If cricket in India is a religion then politics is not less
than a prayer with slogans as a chant of piety.
However, in recent times we have witnessed these chants,
which are used to galvanize the cadre have often raked up huge controversies.
The BJP’s recent attempt to plagiarise the Shaivite chant of
‘Har Har Mahadev’ to coin the ‘Har Har Modi’ and then changing it to ‘Har ghar
Modi’ saw huge criticism with detractors even tweaking the slogan against the
BJP strong man to ‘Darr Darr Modi’ and ‘Thar Thar Modi’.
Some slogans we know have produced results in the past.
The famous slogan of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in early
nineties ‘Tilak, taraju aur talwar ; inko maaro joote chaar’ brought it
attention and there after ‘Haathi nahi ganesh hai, Brahma Vishnu Mahesh hai’
and ‘Sarv jan hitay; sarvjan sukhaya’ helped the party gain a complete majority
in 2007 UP assembly elections.
The BJP slogan of ‘Ab Ki Baar, Modi Sarkar’ which is picked
from ‘Ab ki bari Atal Bihari’ is seen as an attempt to get back the lucky charm
of Vajpayee.
The Congress party is also not far behind in reframing the
old lucky slogan ‘Congress ka haat aam admi key saath’ to ‘Har Haat Shakti, Har
Haath Tarakki’.
Today slogans no more remain a catchy political jingle for
entertainment but a tool to connect to the masses. Slogans have even emerged as
a catalyst to understand the popular mood in the country.
It was ‘Sheila Dixit wapas jao’ slogan that set the agenda
against once popular three time chief minister of Delhi during the protest of
brutal gang rape in Delhi. Sheila Dixit had to go packing her bags after the
humiliating defeat in the elections thereafter.
May be this is the reason why the political parties do not
relent and answer back in slogan against a slogan these days. The Aam Admi
Party (AAP) slogan in Varanasi ‘Abhi to Sheila hari hai ab Modi ki bari hai’
was instantly replied with ‘Jo lad na saka apni khasi se vo kya larega Kashi
se’.
