Telangana’s political lingo needs a reset

Political rivalry has always been noisy in Telangana, even when it was part of Andhra Pradesh. Sharp criticism, sarcasm, and ideological clashes were intrinsic in its politics. However, now political communication appears to have crossed the line. Increasingly, abuse has replaced argument, personal attacks have overshadowed policy debates, and social media virality has become more valuable than political substance.

Exchanges between the ruling party and the Opposition over several issues, starting from the Kaleshwaram project, phone tapping, water sharing with neighbouring States, and even regular government schemes, demonstrate this trend. Rather than limiting the debate to failures, financial, political, and administrative accountability, leaders use provocative remarks and symbolic counter-events designed to dominate news cycles. Sometimes, even families are dragged into the abuse.

This has not happened overnight. Even in the undivided Andhra Pradesh, politics was intensely confrontational. However, personal abuse largely remained outside the mainstream.

Telangana movement

The Telangana Statehood movement altered that equation. The movement was rooted in genuine grievances over water, employment, resources, and regional identity. It mobilised millions of people through powerful emotional appeals.

In that emotionally charged environment, ridicule of political opponents gradually became acceptable. Fringe voices using unacceptable language were justified it as an expression of the emotional intensity.

K. Chandrasekhar Rao, then leading the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, used the inherent wit and ridicule in the Telangana dialect in his political language to energise supporters. His speeches became central to the movement’s mobilisation. Over time, however, ridicule slowly gave way to outright abuse.

The emergence of social media accelerated the shift. Political workers, digital volunteers, and party-affiliated YouTubers soon recognised that insults generated far greater engagement than reasoned speeches and nuanced discussions. The result has been ‘YouTubeisation’ of politics.

The abuse culture survived the formation of Telangana in 2014.

Mr. Rao, as Chief Minister, often extended the movement’s confrontational style into governance. His press conferences featured objectionable content while criticising political opponents. While several senior politicians hesitated, the younger generation, even those highly educated, increasingly adopted the style, believing that it was politically necessary.

The change of government in December 2023 has not moderated the discourse. Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy has made personal criticism of the previous Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government a central feature of his political strategy.

Questions surrounding the Kaleshwaram project, public debt, and governance decisions deserve rigorous scrutiny. But his policy criticism has frequently been accompanied by highly personalised attacks directed at Mr. Rao and other BRS leaders such as K.T. Rama Rao and T. Harish Rao. The BRS, which popularised this culture, is responding with equal intensity.

The consequence is predictable. The debate is shifting from facts to personalities, and provocative headlines rather than core issues are occupying media reports. Television debates revolve around who insulted whom rather than whether a public policy is succeeding, as seen in the ongoing debate on tapping floodwaters from the Godavari.

This has vitiated the atmosphere at the lower level of politics, with even grassroots cadre getting poisonously divided. Political speeches now abuse the Constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech under Article 19(1)(a). People forget that Article 19(2) acknowledges that speech carries responsibilities and permits reasonable restrictions. The result is that complaints, FIRs, and defamation notices are increasing.

Telangana’s politics has matured in many ways over the past decade. Its public discourse now needs similar maturity. Personal abuse cannot be the norm. History seldom remembers insults but only the strongest ideas.