When political dissent crosses moral boundaries

Tridip Kumar Goswami

(tridipkumar@gmail.com)

Democratic elections reflect the collective mandate of the people. When
a Prime Minister secured his third consecutive term to lead the nation, it reaffirmed the strength of India's constitutional framework. In a healthy republic, dissent is essential, and the Constitution provides ample space to critique policy, question governance, and hold authority accountable.

However, a troubling trend has emerged where opposition to an elected leader has transformed into personal malice, abandoning basic societal values, moral restraint, and constitutional decorum.

India's cultural ethos has long valued Maryada (restraint), Samskara (civilized conduct), and deep respect for family values and elders. These principles form the bedrock of our social fabric regardless of political ideology. Some cynics may laugh this off as archaic sentimentality, dismissing traditional concepts in the high voltage noise of modern political commentary. Yet, just as no family can survive or stay united without unwritten codes of mutual respect, restraint, and decency, a nation's social fabric inevitably disintegrates when its foundational ethos is ridiculed and discarded for cheap political gain.

Yet, public discourse has seen an alarming drop in standards. Rather than focusing on policy debates or systemic issues, political demonstrations have increasingly resorted to vulgarity and personal slander. A striking example occurred during political events where offensive expletives were directed not just at the Prime Minister, but at his late mother; a woman who lived an unpretentious, non-political life. Death wishes, hostile chants, and personal insults targeted at family members reveal a breakdown in basic human empathy.

This behavioural decline was also visible during recent Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) youth demonstrations. While student grievances surrounding exam integrity and governance deserve serious attention and peaceful avenues for redressing policy failures, the shift toward sexual expletives, death chants, and personal abuse against national leadership raises serious concern. When political agitation relies on hostility rather than constructive debate, it degrades the dignity of the cause itself. This is nothing but the "crossing the boundaries of decency" in public discourse. 

The youth are the primary drivers of India's economic and professional future. When anger manifests through personal degradation and street abuse rather than reasoned arguments, it raises critical questions about moral grounding, especially for their life decisions and integrity. If the younger generation allows public expression to descend into extreme hostility and vulgarity, how will that reflect in their professional integrity, leadership, and personal life choices? There is a key distinction between constructive agitation and anarchy. Constructive agitations are part of larger advocacy that achieves lasting policy change requires discipline, ethical clarity, and focus. Relying on abusive rhetoric compromises the moral authority needed to build a better society. Historically it can be seen that democratic dissent challenges governance to improve the country; while hostility attacks individual dignity and degrades public life which brings nothing but anarchy to the society.

This breakdown in civility is not an accident; it is the deliberate by product of a political culture that has abandoned long-term vision in favour of short term profiteering. Politicians across party lines, rather than offering logical arguments, policy alternatives, or reasoned opinions, increasingly resort to cheap gimmicks. They exploit the vulnerability of young citizens and their desire for the instant fame, viral clout, and dopamine hits offered by social media algorithms. Politics has effectively transformed into a transactional industry without morality; an 'instant business' designed for immediate political profit rather than societal or national growth. This is now promoting the youth's trend towards the business of Instant fame and the death of ideology.

Only blaming the political actors won't help, the citizen also should introspect our own civic behaviour. No doubt that this valueless political environment has made our country's shift in civic behaviour or vice versa. Citizens, driven by blind allegiance to specific political figures rather than an adherence to political ideology, routinely adopt the same abusive language in their homes and social circles that leaders use on public platforms. Ultimately these leaders are not from March, they are one among us. Loyalty is no longer pledged to national interest, social cohesion, or even coherent political principles as ideology itself has taken a back seat to personality cults.

When politicians trade ethics for viral outrage, and when intellectuals, legal fraternity, academicians, and any public figures; those society looks up to; succumb to partisan hostility, the young generation is left with no moral compass to emulate and we can see a systemic collapse.

There is another critical issue needs to be discussed. Over the decades, we see that beyond personal attacks on leadership, political actors and agitators frequently channel dissent into weaponized identity politics, regularly directing hostility towards a particular faith, class and communities regardless of the underlying topic of protest. This selective targeting exposes a profound contradiction in public discourse.

For example if a particular political ecosystem that urges citizens to "forgive and forget" the centuries of brutal Mughal conquests marked by the destruction of temples, forced conversions, and massive atrocities, demands endless retributive blame against contemporary social groups. While modern India has enshrined complete equality under the Constitution and provided robust reservation policies for over seven decades, political narratives continue to villainize specific communities under the banner of "historical oppression." Critics point out that much of this hostile framing relies on distorted historical selectively rather than objective record. By converting every policy dispute into a weapon against specific religious and social identity groups, political actors systematically erode mutual trust, fragment social cohesion, and damage the unified national consciousness required for progress.

This decline in standards of discourse is fuelled by valueless politics, where political figures prioritize short-term rhetorical outrage over constructive dialogue. When leaders and public agitators normalize hostile language and community blame, it signals to supporters that basic civility can be abandoned whenever convenient. It is a fact that when public debate loses its moral compass, political dialogue degrades into insult matches, eroding public trust in democratic institutions and weakening the cultural foundation that holds a diverse nation together.

A nation's rise as a global power depends as much on its moral and institutional strength as it does on economic output or military capacity. History offers clear warnings about countries where the loss of civic norms accelerated national decline. Take the example of Venezuela, once among Latin America's wealthiest democracies, Venezuela entered a cycle of extreme political polarization, institutional decay, and loss of civic norms that ultimately collapsed its economy and displaced millions. If you deep dive further, ancient Rome is another example. In his book "On the Fall of the Roman Republic", author Thomas E. Strunk analysed how loss of civic virtue, institutional erosion, rampant political polarization, and the collapse of public debate into personal hostility lead to fall of Rome. Take the recent case of our neighbour Sri Lanka. Decades of political division, short-sighted rhetoric, and institutional erosion culminated in a severe economic and governance crisis that created the mess we witnessed in recent years and halted the country's development trajectory.

It is never a rocket science to understand that for India to achieve its aspirations of young generations and the country of taking its rightful place alongside global powers like the United States, Japan, or China, economic progress must be matched by civic responsibility, character, and institutional decorum. There is no second thought about it.

This alarming trend forces us to confront uncomfortable truths about the trajectory of our public discourse and national ethos. As a society, we must look in the mirror and ask whether political opposition has become so absolute that basic human dignity and civilizational respect no longer hold any value in our public life. In this pivotal moment, a profound appeal must be made to our young generation, who are far smarter and possess more access to information through internet tools and social media than any generation before them. We urge these bright young minds to use that vast access to independently verify facts, question politically motivated actors, and examine their own actions before allowing toxic rhetoric to strip away their civility. As the true custodians and future leaders of India, it is only through their wisdom, ethical restraint, and intellectual independence that our nation can rise above petty polarization and reach its rightful heights on the global stage. Ultimately, if we allow our national debate to rely on calculated insults and division rather than substance, we forfeit the moral foundation required to lead the world.

A strong democracy relies on passionate, unyielding debate, but that debate must remain grounded within the limits defined by our Constitution and our civilizational heritage. Real progress requires not only economic and educational development, but the preservation of the moral standards that give a nation its true strength.