Politics of Slogans

From high-profile slogans to structural reforms, India's Opposition finds it difficult to sustain outrage over corruption

- Pragya Singh IS SENIOR ASSISTANT EDITOR, OUTLOOK. SHE IS BASED IN DELHI

THE Bihar Special Intensive Revision (SIR) has propelled India's electoral machinery into the spotlight all over again. Officially, the exercise is meant to clean up the voter rolls, ensuring that every vote is verified. In practice, it has sparked anxiety—nearly 65 lakh voters might end up excluded for lack of documentation. The exercise is being painted by the Opposition, led in Bihar by the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and its ally, the Congress, as a form of corruption—vote chori. It cannot but remind one of the “chowkidar chor hai” campaign launched by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in his 2019 election campaign. But that had fizzled out—or at least not granted Gandhi's party the victory he had hoped for by riding on an issue as emotive as corruption in defence deals.

Even in earlier high-profile campaigns—such as the Aam Aadmi Party’s rise in Delhi thanks to the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement in 2013—slogans captured attention but struggled to translate outrage into lasting change. So, will the vote chori slogan stick? After all, anti-corruption slogans in India have a longer history of sputtering out than enduring.

One difference between then and now is that vote chori is not about the familiar “note for vote” politics, where money and liquor are known to purchase voter loyalty for a day—or five years. The SIR itself is a more existential exercise, for it redefines who belongs. Further, if buying votes is a transaction, excluding voters amounts to erasure.