Mind your language

The only thunder we hear now is from our politicians. As far as shockingly bad language goes, the warring states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh illustrate this problem perfectly. Dogs, cows, thieves, liars, rapists and a few months ago, the Telangana state Chief Minister — who had once threatened to bury journalists alive — called his AP counterpart Satan. “You are the worst (neechaathi neechamaina) Chief Minister in the country. You are Satan for Telangana. You are a ghost that engulfed Telangana. You are wreaking vengeance against people of the state. You are a deceiver and a liar. Are Srisailam and Krishnapatnam your father’s estate? (nee ayya jagir aa?) You want the people and families in Telangana to wilt and the TRS government to become unpopular,” he had said.

The AP counterpart is not without his arsenal either. Recently, Naidu reportedly mocked “Telangana and its culture of late rising” saying it was N.T. Rama Rao who “inculcated the culture of rising early in the morning in the state”. K. Chandrasekhar Rao, who couldn’t take this “lying down”’, fired off another retort... “We are advising them to mind their own business or we can also respond in 10 words for one. I can take any criticism against me, but not against my culture and my state.”

And TD’s MLA A. Revanth Reddy... minutes after his release on bail, in June, in the alleged cash-for-vote scam said Mr Rao and his family would meet the same fate as the Eluru rapist —man who was lynched by a mob after being accused of raping a minor girl. This, at best, is the lynching of dignity of office.

Not just here: In New Delhi, Kejriwal’s “derogatory” ‘thulla’ remark against the city’s police force has the country up in arms. Thulla is an extremely derogatory remark against policemen. ‘Thulla’ means jute fibre and the term is aimed at cops as they wear khaki. Kejriwal hasn’t still apologised. “Internationally, too, you have Donald Trump (Trump famously called his opponent an idiot after he himself was called a jackass).

We can’t really say the problem is India’s alone. However, though decline in political discourse is seen globally, the decline has been precipitous in India due the rise of a less educated political class particularly at the regional level,” adds K.C. Singh, former Indian ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and Iran.

A loss of culture: “But wasn’t Telangana state fought and won to bring back culture,” asks social scientist Shiv Vishwanathan. “See this in contrast. When they fought for Telangana state, the battle was based on the values of justice, fairness and development. The minute the new state was born those values were forgotten and we suddenly found them replaced with personal opinions — ideology retreated in the face of investments. All that we hear is selfish, egotistical talk,” he adds. Shiv continued: “Look at the cities they want to create — Hyderabad vs Amaravati.

They are projections of egoism. They want to create instant worlds — a capital in 10 years. Hyderabad took how many centuries to make? What we actually fought for was a world of culture, that has disappeared. So, what we have is a breakdown of discourse and the rise of investments as a replacement of ideology. “About what’s happening in the North and other states, those are the different dialects of mediocrity. What we have now between the two states is just mediocrity,” he says.