IS THERE no legal way to stop blatant abusiveness dotting political statements in the country? For, the manner in which Congress President Mr. Mallikarjun Kharge have often been seen crossing limits of decency in his language -- particularly against Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi -- actually calls for a stern action that should send him packing behind the bars. Many other Opposition leaders also are known to indulge in abusiveness every now and then targeting the Prime Minister and other important functionaries of the Government or the ruling combine of National Democratic Alliance and the Bharatiya Janata Party. Some of those people have been known to have used absolutely objectionable and abusive language against the Sanatan Dharma and ancient Indian ideals. A way will have to be found out to stop all this abusiveness so that India’s public discourse become free from filth. This time, Mr. Kharge has dragged the Prime Minister’s father -- who is no more living -- while somebody had dragged his mother’s name while criticising Mr. Narendra Modi.

 

On countless occasions, the Opposition leaders have shouted slogans about digging the Prime Minister’s grave... ! The list of the use of such abusive language is very long -- and is getting longer with passage of time. Because there is no counter-action by the law, the Opposition leaders appear to get bolder with every passing day and heap harder-to-tolerate abuses on the Prime Minister. Is there no method by which such blatant and shameless abusiveness can be stopped ? It is obvious that the Opposition is a frustrated lot -- having failed to counter Mr. Narendra’s Modi’s political smartness and immense popularity in the past 12-plus years of his prime ministership. The Opposition leaders tried every possible trick in their bag to destabilise the Modi Government or even have a “regime change”. With all those tricks having failed, the Opposition is now out of sorts, clueless about how to create an effective counter to the Prime Minister’s unquestionable success on all fronts. Hence their resort to abusive language.

 

What is important, however, is that India’s political discourse is not afflicted by abusiveness. It is pointless to expect the Opposition to learn more civil ways of putting across their point of view. They do not realise that with their filthy, abusive approach, they are only hurting the quality of country’s democratic discourse. Yet, no amount of wise advice would help in making the Opposition leaders change their ways. The best way to counter this abusiveness is to launch innumerable police cases across the country against any Opposition leader who dares to use bad language or bad expression about not just the Prime Minister but also against anybody.

 

Now that Mr. Mallikarjun Kharge has dragged the Prime Minister’s father abusively, thousands of criminal reports must be filed with the Police against him all over the country in the next few days. The Police, too, must be made to take appropriate action based on those reports -- so that Mr. Kharge and others realise what dirty consequences will confront them. There is no problem with dissent in democracy. Each one has his or her right to express opinion that may differ totally with the opinions of others. But this right of free expression does not include any freedom to use abusiveness as a tool. Mr. Kharge has often forgotten this truth -- despite the fact that he is the President of the country’s oldest political party with a glorious tradition.

 

To make things look worse, Mr. Kharge is well into his eighties. When such a senior citizen in a responsible position uses filthy expression, then he cannot be pardoned for being just senile. Mr. Kharge is not senile -- he is abusive with purpose of insulting the Prime Minister beyond the norm of civility. This is not acceptable at all -- to the people and to the law. Of course, the people will teach Mr. Kharge and the Congress many more lessons in electoral politics. But suffice enough it is to state at this point that Mr. Kharge and his party are inviting their own political doom -- which will start showing its ill-effects in the elections to the State legislatures in just a few months.