Editorial

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s latest broadside against the Congress — linking recent street protests in India to the riots in France and accusing the opposition of plotting “regime change” — marks another low in the coarsening of political discourse. Calling Rahul Gandhi a “gaddar” (traitor) is not merely heated rhetoric; it is a deliberate attempt to criminalise dissent by wrapping it in the language of national betrayal.

The context is clear. Over the past weeks, protests centred on the Election Commission and demands for institutional accountability have unsettled the ruling establishment. Instead of engaging the substance of the grievances — questions about electoral integrity, the conduct of constitutional bodies, or the right to peaceful assembly — the BJP has chosen the easier path: equivalence with foreign disorder and the branding of the Leader of the Opposition as anti-national. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parallel criticism of the Congress as a force that thrives on failed political launches only reinforces the narrative that the opposition’s existence itself is a problem rather than a democratic necessity.

This tactic is not new. Governments of every hue have, at different moments, painted critics as threats to national stability. What is new is the brazenness with which foreign chaos is imported into domestic argument. France’s recent unrest has complex roots — economic discontent, policing controversies, social fracture. To suggest that Indian protests are a carbon copy, orchestrated by a political party for “regime change,” is both analytically lazy and politically reckless. It collapses genuine democratic disagreement into a conspiracy theory.

The danger is twofold. First, such language normalises the idea that questioning the government is equivalent to questioning the nation. Once “gaddar” becomes acceptable political vocabulary, the space for opposition shrinks. Second, it distracts from the harder work of governance and reform. If electoral processes or institutional independence are under genuine scrutiny, the response should be transparency and reasoned defence, not name-calling.

Democracy is not sustained by the silence of critics but by the ability of institutions and parties to withstand criticism without resorting to character assassination. The Congress, for its part, must also recognise that protest without a coherent alternative vision risks becoming noise. Yet the primary responsibility for elevating the discourse rests with those in power.

India’s strength has always been its capacity to absorb argument. Reducing that argument to a binary of patriots versus traitors weakens the republic far more than any street demonstration. The nation deserves better than the politics of the slur.

• SAS Kirmani