Questions about rhetoric

Political speech in India is short on substance. That must change

The Mumbai attacks engendered an outpouring of anger and disappointment about our political class. At the same time, elections were taking place in six states across the country, including in Jammu and Kashmir. And the politicians in the country were out campaigning in these states 8212; from local candidates to national leaders.nbsp;What were they saying?

We tried to analyse some of the election speeches of politicians. We accessed about two dozen speeches of representatives of major political parties, delivered in Rajasthan and Delhi. As can be expected, there was a definite increase in references to terrorism in the speeches that followed the Mumbai attack. This was especially true of speeches by state-level leaders and national leaders. Beyond that, there were four broad categories into which we tried to classify the text of the speeches. The first was with regard to projecting past performance, whether by the incumbent or by the opposition, when they were in power. Most speeches referred to past performance in very broad and generic terms: claims that the electricity situation or water situation had improved were made. There were hardly any specific references, to exactly how many more houses were electrified or by how much the power cuts had declined. If the politicians assume that the Indian voter is illiterate and cannot grasp numbers, they are clearly out of sync. One particular specific reference stuck out: 8220;We have spent Rs 160 crore on improving 40 temples8230;8221; How is it that these specific kinds of statistics were not widely discussed in election speeches talking about issues such as health, education and unemployment? Worse still, how is it that the opposition seems incapable of targeting governments beyond broad generalities? An actual count of the number of words in these speeches shows that less than 6 per cent of the words were used on projecting past performance.

The second category was attacks on the past performance of the incumbent and the opposition when they were in power. Just over 2 per cent of the words spoken focussed on attacking the record of the opposition in specific terms. The third aspect of our analysis focused on the nature of future policy or promises that our politicians were making. In the speeches that we have analysed there is almost no specific commitment to any outcome, except in very general terms. The effort to make future promises were also limited, with just about 2 per cent of the words spoken used to make promises to people.

Either most politicians have not the vaguest idea about what specific outcomes they will guarantee once in office, or they think it is not important to communicate these to people in their election rallies. If one were to think of an election rally as one of the ways to communicate the party8217;s priorities as outlined in their manifestos, our politicians are mostly doing a poor job of it.

Thus we are left with rhetoric. Indeed, our politicians, barring a few exceptions, liberally used political rhetoric. Almost 85 per cent of the spoken word was rhetoric.nbsp;

A section of people in India have been enamoured of President-elect Barack Obama8217;s election speeches and debates. A look at some of his speeches points to a number of specific references to policy measures that he would take as President. 8220;8230; I will give American businesses a 3,000 tax credit for every job they create right here in the United States of America. We8217;ll create two million new jobs by rebuilding our crumbling roads, and bridges, and schools, and by laying broadband lines to reach every corner of the country. And I will invest 15 billion a year in renewable sources of energy to create five million new energy jobs over the next decade.8221;

In other democracies, promises not kept will be closely watched, gaffes while quoting statistics in election speeches will be carefully scrutinised and immediately criticised. Systematic tracking of the omissions and commissions of our politicians is a critical necessity for improving political accountability in India. We have fallen into the inexcusable habit of expecting less from our politicians. And it does not take a rocket scientist to tell us that low expectations breed poor performance. Translating the disappointment with the current political class into concrete action requires us to think about ensuring accountability, and holding our politicians to a higher standard.

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The writer is based in New Delhi and studies political accountability

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