The Decline of Political Decorum and the Culture of Abuse

Unless India’s leaders rediscover the discipline of restraint, politics will cease to be a forum of ideas and become instead a theatre of insults.

This was bound to happen, and India was destined to face this uncomfortable reality. Congressman Rahul Gandhi tasteless remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi made during an address in Darbhanga in poll-bound Bihar was the culmination of a culture of abuse carefully nurtured over decades. What shocked civil society was not the words themselves but the brazenness with which they were delivered. And yet, for many political groups, such conduct is not merely tolerated but celebrated. To them, it is ‘earthy,’ ‘authentic’ even ‘effective.’

India’s republic began with lofty expectations of civility in public life. The Constituent Assembly debates, though often heated, rarely descended into personal insult. Leaders such as Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel sparred fiercely, but their disagreements retained decorum. Yet even in that golden age, the seeds of indecency

were sown.

Early cracks

When B.R. Ambedkar resigned from the Congress and later contested elections from Mumbai, casteist barbs were hurled at him. The very thought that India’s chief architect of the Constitution should endure such slander is chilling. By the 1960s, the tone of opposition had hardened. Socialist leaders such as Ram Manohar Lohia favoured sharp rhetoric, though couched in wit and principle. Their criticisms were stinging and acerbic, but they were not vulgar – certainly not the remarks made by Gandhi in Darbhanga. Still, the shift was clear in that Indian politics was moving away from the stately idiom of the freedom struggle towards a rougher, more populist style.

The 1970s marked a turning point. As Bihar’s chief minister, Karpoori Thakur pioneered reservations for backward communities. His policies were attacked with casteist slogans that mocked his identity rather than his ideas. “Kar Karpoori Kar Poora, Chhod Gaddi Dhar Ustura” - a chant dripping with insult - illustrated how vulgarity could be weaponised in mass politics. Around the same time, Chaudhary Charan Singh endured disparaging remarks of a similar kind. Abuse had gained permanent residence in the political lexicon.

By the 1980s, the use of indecorous language had spread across the landscape. National leaders still tried to preserve appearances, but local politicians, party workers, and campaign foot soldiers freely indulged in verbal abuse. The anti-Sikh riots of 1984 that followed Indira Gandhi’s assassination worsened matters. Political vocabulary became laced with hate, sharpened into an arsenal of derogatory expressions aimed not merely at rivals but at entire communities. The legitimacy of democratic debate gave way to the expedience of incendiary slogans.

The 1990s brought television into Indian homes, and with it the spectacle of election rallies, parliamentary ruckuses and partisan mudslinging. Abuse became performative. In states such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan, the language of politics echoed the violence of booth-capturing and the intimidation of strike-bound streets. Even senior leaders abandoned restraint, insulting rivals in private as much as in public. Bandhs and agitations often degenerated into threats against shopkeepers - an extension of the verbal intimidation that leaders practiced.

This coincided with the rise of coalition politics. Alliances stitched together with fragile compromises gave leaders incentives to carve out their space through dramatic, headline-grabbing insults. The incentive to shock outweighed the incentive to persuade.

Top-down indecency

The 2000s brought a more alarming development: indecorous speech from the very top. In Gujarat’s 2007 assembly elections, Sonia Gandhi famously dubbed Modi, then the state’s Chief Minister, a “merchant of death.” Other Congress leaders went further with one describing Modi as a “gutter insect” while another questioned his parentage. The BJP retaliated in kind with Modi himself mocking a rival as a “Jersey cow.” Bipartisan debasement of discourse had arrived. Election rallies themselves changed character. They were no longer meetings of persuasion but theatres of provocation. ‘Lathi rallies’ which openly flaunted intimidation tactics, became part of political choreography.

By the 2010s, indecency had been fully normalised. Leaders compared rivals to snakes, scorpions, viruses and demons. The metaphors of politics came increasingly from mythology and pathology, designed to delegitimise opponents as ‘less than human.’ The 2020s have only accelerated this trend.

In Maharashtra, the political cauldron of abuse boils daily. The most infamous instance in recent times came when senior BJP leader Narayan Rane, then a Union minister, had threatened to slap then Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray in an outburst that echoed across the state. The personal feud between the Thackerays and the Rane clan spilled over onto the streets leading to Rane’s arrest following his remark.

Sanjay Raut, the Shiv Sena (UBT)’s motormouth, has acquired universal notoriety for hurling tasteless epithets with abandon. Shiv Sena leader and former Maharashtra Minister Abdul Sattar has frequently courted controversy with his crass remarks not just against opposition party leaders but district authorities and civilians as well.

While each controversy sparks outrage, the cycle keeps repeating itself. Political analysts note that these are not mere slips of the tongue. The offenders are sending calculated signals to their party workers by such remarks, suggesting that no limits apply. An obscenity on stage functions as a dog whistle in the street. A jibe at a rival’s family becomes licence for cadres to menace their adversaries. The coarsening of speech bleeds into the coarsening of politics itself.

Politics, it is often said, mirrors society. When leaders trade insults as casually as greetings, the public absorbs the message that aggression is normal and to compromise signifies weakness. The abusive language of politics thus seeps into everyday life, coarsening civic behaviour.

Schoolchildren imitate the shouting matches of television debates while social media becomes a sewer of invective. The cycle is self-reinforcing: society tolerates abuse, politicians exploit it, and society in turn grows more abrasive.

But the consequences are grave. Politics, once seen as the noble art of service, has become synonymous with arrogance and abuse. Younger generations, instead of being inspired by leaders, have long come to regard politics as a dirty game best avoided. This erosion of respect for public life is more corrosive than any one insult hurled at a rally.

India is not alone. Donald Trump in America has made political insult an art form. In Britain, parliamentary debates that once prided themselves on wit now echo with jeers. Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines openly laces his speeches with expletives. Across democracies, populists have discovered that abuse electrifies crowds more than policy detail.

But India’s case is distinctive. Its electorate is vast, multilingual and perpetually in campaign mode. Abuse multiplies across states, languages, and platforms. What begins as a slogan in one constituency mutates into a meme across the country.

Unlike in smaller democracies, the culture of insult here is decentralised and diffused, permeating from the top brass to the grassroots worker. There are occasional moments of restraint. Parties suspend an errant leader, or apologise on behalf of a loose-tongued ally. Amit Shah’s swift censure of a BJP leader who insulted a female Army officer was one such episode. But these are exceptions. Rules of parliamentary conduct exist but are rarely enforced. The Election Commission cautions candidates, but punishments have been mostly symbolic.

Ultimately, voters reward the politics they tolerate. If crowds cheer obscenities, leaders will supply more. If civil society rewards restraint, leaders will rediscover it. The choice is not merely for politicians but for society at large. India’s republic has survived poverty, insurgency, even authoritarian excess. Its institutions are resilient. Yet the corrosion of political language is subtler, and perhaps more dangerous. Democracies collapse not only when votes are stolen but when words lose their dignity. The time for introspection is long overdue.