Shoot 146;em up

Off with their heads 8212; BJP President Rajnath Singh told party workers at a rally in Madhya Pradesh that anyone who waves the Pakistani flag or says Pakistan Zindabad should be gunned down. And if that wasn8217;t enough shoot-shoot-bang-bang oratory, Singh thundered, 8220;There were terror strikes when the NDA was in power, but we shot dead all terrorists.8221; When leading politicians resort to hate-speech at this level, how can we expect any better from those who rampage through libraries and terrorise minorities?

And it8217;s not a matter of electorally expedient tough talk 8212; but unfortunately, it is characteristic of a worldview that casts all matters in its own stark palette, and a rhetoric that rejects all nuance as just so much noise distracting from the signal. Recall George W. Bush in his axis-of-evil days, vowing to stamp out terror, unabashedly employing a vocabulary of goodness and evil that made the rest of the world cringe. Politicians like Rajnath Singh fall back on the same simplifications, whether it is about fortifying our security or about the Kashmir situation 8212; a case study in complexity, if there was any 8212; and lower the discourse in dangerous ways.

Even as they seek to batter the government over contentious issues, opposition leaders like Singh cannot suspend the rules of public life. Rajnath Singh is the president of one of India8217;s largest national parties 8212; he is supposed to provide responsible stewardship and set out the terms of rational disagreement with the current government, not threaten to shoot down what offends his eye. The death of any human being, even one of proven culpability, is a sombre, tragic and ethically fraught thing. To make it a point of triumphalist swagger reveals a chilling lack of ordinary human sensitivity. Politicians might switch codes with ease as they try to mobilise every strand of support, but this kind of language is indefensible.