Warmongering Against Democracy
Therefore, instead of adopting a consensus approach and rallying the entire nation together in the face of the possibility of conflict, the government and the ruling party find it necessary to adopt an adversarial approach.
- While facing the questions from the opposition parties regarding the veracity of the number of the terrorists being killed and details of the extent of damage to the terror infrastructure, the government has been trying to use the armed forces as a shield.
- Shirking its own democratic responsibility to answer these questions on the appropriate platform, it has instead chosen to use every other platform to attack the opposition for doubting the armed forces.
- Along with the fact that, in a democracy, the armed forces are not above critical questioning, such rhetoric is also a brazen attempt to use the armed forces for electoral gains, thereby threatening their non-partisan character that is a hallmark of our democracy. However, a ruling party that envisions politics itself as an act of war would not be bothered about such consequences.
Warmongering And Democracy
- Such a vision of politics, which looks at the state as a war machine, is endemic to the ruling party and this government. Even demonetisation was presented as an act of war or surgical strike on black money, and anyone questioning or opposing it was deemed a traitor.
- However, the constant warlike mobilisation by this government is targeted towards opposition forces, and thereby against the vast sections of its own citizens who are represented by them. It shows how the ruling party is interested in retaining power and not maintaining democratic institutions of the state.
- The government capitalising on air strikes and labelling those who are asking questions about it as enemies within is a reflection of this permanent war mode. It is not surprising, however, that such thinking is espoused by the party that is guided by a regimented group like Sangh Parivar, whose sole purpose itself is waging war on the so-called enemies within.
- In a democracy, citizens are not to be constantly mobilised for war, but invited to join the dialogue. It is the inherent incapability of the current government to initiate such a dialogue that forces it to militarise the conduct and discourse of politics.