Jokers" and "Saints": The Deteriorating Language of Politics

sameer
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20 Feb 2026

When a Cabinet minister publicly labels opposition leaders "jokers," declares his Chief Minister "unrivalled for 25 years," and questions a civil servant's mental balance for enforcing a lawful ban, something fundamental has broken in our democratic discourse. Minister Satish Sharma's recent outbursts are not isolated rhetorical excess. They are symptoms of a deeper rot — the systematic destruction of the language through which democracy holds power accountable. Language in politics is not decoration. It is currency. When a minister humiliates an officer for doing his job, he sends a message to every officer across the administration: rules are negotiable, enforcement is optional, and professional integrity invites public ridicule. When legislators call each other liars on the House floor within hours of making statements, they tell citizens that nothing said in their presence means anything. The spectacle confirms what people already suspect — that governance has become theatre, loud and aggressive and empty. The particular tragedy is self-exposure. Name-calling fills exactly the time that should be spent explaining why Rafiabad's apple growers face market uncertainty, why youth unemployment persists despite annual pronouncements, why basic services fail during Ramadan while ministers pose for photographs. The resort to "jokers" and "saints" vocabulary is a confession — an admission that the speaker has exhausted argument and retreated to abuse. Democracy does not require sanitised, bloodless exchange. Passion, conflict, and fierce disagreement are legitimate and necessary. But passion argues policy while contempt attacks persons. When the latter consistently replaces the former, public trust — the only foundation democracy actually rests upon — quietly disappears. The cure is not legislation. It is political maturity: the understanding that today's opponent implements tomorrow's policy, that humiliated civil servants still process your constituency's files, and that citizens, whatever their silence, remember everything. Until that understanding arrives, Jammu and Kashmir's politics will continue shrinking from debate to diatribe — and the people will be left with words that cost nothing and deliver nothing.