Debate: Is the humiliation of Opposition leaders a BJP conspiracy?
Headlines Today
22 August 2014
After the Chief Ministers of Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand were booed and heckled by a section of the crowd during public functions in which they shared the stage with Prime Minister Modi, the Congress said it would boycott such events in future.
Karan Thapar anchored a debate on the subject. I argued that this heckling by BJP wastelling us something about the changing fabric of Indian politics — its coarsening, its lumpenisation. I also said Modi was seeking a kind of ‘full spectrum dominance’ against his foes, blocking off all space, formal and informal, political and institutional.
Siddharth Varadarajan 