Democracies thrive through their electoral processes. However, it should be questioned how democratic elections sometimes result in authoritarian regimes. In India, the argument can be made that representative democracy is driven by majoritarianism. This happens when the majority of the population believes that they are entitled to primacy in society, that is often encouraged by the ruling government.
This claim can be illustrated by analysing various speeches given by Yogi Adityanath during the Uttar Pradesh state elections in March 2022. The campaigning started well in advance, with the incumbent Chief Minister travelling to all districts of the state to conduct rallies.
Discourse is a critical part of democracy. The manner in which political parties conduct themselves during elections highlights the characteristics of its democratic institution. Uttar Pradesh is India’s largest state. In 2017, the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP)-led government came to power with a striking majority, and Yogi Adityanath was elected the Chief Minister. As Adityanath claimed to be a saffron-clad monk, religious contentions were sparked.
MAFIA, TERRORISTS, RIOTERS, AND BAJRANG BALI
Through his speeches, Adityanath established a “truth” about his opposition. From the beginning, he referred to the opposition as mafia, terrorists, rioters, and gangsters. There was no proof to substantiate these claims. Adityanath often defined his reign as full of peace and harmony, attempting to contrast it with that of his opposition. The “terrorist” term was used to create a pseudo-reality. Adityanath claimed that all disruptions to public order are terrorist activities and that the opposition parties were responsible for them. Political debates between the ruling party and the opposition are needed in a healthy democracy. However, the recent elections introduced the dangerous practice in India of invoking terrorism when describing a political opponent. Similar name-calling was picked up by other parties in other state elections too. Therefore, the political language in India degenerated. This discourse amongst leaders crumbled the mutual respect and code of conduct that a democracy ought to have.
TARGETING OF THE MINORITY COMMUNITY
Interestingly, the use of the term “terrorist” did not end here. Senior BJP leaders, including the Home Minister of the country, took this terrorist accusation further by attaching it specifically to Muslim identities. For example, in the district of Muradabad on 30 December 2021, Home Minister Amit Shah said that “Nizam” (which is an Urdu word for governance by a Muslim leader) under the opposition party denoted “N for Nasimuddin,” “I for Imran Masood,” “ZA for Azam Khan,” and “M for Mukhtar Ansari”. This statement showcases careful association of each letter with the names of problematic Muslim leaders from opposition parties. Irrespective of the merits of cases against these politicians, the careful use of only Muslim leaders gave terrorism a communal identity. The above example uses Urdu anecdotes to hint towards Muslim alienation. Soon, the facade of subtlety was dropped, and Adityanath started giving blatant statements terming the opposition parties as followers of Ali (The Prophet of Islam) and his party as a follower of Bajrang Bali (Hindu God). Adityanath gave such speeches to show voters that one should not vote for the opposition because they follow the Muslim faith.
In another incident, Adityanath said that this election is between 80% of the population versus 20% of the population. This statement was widely criticised, as roughly 20% of the state’s population is Muslim. It indicated that all non-Muslims will vote for BJP and the Muslims will vote for the opposition. Adityanath later clarified that the statement was not intended to be taken in a religious context, although he had initially said that the 20% are those who opposed the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and sympathise with terrorists.
THE CONSTRUCTION OF LORD RAM’S TEMPLE
The Ram Temple or the Ram Janmabhoomi movement has been a huge issue in India. A movement began in the 1990s where a mosque, which was built under the Mughal emperor Babur, was said to be made after demolition of a temple of Lord Ram. Very little archaeological proof was attached to this claim. Richard Eaton and many other scholars, have argued that religious site desecration was a common practice amongst monarchs to assert power over the population. However, historical analysis by scholars was dismissed. A call for rebuilding the temple in place of the mosque was raised by the Hindu religious organisation, Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, and its political wing, that is the BJP. The movement was highly politicised and led to a massacre of Muslims in the state of Gujarat, leading to 1,000 deaths in the year 2002. The current Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, was the Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat at that time. This politicised issue was finally put to rest through a battle in court recently under the reign of Adityanath and the conflicted land was allotted for building of the temple. In the context of the violence, the temple signifies the brutal killing of Muslims and an attack on the Muslim faith. Irrespective of these connotations, Adityanath celebrates and raises this incident repeatedly in his speeches.
Through his speeches, Adityanath collectivises the interests of Hindus by referring to the Ram Temple. He says that any community opposing the temple is an antithesis to the interest of the “nation,” and he calls them terrorist sympathisers. His speeches built a narrative that completely ignored the massacre of Muslim in the riots. Referring to his previous electoral victory, Adityanath said in Ayodhya in November 2021, that, those who fired at pro-temple workers (that is Hindus) have bowed before your (Hindu voters) will and that is the power of the people and democracy in India. Cleverly, Adityanath created a common victimhood of Hindus and muted the trauma of the Muslims. The temple was crucially presented as a symbol of Adityanath’s successful term and India’s democracy.
Drawing upon this victimhood, Indian courts have recently been swamped by aggrieved Hindus raising petitions that the mosque in their area was built after demolition of a temple. This list includes historical monuments such as the Taj Mahal and Qutub Minar.
THE BULLDOZER
In Adityanath's speeches, the bulldozer was often projected as a symbol of “alternate justice”. He glorified the way in which the UP government had demolished houses of “suspected” criminals using bulldozers. He often said, “If you think that government bulldozers should always be running against the mafia and criminals, then the BJP is necessary”. Here, using the terms mafia and criminals is a jab at the opposition, and by extension towards the minority community as well. Similarly, the actual meanings of these statements can often be deduced by looking at statements by other BJP Members of Legislative Assemblies as well. For example, T. Raja Singh once said that the “Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh will identify areas where people are voting against the BJP in large numbers and will bulldoze them once the party returns to power”. The effect is inducing fear and manipulating the voters’ choices.
This bulldozer gained massive traction during UP elections and, in retrospect, seems to be a part of a greater scheme now. In the aftermath of communal attacks in April 2022, houses belonging to Muslims were demolished by bulldozers in various states in India as punishment for “supposedly” pelting stones. The houses were demolished without any investigation. Since then, it has emerged as a practice in most states in India. Therefore, the speech references do not seem like a coincidence as the bulldozer emerged a symbol of oppression against the minority.
WHAT DID THIS POLITICAL DISCOURSE LEAD TO?
In totality, every single speech by Adityanath called the opposition terrorists, used Urdu terms and Muslim names for them, blamed them for crimes against Hindus, accused them of Muslim appeasement, and termed Muslim interests as against the interests of Hindus and vis a vis the nation. For a country which is constitutionally secular, these aspects of Adityanath’s speeches highlight the blatant shift in political discourse in India.
This does not mean that other parties did not indulge in a similar practice. On the one hand, they called out BJP’s communal banter, but on the other they caught up by performing Hindu rituals before campaigns. The motivations for indulging in religious rituals can be nuanced, but the documentation of this shift is important because it marks a different realm of religious appeasement in Indian politics. The leaders have mastered the art of innuendos, which saved them from warnings by the election commission. Muslims were not blatantly named, however their realities were completely ignored, and Urdu was used to attack them. Out of 403 seats, the BJP came back to power with 255 seats. Therefore, the majoritarian tactics of the Adityanath-led government were successful in swaying voters. It is not being argued that all voters in the state of Uttar Pradesh voted solely for their religion. They could have been influenced by the government’s performance in other socio-economic sectors. However, the role of such blatant communal hatred in driving votes in favour of Yogi Adityanath cannot be denied, and his successful win raises questions on what the majority of the population was listening to. Retrospectively, the hateful language of these speeches have managed to forge a threatening reality for the Muslims in India just two months after the elections.
Shubhangi is a research journalist at New Delhi Television Ltd (NDTV). She is also pursuing her master's in Modern Indian Studies at University of Göttingen, Germany.