This reminds me of a joke that Reagan told about the Soviet Union that goes roughly like this.

An American and a Russian are arguing about their respective systems of government. The American proudly declares : “In my country, I can walk into the capital, into the office of the President, thump his desk and declare : Mr. President, I don’t like the way you are running this country.”

Russian : Well, so can I.

American (surprised) : Really? You can do this in the Soviet Union?

Russian : Absolutely. I can go to Moscow any time, walk into the Kremlin, thump the desk of the Premier and declare : I don’t like the way President Reagan is running his country.

That’s how the Election Commission has always been … as far as I can remember. You can walk into their office any time, thump the desk of the Chief Election Commissioner and declare :

“Mr. Chief Election Commissioner, I don’t like the way BJP President Amit Shah is running his party.”

So, if you want to abuse the Prime Minister of this country … if you want to refer to him as “Khoon ka dalal” … you can go right ahead. Because free speech.

But God forbid … God forbid … the BJP dares to call Rahul Gandhi as “Pappu”. Immediately the hammer of the Election Commission will come crashing down on their heads.

Why is it not OK? Why the hell is it not OK?

The job of the Election Commission is to conduct elections. Go do that. How dare you interfere with what can be said and what cannot be said on the campaign trail? Who made you king of this country?

The fact that they would start going after a term as innocuous as “Pappu” shows how much the Election Commission has become drunk with power. And given the deep ecosystem of the Congress Party, it is no surprise that the hammer generally falls on the head of the BJP, whether it is the ruling party or the opposition.

It’s not about whether “Pappu” is derogatory. It’s about free speech. The Election Commission began its power grab by prohibiting “inflammatory speech.” Modi himself was one of the worst sufferers, when the EC forbade the mention of Godhra carnage during the elections of 2002. Mentioning the Gujarat riots however was not forbidden.

As the EC’s hunger for power grows, things get worse. Now you can’t use this or that term because some power mad bureaucrat thinks finds it “derogatory”.

This is an incident that is seldom remembered but in 2007, before the Uttar Pradesh elections, the Election Commission actually seriously considered de-recognizing the BJP itself. Reason? The party had released a campaign CD that the Commission had found to be “communal.”

The BJP had to tender grovelling apologies, distance itself from the CD, condemn the material in it and make a detailed case before the Election Commission explaining why it should be allowed to keep its status as a political party.

Apparently, having over some 140 elected MPs in the Lok Sabha … directly chosen by the people of India … is not enough. You must also prove to some unelected bureaucrat at Nirvachan Sadan in Delhi that you are good enough to be allowed to sit in the House.

As I mentioned before, the BJP generally finds itself on the wrong side of these “thoughtcrime tests for office” because of its subaltern character. In fact, the thoughtcrime tests by the bureaucracy are designed specifically to make the non-elite types fail. Since the Congress carries out its divisive, casteist politics with a more cultivated veneer, it rarely finds itself getting the short end of the stick.

And as usual, no freedom of speech warrior will come out and dare to say that the BJP has the right to use the term Pappu. How can the Pidis possibly question their masters?