Printu Mahadevan, a spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party, has been pleased to make it known to Rahul Gandhi that he  “will be shot in the chest”  should he encourage Gen Z like movements in India.

Just to remind ourselves: Rahul Gandhi is both leader of the second biggest national party and leader of the opposition in the house of the people, the Lok Sabha.

The organisational general  secretary of the Congress, K.C. Venugopal, has expectedly written a letter to the home minister of India, underscoring the  extreme and “chilling” import of the death threat so  brazenly  thrown at Rahul Gandhi on a Malayalam television debate.

Venugopal has  characterised  the threat as one issued not just to the leader of the opposition but to the substance and continuance of constitutional democracy itself, and therefore demanded  immediate legal action in the matter.

The Congress secretary has  understandably conveyed that should the Union government fail to move swiftly and justly in the matter, it cannot then but be regarded as complicit with the party spokesperson who has issued the threat.

It is a sign of the times that for three days now hardly any electronic news channel has thought it fit to foreground the news of this chilling occurrence, while the shenanigans attending upon the India/Pakistan cricket final has appeared as the lead story that the nation must absorb to the canny brim if the electoral prospects of the “nationalist”  BJP are to be further bolstered.

It is equally a sign of the times that an expression of “love” has come to be the most  hounded story  over the past week, while the expression of fatal hate against the republic’s shadow prime ministerial  politician  has  passed as a normative event.

A “you will be shot” message to Rahul Gandhi  has paled as an item next to  “I love Mohammed.”

Indeed, of the principle four-letter words that we frequently use, the most heinous has come to be “love”, while hate rages as the beloved epithet, next only to Modi.

To note: the police in Kerala has  registered a First Information Report based on a complaint lodged by the local Congress leadership.

Five years ago, BJP leader Anurag Thakur urged supporters in Delhi to “shoot the traitors” opposing his party in the Delhi state elections but no action was taken against him for his inflammatory call by the police or the BJP’s leadership.  Mahadevan has now gone one step forward by identifying a specific target. Those that still care for democratic principles and the rule of law may wait to see if the ruling BJP has anything to say to its spokesperson, be it politically or legally. 

Meanwhile,  conversant as we are with the history of the Gandhis, and the corresponding embrace of violent ways by empowered vigilantes, it would be foolish to think of the BJP spokespersons’s threat as simply a futile boast. This is something that Rahul Gandhi, his security detail, and the people at large had best acknowledge with caution, especially if the BJP were to lose government in Bihar.

Badri Raina taught at Delhi University.

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