allegations that animal fat was used in the preparation of Tirupati laddoos during the previous YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) government in the southern state.

The apex court observed Mr Naidu should have “kept the gods away from politics”, especially when a probe is underway and when test reports available in the public domain did not prima facie indicate the use of animal fat in the laddoos. But the Supreme Court’s timely observations on an issue linked to deeply religious beliefs of millions of Hindus are unlikely to die down soon. The controversy has added grist to the longstanding Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) demand to free temples from government control, for which it has now announced a nationwide campaign. The controversy has coincided, probably not altogether fortuitously, with the ongoing Assembly polls in Haryana and Jammu & Kashmir, and those in Maharashtra and Jharkhand round the corner.

It has almost become par for the course for political leaders to raise the communal temperature, and resort to hate speeches and religious and casteist slurs with elections on the anvil. The very first point in the Election Commission of India’s (ECI’s) Model Code of Conduct states: “No party or candidate shall include in any activity which may aggravate existing differences or create mutual hatred or cause tension between different castes and communities, religious or linguistic.” It goes on to say that “there shall be no appeal to caste or communal feelings for securing votes” and “mosques, churches, temples or other places of worship shall not be used as a forum for election propaganda”. Section 123 (3) of the Representation of People Act (RPA), 1951, terms seeking votes on the basis of religion, race, caste, community, or language a corrupt electoral practice. According to Section 8 (A) of the RPA, a person found guilty of corrupt practices can be disqualified from contesting elections or voting in any election for six years.

But as evident from the 2024 Lok Sabha election campaign, many political leaders from almost all ideological hues honoured the model code of conduct and RPA tenets more in the breach. Over the years, the judiciary and the ECI have tried, but largely failed, to check dog-whistle politics. A famous instance of the ECI exercising its authority was in the late 1980s, when Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray was disenfranchised for six years on account of hate speech. In the recent Lok Sabha polls, when the ECI received complaints against leading politicians for their alleged divisive speeches, it shot off notices not to them but to their party chiefs, arguing that political parties will have to take primary responsibility for the conduct of their candidates, star campaigners in particular. The ECI received flak for its tentativeness, but the episode also underlines that the primary responsibility of ensuring that India’s plural democracy does not get more vitiated lies more with its leading politicians than any judicial or quasi-judicial authority.