There is more than one way to silence an opponent. You can censor or arrest her. Or, you can abuse, caricature and delegitimise her so relentlessly that her arguments seem worthless. When the BJP rejigged its national office-bearers this week, one of the headlines was the exit of the rather infamous IT cell head — well known for weaponising disinformation, who in 2017 circulated a doctored collage of Jawaharlal Nehru, including a vile insinuation about Nehru and his sister, Vijayalakshmi Pandit.

The old BJP social media order has now given way to a team no less foul-mouthed. Several new appointees have lately been scrubbing their accounts — but deleting a feed does not delete a mindset. The internet has a long memory. One of the new appointees had, in the past, used dreadful profanity against former Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

For the BJP, the more coarse-tongued the better. The BJP uses violent language as a technique of power to shut down the Opposition. Words don’t just describe politics, they are politics. Abusive language, particularly if used from the summit of state power, achieves exclusion and ostracism without physical force. Attacking words humiliate, exhaust and, in the end, silence. Physical violence incapacitates the body while violent language incapacitates the voice — and imposes enormous costs on speaking out.

The appointment of the BJP’s new social media team came two days after PM Narendra Modi, in his Independence Day address, warned of “dimagi Naxals” — people carrying a Maoist mindset who must be “identified and isolated”. Not debated or defeated intellectually, but isolated. Banished, delegitimised, not allowed to even participate in the national conversation.

“Dimagi Naxal” joins a long lexicon. Modi has earlier used “urban Naxal”, and “Khan Market gang”. Label the arguer, and she stops being a participant in democratic debate and becomes instead an object of ridicule. A social-media army given unrestrained license makes the space around any dissenting argument so toxic that fewer people are willing to enter it. The Republic of Ideas dies and the Republic of Abuse takes its place.

The BJP’s whataboutery is that its opponents started it. Mani Shankar Aiyar’s sneering “chaiwala” jibe in 2014; before that Sonia Gandhi’s “maut ka saudagar” in 2007. But these spoke to the public record: Modi’s well publicised origin story and communal riots in Gujarat. Contrast that with what has been aimed back. Sonia Gandhi has been called a “bar dancer”, “jersey cow”, “pastaben”, the latter two by Modi himself. Rahul Gandhi has been called a “hybrid calf”. Modi has mocked Shashi Tharoor’s late wife as a “50-crore girlfriend”. When Modi taunted Mamata Banerjee with the “Didi, o Didi” refrain, the idea was not to debate Mamata Banerjee but to diminish her and reduce a three-time chief minister to a figure of fun.

No other prime minister, not even Manmohan Singh who endured a decade of caricature, ever deployed such language. Sonia Gandhi never uses personalised insults.

When abuse migrates from anonymous handles to Parliament, its licensing power multiplies. In 2023, BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri, in the Lok Sabha, hurled the despicable slur “katwa” at a fellow MP. When a parliamentarian uses such language, he gives permission for it to be used on the street. When “rice bag” is repeatedly used for Christians, violent words are but a short step away from vandalism of a church.

TV news has created and normalised this vocabulary — “love jihad”, “corona jihad”, “UPSC jihad”. These phrases run on tickers and debates until repetition makes the absurd acceptable and debatable. The dangerous element here is the asymmetry of consequence. Citizens who post criticism of the government face takedowns and FIRs at lightning speed. The Indian Express has reported a social-media post taken down, on average, every minute between March and July 2026. Yet, every year on January 30 — the day Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated — social media handles seen as close to the BJP extol Nathuram Godse, Gandhi’s assassin. They face no censure. BJP-friendly accounts that dox women, leak private material, or hound critics off the internet operate with impunity. And let’s not call these handles just “trolls”. Many carry the BJP’s weight and enjoy the protection of the state.

Dissent is treated as a national-security matter. Vicious misogyny and hateful communalism in the government’s defence is treated as the tolerable noise of a lively internet. The Modi regime’s mantra is: My abuse is free expression, but your dissent is a threat to the nation. Democracy’s essence isn’t agreement — it’s the opposite, the protection of disagreement. The Opposition must be free to question the government. Journalists must be free to be a thorn in the side of the ruling establishment. A government committed to democratic norms answers an opposing idea with a better idea. It does not declare the person holding a different viewpoint socially untouchable. Call someone a “dimagi Naxal” often enough and you never have to engage with what she argues. Call journalists “presstitutes” and their reporting goes dismissed and unread. This is how a Republic of Ideas slowly becomes a Republic of Abuse.

The writer is MP, Rajya Sabha, All India Trinamool Congress