Asked what drew him to poetry, Varun Gandhi, author of The Otherness of Self, explained: “Because it is so precise and illustrates the strength of language.” The politician in Varun Gandhi has reason to regret these lessons of verse. In a now-infamous speech while campaigning for the BJP in Pilibhit, his targeting of Muslims was too precise and his language too strong for his own good. Gandhi risks having his candidacy cancelled, and could spend up to three years in jail.

The Representation of the People Act and the model Election Code of Conduct prohibit candidates from campaigning by “promoting communal disharmony”; the Indian Penal Code criminalises any words that create “feelings of enmity” between “religious communities”. There’s little doubt that Gandhi’s unprintable comments are in clear violation of these laws. He now faces two different proceedings. One is in court: if found guilty, he might even spend three years in jail, rendering him unfit for elected office. The other is by the Election Commission. In his defence, Varun Gandhi alleges that the tapes are “doctored”, “a malicious attempt to brand me as communal”, and in any case did not cause any violence. But live TV is as smoking a gun as they come, and as former attorney general Soli Sorabjee says: “the question is the words and their tendency; not whether any violence resulted.”

Standing in the dock with Varun Gandhi — on lesser charges — are the Election Commission and the BJP.

The EC has a hard won reputation for free and fair elections; but its record for punishing hate speech is a blank page. Though 3423 candidates are currently barred from standing for elections due to “corrupt electoral practices”, no election has ever been invalidated because the winner made communal speeches. This is partly, but only partly, because clever candidates have managed to circumvent the laws by double-speak. In 1996, for instance, the Supreme Court didn’t invalidate Manohar Joshi’s Lok Sabha election even though he vowed that “the first Hindu state will be established in Maharashtra”; the court let him off as his words were “at best, the expression of such a hope”. Candidate Ramesh Prabhoo’s exhortation to vote for “Hindutva” was similarly held not to constitute a religious cry as “Hindutva per se” could refer to “a way of life”. But since Varun Gandhi’s precise and strong language leaves him no such wiggle room, here’s a golden chance for the courts and the EC to open their accounts and actually disbar a candidate for hate speech. They’ve made the right noises so far. With rare consensus, all three election commissioners endorsed action against Gandhi, and an FIR has been filed. The EC and the courts must see this through till the very end.

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