In a complex country like India, politics and rhetoric have to play an accommodating and mediating role. The brief, sordid history of “A is for anti-national” began with describing a protest by Dalit students against the hanging of Yakub Memon at Hyderabad Central University as such; and descended into charges of sedition against slogan-shouting students in the JNU. The party’s general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya has sought action against the murdered man’s family, because “everyone is equal before the law. If politics is the art of the possible, in a democracy, language is the politician’s most important tool. Pushing the polity onto a path of constant polarisation and confrontation, through a language of divisiveness, will pit Indian against Indian — till the last election is won.

Source: Indian Express June 14, 2016 18:22 UTC