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So says Soz

So says Soz

Author: Editorial
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: April 23, 2007
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/story/29071.html

Introduction: Water minister's UP poll remark is almost typical of him and of a larger political malady

When a Union minister, in the course of an election campaign, tells a section of voters that they would be committing a "crime" if they vote for a contending party in the fray, it is quite frankly a scandal. Saifuddin Soz, made such a statement last weekend in Uttar Pradesh asking the Muslim community not to vote for the Samajwadi Party. He needs to be told that his party is fighting an election in UP, not a war. As a senior politician and Union minister, Soz should have been mindful of the limits and boundaries of acceptable political rhetoric. You don't need to consult the Election Commission's Code of Conduct to know that he was transgressing.

Of course, when it comes to political propriety, Soz has an unhappy record to live down. There he was last year, playing to the gallery again. Then, in the middle of a polarised debate over the raising of the height of the Narmada dam, the Union water resources minister publicly recommended that work on the Narmada dam be stopped - even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was still seized of the issue. The principle of collective responsibility was cast aside then. Healthy conventions of political competition are trampled over now.

But unfortunately, Soz's remark may be part of a larger syndrome that all too often overtakes other politicians and parties as well. Political antagonisms take on an unhealthy pallor as politicians pit one community against another during elections and hope to reap the rewards of the ensuing polarisation. This is bad news for a democracy that had set for itself the ambition of not just accommodating diversity but also nurturing it. The founding idea of India, it has been said, was not to banish conflict but to construct a safe house for it. Statements like the one Soz made in UP betray an us-and-them mindset that does grave violence to the spacious large-hearted political project that is India.


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