the normalisation of abuse

Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) leader and MP Vijayashanti was released from jail on bail Saturday evening, a few hours after she was arrested for making inflammatory remarks ahead of the July 27 by-elections in Telangana and sent to judicial custody.

A city court granted bail to the actress-turned-politician, who alleged that police misbehaved with her and said she had decided to take up the issue with the prime minister and Lok Sabha speaker.

After her release from Chanchalguda jail this evening, she told reporters that the way a woman MP was treated by the police was shameful. 'My only crime is that I gave a slogan,' she said referring to the allegedly provocative remark she made a few days ago. [emphasis mine].

and what were the inflammatory remarks (or slogan, as the actress mp says) the news report talks about? 'aDDangaa narikEddAm' (or loosely: cut them, as with a sword, in half). that was her reminder to some women who had recently joined the party. cut who in half? those who oppose a separate telangana state, of course.

'telangANa ku aDDostE aDDangaa narikEddAm' ('we'll cut those who oppose telangana in half')- that was the slogan she was referring to. a slogan so popular now that everyone, from separatist politicians to school kids, chant it quite casually, whenever they're lost for words, almost.

until the election commission took note of it a couple of days ago. did it violate the 'model code of conduct' now in operation due to the by-elections in constituencies vacated by the trs mlas in protest against the delay in the formation of a separate telangana?

HYDERABAD: Chief electoral officer I V Subba Rao said on Saturday that the Election Commission has nothing to do with the arrests of TRS Medak MP Vijayashanti and Sangareddy Congress MLA T Jayaprakash Reddy. Six nominations were filed on the second day of the notification.

The CEO said that the commission took cognizance of the statements of Vijayashanti and Jayaprakash Reddy and informed it to the ECI. The EC has not directed the police to arrest the leaders. There are certain provisions in the law for the police to arrest and they have acted according to that, said Rao. The EC issued notices to Jayaprakash Reddy on Saturday and asked him to reply by July 5.

what do you understand from that news story? forget the 'model' code of conduct imposed by the election commission, the slogan violated the 'normal' code of public conduct expected of ordinary citizens! which means, all those thousands, lakhs, of slogan chanters all through the last ten years could have been charged with the relevant provisions of indian laws!

and such obnoxious slogans and other forms of vituperation etc have been 'normal' currency in all the 'democratic' discourse of the separatists over the last several years. how normal? check the broad smile on the the actor-mp's face (in the videos you'd definitely find somewhere on the net) when she was repeating the slogan during the event which caught the ec's attention.