Editorial: More to Political Debate than Exchanging Allegations

Before the Rhenock madness, there was the Namthang episode. And these are only the bigger incidents; many smaller skirmishes, being localised in nature and fallout, in the scramble for political space having gone largely unreported. Posturing can be expected to get still nastier as politics becomes more heated with a new, much announced party bound to finally be formalised sometime soon and the countdown begins in earnest for elections 2014. The level of political debate has been uninspiring thus far, and since real politicking has not really begun yet, here’s to hoping that political exchanges become more mature and meaningful instead of free for all rounds of allegations and counter-allegations that they have almost always been in Sikkim.
While one can sympathise with politicians for the pressure they face to remain relevant and important in these times of vacuity and distrust, what defies logic is their continuing propensity to opt for abrasive shallowness instead of correcting course and engaging people on issues of public concern. Leaders, the established as well as the hopefuls, hold forth on their pet peeves, targeting their opponents and running them down. They invariably articulate only what they want to hear, apparently not bothered with what the audience is hoping to learn. Where one hopes for reasoned debates, one receives empty rhetoric. Politics has been reduced to a performance art in our country, and debates limited to shouting matches and name-calling. The convenience of press releases and the oratory smugness of addressing crowds of the already converted or disinterested have conspired to reduce political statements into rants instead of reasoning. There is an almost snobbish disdain among those who claim political voices to speak for the people- they flaunt offensively self-indulgent stances. Politicians, by devoting their time and space in the public domain to character assassinations and public ridicule of their opponents, end up signalling that they are competing not to come out as the more profound or visionary, but vying hard to establish that their opponent is worse than them. The contest really should be about whose plans and visions are better, whose reasoning on an emergent situation better. Political exchange has been overwhelmed by the vocabulary of defamation and political adroitness reduced to adeptness at embarrassing and ridiculing others. Is it too much to hope for this approach to change?