Ritual of political rhetoric

ASHA SARANGI

ELECTIONS in India are times to exercise the power of rhetoric by political parties and
their leaders. Over the years rhetoric, ‘an art of persuasion and reasoning’ as Aristotle
defined it, has become a legitimate political practice. Political campaigns in India since
the early seventies have been visibly dominated by uses of rhetorical language and
discourse that try to establish an electoral communicative order. In their quest for
exercising communicative power within the political system, the competing political
representatives of political parties engage intensely in manufacturing forms of language
to identify and share the worldview of the electorate.

However, there is an implicit meaning-system working within this communicative order

as manifested in the use of rhetorical language. Though such a language falls short of
being an ideological sign-system (Voloshinov/Bakhtin), it nevertheless establishes the
signifier-signified relationship (Saussure) within this kind of a use. An important question
is, how do we understand the making of political rhetoric in a given society, and what are
the modalities of its structuration and articulation in a linguistically diverse society such
as India? Can we discern a logical coherence and structure in the uses of political
rhetoric? Is rhetoric simply a strategic use of a language? Is there a reciprocal relationship
between political rhetoric and its social reproduction? What are the domains and sites of
political rhetoric?

In his Treatise on Rhetoric, Aristotle sets up the relationship between rhetoric and logic
on three main counts – that both are founded on the natural faculty of individuals, that
both use ‘opposite inferences’, and both are indifferent to truth and falsehood though they
must choose either of them.1 It is important to see how rhetoric becomes a particular form
of language or what Paul Corcoran calls a ‘public discourse’ and ‘public resource’.
Corcoran further argues that the term language as a political phenomenon has to be
understood in terms of art, creativity and method.2

Aristotle, in his views, makes a distinction between political rhetoric and general rhetoric,
the former derived from political authority and status. Making the distinction between
pre-literate and literate societies in the use of language, Corcoran states (that) ‘in pre-
literate societies, language – the word – is itself magic whereas in early literate societies,
a technique of articulating conflict develops that recognizes the speakers’ own
composition of speech… rhetoric is created by the skilful, that is, by a literate user of
language.’3
A brief analysis of the elections 2004 with regard to the language of rhetoric used, and
the historical lineages of political rhetoric in India since the first general elections in
1952, can help us understand it as a ‘form of art and literature.’4 More than earlier
elections, the 2004 elections witnessed the intrusive impact of technological intervention
in mechanically reproducing the art of political rhetoric in the domains of audio-video,
cyber, print and telecommunication. Technology moved rhetoric beyond an art of
persuasion, and invoked multiple voices and images of praise and ridicule affecting the
formation of electoral political discourse and its power.

Whether it was the question of indigenous national identity of language and land against
Naveen Patnaik (Oriya), Omar Abdullah (Kashmiri) and Sonia Gandhi (Hindi and
Hindustan), their political bete noire continued to engage in the political mud slinging in
this election.5 Laloo Prasad Yadav, chief of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and known for his
wit and crass humour, asked the RJD supporters at an election meeting in Chapra, ‘Lathi
utthavan, tel pilaavan, Bhaajpa bhaghaavan’ (Take your lathis, oil them well and chase
the BJP out).

Laloo Yadav, a magician with language, inventing unusual expressions in his native
tongue Bihari, has certainly foregrounded rhetorical language in Indian politics as never
before. For example, take two slogans illustrating the role of money, muscle and political
power coined and circulated by the RJD in Barh constituency of Bihar, ‘Bahubali ko
crore, dal badloo ko lakh, janata ko mila khaak, yehi hai sukhad ahsas’ (Crore to the
muscle-man, lakh to defector, nothing for people, this is the happy ending) or ‘Yahan
nakad Narayan se takkar hai, ek Birla aur ek fakir hai, note dijiye aur vote bhi dijiye’
(referring to JD (U) candidate Nitish Kumar rolling in wealth like a Birla but the RJD
candidate being a poor man (fakir), so give your votes as well as notes).

Calling names has been an all-time favourite game of Indian politicians. Look at just a
few of such expressions. Pramod Mahajan dubbed NCP (Nationalist Congress Party)
leader Sharad Pawar the ‘Elizabeth Taylor of Indian politics’ for his frequent alliances
with the Congress Party, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray dubbed Congress a ‘party of
eunuchs’, and Pawar compared Thackeray to an ‘emaciated tiger’. Mayawati of Bahujan
Samaj Party (BSP) and Laloo Yadav of RJD have deployed the language of ridicule and
shame in criticizing upper caste dominance, c.f. well-rhymed expressions such as
Mayawati’s slogans of ‘Tilak, tarazu aur talwar, inko maro joote char’ or ‘Brahman,
bania, thakur chor, baki sab hain DS4’ (The three upper castes are thieves and should be
kicked away).6
In a socially fragmented society, political parties thrive and survive through their
constituencies that have the potential to influence the winability of their candidates. The
language used by political contestants needs to capture voters’ imagination. When
Mahendra Singh Tikait, the Bhartiya Kisan Union leader, quipped and said, ‘(I)t is the
gur (jaggery) fail, not feel good’ (for sugarcane growers have not been paid their dues) it
was welcomed as an appropriate counter to the ‘feel good factor’. In this election the
Congress party replaced its old slogan of ‘garibi hatao’ (remove poverty) by ‘aam admi
bachao’ (save the common man).

A number of slogans used by the Congress party in this election were aimed at
development ‘Congress ka haath aam nagrik ke saath’ (Congress’ hand, common man’s
hand), the dynastic contribution of Indira and Rajiv ‘Unke kaam aur balidaan, hamari
disha, desh ka maan’ (their work and sacrifice, our vision, country’s pride) or ‘Rajiv
dikhenge tumko Rahul ko jab dekhoge, tumhe Indira nazar ayegi, Priyanka ko jab
dekhoge’ (when you see Rahul, you will see Rajiv in him, and in Priyanka, you will see
Indira). These messages intimately relate and bond the agenda of development and the
dynastic rule of the Nehru-Gandhi family. Slogans of this kind can possibly nourish voter
support for the Congress partly as an inevitable historical predicament whereby the past,
present and future of the country’s development and the Congress party are symbiotically
bound together.

Memories of national leaders can easily ignite passion and compassion from potential
supporters for the party concerned. The short and prompt pronouncements like ‘Desh ki
aandhi, Sonia Gandhi’, ‘Akshay Atal, vote kamal’, ‘Haath ka panja’, or ‘Vote Atal, vote
kamal’, were widely used throughout the country as instant energizers for their respective
parties.7

Political contestation has conventionally been over party symbols and their potential
usability. In a multi-party democracy where a substantial number of voters are illiterate,
party symbols are important signifiers that need to have a certain degree of popularity and
acceptability among the voters who are consistently wooed by the political parties to cast
their votes in favour of a party symbol. The initial selection of poll symbol of a party may
have been arbitrary and without any rational criterion; it is subsequently invested with
values and norms of the respective parties concerned. Narratives are produced to valorize
these symbols and their social values. Party symbols, numerous in regionally fragmented
multi-party elections in India, whether the hammer and sickle for the Communist Party of
India-Marxist (CPM), a cycle for Samajwadi Party (SP), an elephant for BSP, the hand
for Congress and lotus for Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) – are used as codes and signs for
poll slogans and speeches by their party contestants.
In one of his speeches, Pramod Mahajan justified his party’s poll symbol over that of the
Bahujan Samaj Party (elephant) and Samajwadi Party (cycle) poll symbols in the
following manner: ‘Lakshmi haathi per baith kar nahi aati, Lakshmi cycle per baith kar
nahi aati, Lakshmi aati hai to kamal ke phool per baith kar hi aati hai’ (Lakshmi – the
goddess of wealth – does not come riding the elephant or on cycle, but if she comes she
comes riding on the lotus). Similarly, the Samajwadi Party’s rally in Delhi in March 1996
elections eulogized its own poll symbol over its competing partners in the following
manner, ‘Chalegi cycle, uregi dhool, na rahega panja, na rahega phool’ (when the cycle
moves, dust will fly, there will be no hand and no flower left).

One can possibly classify the language of rhetoric into denotative and connotative. The
former employs signs and symbols of various kinds while the latter uses explicit words,
actual ideas and thoughts. Barthes considers the ‘verbal communicative event’ on both
counts, and includes in the former parole, stylistics, modes of expression (how it is said)
whereas the latter includes langue, codes, messages, substance and formal linguistic
expressions (what is said).

It is not possible here to go in detail over numerous poll slogans and speeches used by
different political parties in different parts of India since the first elections. That would
require a long and intensive study into the structure and practice of electoral campaigns
and their forms. In this essay, I confine myself to a few select cases to illustrate the
relationship between political rhetoric and democratic order in Indian politics. The first
three general elections of 1952, 1957 and 1962 were low on political sloganeering. For
the electorate, it was the period of re-affirming faith in the Congress party and its
ideology of democracy and socialism.

The 1971 elections conducted after the Bangladesh liberation war returned the Congress
party with a substantial majority under a powerful and all time favourite slogan of ‘garibi
hatao’ by Indira Gandhi. The emergency era was a subject of poll slogans for all non-
Congress parties. Jai Prakash Narayan’s statement of ‘Daro mat, main abhi zinda hoon’
(don’t be afraid, I am still alive) had an electrifying effect on the voters. In the 1980
elections the Congress used the slogan ‘Indira ke haath mazboot karo’, ‘Indira Gandhi
lao, desh bachaao’ (strengthen Indira’s hands, Bring Indira Gandhi, save the country)
urging voters to return Indira Gandhi to power after the Janata Party’s unsuccessful
tenure at the centre. A more memorable slogan circulated during Indira Gandhi’s by-
election from Chikmagloor was, ‘Ek sherni, sau langoor, Chikmagloor, Chikmagloor
(one lioness, hundred monkeys, Chikmagloor’). In the 1984 elections, following the
assassination of Indira Gandhi, the Congress used the memory of Indira to gain support
from voters under the powerful slogan of ‘Jab tak suraj chand rahega, Indira tera naam
rahega’ (as long as there is the sun and moon, Indira’s name will remain). Congress won
a landslide victory and ruled for the next five years. The BJP fought the 1989 elections
under the militant slogan of ‘Hum saugandh Ram ki khate hain, mandir wahin banayege’
(we swear by Ram that we would build temple there only). In 1989 the Congress came up
with the twin slogans of panchayati raj and India’s entry into the 21st century.

The art of rhetoric was most evocatively used in the 1996 elections with coalition
politics and political parties of varied interests and ideologies participating in the
electoral process. The dominant parties – Congress, BJP, SP and BSP – used a number of
poll slogans to enthuse the voters. We can see an interesting nexus unfolding
between/among code, message, context, contact, receiver and referent within these
multiple poll slogans.8 The BJP’s use of ‘Bari, bari, sab ki bari, ab ki bari, Atal Bihari’ in
an election rally in Lucknow in March 1996 or Laloo Yadav’s predicament of Bihar
captured under the much used slogan of ‘Jab tak samose me aloo hai, tab tak Bihar me
Laloo hai’ were indicative of the power of rhetorical-electoral language in this election.9

The mandal-mandir question had haunted all parties in this election. The BSP gave the
slogan of ‘Vote se lenge PM/CM, arakshan se lenge SP/DM’ (we will win PM/CM with
vote, SP/DM with reservation) indicating the emerging power of dalit votes. Similarly,
Narasimha Rao’s rally in Rae Bareilly on 20 March 1996 had a remarkable slogan, ‘Jat
par na pat par, mohar lagegi haath par.’

The rhetorical domains and sites of location are many, and more were sighted upon
during the campaign. Why is it that during the elections, rallies and rath yatras become
part of Indian political culture? Do these marches use a set of codes that create a space
apart from the one used in public meetings addressed by the political leaders? Political
graffiti, slogans and speeches are constant reminders of political power and contest
between competing political parties. This art of rhetoric and its political uses has
interesting performative personae in the audio-visual world of television and radio,
printed world of pamphlets, magazines, newspapers and verbal universe of slogans and
speeches. N.T. Rama Rao while using ‘chaitanya ratham’ (the chariot of awakening) for
election campaigns along with the song ‘Maa Telugu thalliki malle poodanda’ (a garland
of jasmine flowers for Mother Telugu) had a lasting effect on people.
Laloo Yadav’s ‘garib march’ in 1996 accompanied by musical instruments of bands and
drums had a banner with the slogan ‘Bahaar ho, barsaat ho, garmi ho ya thanda, Lal Kile
par 15 August 1996 ko Laloo fahrayega jhanda’ (whether it is air or rain, hot or cold,
Laloo will hoist the flag at Red Fort on 15 August 1996). Rajiv Gandhi’s ‘sadbhavna
yatra’ (good-feeling rally) in 1991, Narasimha Rao’s ‘sanklap rally’ (promise meet) at the
Red Fort on 24 March 1996 and Mulayam Singh Yadav’s ‘Vishwakarma rally’ in
Lucknow on 24 March 1996 were not simply meant to be a show of strength by particular
political parties and their leaders, but also sites for political sloganeering and
contestations. Advani’s numerous rath yatras – Ram rath yatra (Ram chariot rally) of
1990, su-raj yatra (good rule rally) of 1996 and Bharat uday yatra (India rising rally) of
2004 had a fair use of aggressive language for purposes of electoral arithmetic.

As Michael Shapiro suggests, ‘Rhetorical practices recur and they are often times
adapted to newer needs and even emulated to some extent and gradually become
conventionalized as part of the democratic electoral behaviour and norm.’10 We need to
pay serious attention to the language of rhetoric in a democratic political order. Rhetoric
provides a language of paradoxes and opposites and has enabled the vernacular political
elites of India to create a communicative public sphere as part of the political space. A
leader succeeds in his rhetoric (as in case of Laloo Yadav) when s/he has the capacity to
rhetoricize the given situation successfully. Rhetoric allows them to move from more
universal idioms of the polity to a more local and particular one. It pays rich dividends in
a society where linguistic loyalties are excessively sectarian and divisive, and the new
genre of vernacular political elites can draw their linguistic skills from their specific
language resources. Rhetoric as a form of intense oralisation and vocalization of
linguistic resources has coincided with increased importance of information technology
in recent decades. But can rhetoric be the language of masses?

Considering rhetoric as the poetics of Indian politics, I include not simply political
speeches but the genre of linguistic codes, messages, signs and symbols used in the
electoral spheres for purposes of electioneering. Poetics, in my analysis, is not just
literalness but a ‘well formulated expression’ (Jacobson) alluding to metaphorical
semantic of words and sentences in a language. It can also take different forms whether
of humour, irony and satire. It could be overtly explicit or opaque in meaning.

Rhetoric helps collapse the multiple and distinct meanings of varied political concepts
and ideologies under more common and shared referents. It is more than a simple speech
activity; it is contextual, a strategy for mass mobilization, and a popular medium.
Rhetoric is more pronounced and aggressively pursued in oral societies, and can be used
for purposes of dramatization of polity with the massification of the sign-system. It looks
for symbols and uses them for identity politics, the latter played around the categories of
caste, class, religion, region, language, race, ethnicity and so on.

In all democratic polities the dramatization of facts is best conveyed through this
ritualistic exercise of rhetoric in its varied forms. Rhetoric, unlike logic and reasoning,
can be deployed without a critical engagement with themes of developmentalism and
remain confined to mere aggregation of facts arbitrarily strung together. Despite this, it
can present extraordinary facts and provide symbols of a democratic polity, setting up the
relationship between word and world.

Is it our contention that mature and tolerant democracies have more mature and tolerant
uses of language? Is refusal to believe in rhetoric a sign of maturity among the electorate?
For example, the ridicule and dismissal of ‘India Shinning’ and ‘feel good factor’ by the
electorate in 2004 elections proves that simple rhetoric does not always work. The
important question, however, is whether and how politics through the discursive uses of
rhetoric can be an art of persuasion, and what could be the possible challenges faced by
such a politics? Does rhetoric as a vocabulary of politics have any direct relationship with
the actual political outcome or behaviour? The analysis of rhetoric and its uses tells us
about the political sociology of Indian elections, and can perhaps allude to the
possibilities of forging communicative bonds between voters and their political leaders.

Aristotle considered rhetoric, like logic, to be universally applicable only if it was

affected through the relationship between speaker, listner and the subject in three
different forms of orations – deliberative, judicial and demonstrative. I would like to
suggest that it is important to understand and see how political discourse and political
rhetoric are mutually reproducible.

Footnotes:

1. Paul E. Corcoran, Political Language and Rhetoric (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979).

2. Corcoran, Ibid, p. 6.

3. Corcoran, Ibid, p. 44.

4. Ronald Barthes considers rhetoric as a work of art and literature. Barthes’s analysis of rhetoric moves it
beyond an art of persuasion to a form of language. He dwells upon the Russian formalist Jakobson’s
linguistic analysis, distinguishing six factors that together account for the making of rhetoric – receiver,
context, referent, contact, code and the message itself. For Jakobson, there is both a structural and
functional aspect of a language when or not it becomes literary. Ronald Barthes, ‘Literature as Rhetoric’ in
Elizabeth and Tom Burns (ed), Sociology of Literature and Drama (London: Penguin, 1973).

5. Congress and BJP, the two dominant parties in this election, produced numerous audio-visual videos and
cassettes prepared by professional singers. Popular Hindi songs were recast, plagarized and sung by a band
of singers for both parties. Whether it was BJP dhool ka phool by Congress or Phool khil gaya by BJP, the
prominent party leaders of both parties were subject to ridicule and praise in these cassettes. The song
Mahashakti Bharat, Shaktishali Bhajapa, eulogizes Vajpayee as the parthasarathi (the charioteer) of
development to usher India in ram rajya to eradicate poverty. In all, twelve songs were recorded in this
music cassette and about one lakh cassettes and CDs were distributed to tea stalls and paan vendors across
the country. Kumar Sanu, who joined the BJP, sang, ‘Atalji do dekha to aisa laga’, an adaptation of his
popular song from the film 1942: A Love Story. Congress reused video-cassettes recording old popular
patriotic songs like ‘Kar chalaen hum fida jan-otan sathiyo’ and ‘Ae mere vatan ke logon, zara aankh mein
bhar lo paani’.

6. American politics has been characterized by negative advertisements. Mud slinging in American
elections is an established practice and considered somewhat related to the voter’s right to information
about the contestant’s personal life and character. Something close to it was attempted in the surrogate
advertisements in the 2004 elections before the intervention of the Supreme Court of India. As Harish
Khare rightly asks, ‘What impact does such negative surrogate advertisements have on the manners of the
political class?’ and suggests that the ‘surrogate ads’ are produced by passionate partisans who see a life
and death struggle in each election contest.’ The Hindu, 2 April 2004.

7. Laloo Chalisa narrating the virtues of Laloo Yadav in the 1996 elections and the Atal Charit for Atal
Bihari Vajpayee for 2004 elections are a few such instances.

8. Russian formalist Jakobson’s writings take into account these six factors to elucidate the poetic forms of
a linguistic analysis to probe the question of ‘what makes a verbal communication a work of art?’ Ronald
Barthes, ‘Literature as Rhetoric’ in Elizabeth and Tom Burns (ed), Sociology of Literature and Drama
(Penguin, 1973).

9. Both Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party coined and circulated a large number of poll slogans to
communicate the significant shift in the power of dalit and backward votes. Kanshi Ram and Mayawati
while addressing the Pasi sammelan at Kashishwar Intermediate College in Mohanlalganj on 18 March
1996 coined the much popular slogans of, ‘Tilak, taraju or talwar, inko maro jute chaar’ and ‘Vote hamara,
naam tumahara, nahi chlega, nahi chalega’ – the two most quoted slogans during this election. The
Congress slogans emphasized the values of secularism, democracy and patriotism. A few of them were:
‘Congress ko lana hai, desh ko bachana hai’ or ‘jati dharma ke jhagre choro, Congress se nata jodo’, ‘koi
jaat, koi biradar, Congress me sabhi barabar’, ‘bahut ho chuka khel tamasha, Congress hai jan jan ki asha’,
‘Congress ki niti hai, hum sabse preet hai’, or ‘pragati path apnayenge, Congress ko layenge’.

10. Michael J. Shapiro, ‘Literary Production as a Politicizing Practice’ in Herbert W. Simons and A.A.
Aghazarian (eds), Form, Genre and the Study of Political Discourse (University of South Carolina Press,
1986).