The Naming Game Is Over

If you come up with an insult in Indian politics today, watch how quickly it turns into the name of a political party.

In August, the government gave its critics a new label: Dimagi Naxal, or "intellectual Naxal," describing someone who fights with ideas rather than weapons. The goal was to limit dissent and warn people not to cross a line. But within a day, a Dimagi Naxal Janta Party appeared. They took the insult, made it their name, gained over 100,000 followers before the speech had even finished spreading, and chose a motto that showed their defiance: Think, Research, Resist.

This was the second time it happened in just a few months. In May, the Chief Justice of India called unemployed youth cockroaches. Within days, people formed the Cockroach Janta Party. What started as a joke quickly became a movement and even forced a Union minister out of office. Twice in one summer, insults from those in power were turned almost overnight into organised identities by the people they were meant to hurt.

One of the oldest and most reliable tools in politics has stopped working. Understanding why matters, because this failure isn't what it seems, and it isn't just one party's issue.

The weapon used to work

First, we should admit that this tactic was real. For ten years, naming an enemy was one of the establishment's most effective strategies, and they did it better than anyone else.

Terms like Tukde-tukde gang, Andolanjeevi, Urban Naxal, and Khan Market gang were all created and spread through a large, organised network. These labels became part of everyday language. They gave supporters a common enemy and made it harder for those labelled to speak up, since they first had to defend themselves against a stereotype. This is a great skill. Controlling what the country debates and who it debates against is a big part of politics, and for years, they were in charge of it.

Now, when this tactic not only fails but actually backfires and creates what it was supposed to stop, the real question isn't whether they've lost their skill. The important thing is to see what has changed beneath them. The answer isn't the party itself but the environment in which it operates.

It was always a broadcast weapon

Naming an enemy is a one-way tactic. It relies on a medium in which messages flow in only one direction: you create the label, send it through your channels, and the public receives it. Television worked this way, as did WhatsApp forwards, front-page headlines, and hashtags pushed by coordinated accounts. In that world, you could put an idea into millions of minds and have it understood as you intended. The audience just received what you sent.

That world is gone, and it didn't disappear quietly. Now, the feed has taken its place, and the feed doesn't just receive messages; it interacts with them. As soon as something appears, thousands of people change it, add their own spin, and share their versions. You can't force a message onto this medium. Once you put it out there, it's in the public's hands, and they can do whatever they want with it.

When you put an insult into this kind of medium, you're not using a weapon; you're giving people material to work with. The insult doesn't hurt its target. Instead, it ends up in the hands of millions who turn it into something new, often a badge of pride. That's why 'Dimagi Naxal' didn't make anyone feel smaller. By the end of the day, people were proud to use the name, because this medium doesn't let labels stick where you put them. It spreads them to everyone, including those you wanted to insult, and they often do a better job turning it into content than you do.

The wrong playbook in the wrong room

Another part of this failure makes it worse. The party isn't just using a broadcast tactic in a space where people participate. It's also using the strategy from one platform in a completely different environment.

The BJP's approach was designed for the aggressive style of the X timeline, where trends are hijacked, and enemies are called out in quote tweets. This style works well in its own space. But the place where young people now engage with politics isn't there; it's on Instagram, in reels, and in a culture built on humour, sarcasm, irony, self-awareness, and participation. In this world, being too serious, aggressive, or trying too hard is just something to laugh at.

You could see this mismatch in the campaign itself. The party's official accounts used phrases like "Avengers Assemble" and "Teen Bhai, Teeno Tabahi," drawing on gangster and action-movie imagery from films such as KGF and Mirzapur. They tried to paint critics as a threat to be eliminated. On X, this might look strong and coordinated. But in the space where it was actually posted, it just looked like a group of men who had watched too many movies and confused being threatening with being clever. Instead of fear, the response was the kind of laughter young people reserve for adults trying too hard to be intimidating online.

The choice of these images carries a deeper irony, and young people noticed it right away. The government called its critics a danger to society, then used visuals from KGF and Mirzapur; stories that make gangsters and extortionists look glamorous. So, their warning against 'anti-social elements' was dressed up using the look of famous anti-social characters. In this medium, references bring all their background with them. A Mirzapur image doesn't just suggest menace; it evokes a known criminal, making the government look like the gangster and its critics like the ones being hunted. The team picked these references because, in their usual space, being a villain seems powerful. But in the space they actually posted in, young people who know these stories could immediately see who really fit the role.

Why the young hand it back

This isn't just the result of one bad campaign, and a better campaign won't fix it. The people on the other side have a natural reaction that makes the naming tactic useless.

Reappropriating insults comes naturally to them. It's one of the oldest habits in internet culture and exactly what happens when authority tries to insult someone. When those in power give a label, young people don't see it as a warning about an enemy. Instead, they see it as someone in authority telling them who to dislike, and their first instinct is to take the word and make it their own. By owning the insult, they strip it of its power and mock the person who used it. In this environment, an insult isn't a burden; it's a flag, and they proudly wave it.

There is no better meme

It's tempting to think the solution is to hire people who understand the medium, who get irony and internet culture, and then the memes will work. But this approach won't succeed because it's a trap with no real solution.

Naming an enemy only works if you truly mean it. The label matters because the person using it is seriously saying, "This one is dangerous; treat them that way." Sincerity is what makes this tactic powerful. But this medium punishes sincerity and rewards irony, distance, and a knowing wink. Anyone who takes it too seriously gets mocked. So, the establishment is stuck. If they use the slur sincerely, people laugh at it for trying too hard. If they use it ironically, the seriousness disappears, and the insult becomes just a joke. A joke doesn't really label anyone. They can't win, because the style that would make the meme work is the same style that takes away its power. The better they get at using the medium, the less effective their tactic becomes.

Chosen, not assigned

So what actually works here? The badges keep spreading even as the insults fade away. The main idea is simple: in this environment, you can't force an identity on people. You can only offer one and hope others choose to adopt it.

Look at what actually caught on. Cockroach and Dimagi Naxal both spread quickly, not because anyone told people to use them, but because people chose them for themselves. They wore these labels because they expressed something they always wanted to say. That's the key difference between an insult and a badge, and it's the only difference that matters. Forced identities don't spread in this medium; chosen ones do. The establishment keeps trying to assign labels from above, but that doesn't work here. The people they're up against keep offering identities and letting others pick them up, which is what succeeds. The same word can have the opposite effect, depending on whether it's chosen or forced.

The difference is huge. The party has to organise a major campaign across multiple official accounts, risk its reputation, and even face criticism from groups like the Editors Guild to create a single insult. Meanwhile, a single anonymous person with some free time can turn that insult into a movement at no cost. The expensive tactic and the free response meet in a space designed for the response, and the free one always wins.

The same mistake, twice over

So, these two failures are really just one. Naming an enemy and broadcasting that name are both top-down strategies, but the establishment keeps using them in a space that works from the bottom up. They're trying to control the message in a place where no one, not even the sender, can control it. The problem isn't just a bad insult or an awkward meme. It's that they're using an old idea: that you can name a villain and make it stick, in a world where that idea no longer works.

That's why this isn't just one party's problem, and why it will keep happening. Any political group that tries this tactic will get the same result, because it's the nature of the medium, not the message, that matters. If you name your enemy and spread it, the feed will quickly give your enemy a name, an identity, and a following; often faster than you can react.

The naming game hasn't ended because naming itself is wrong. It's over because the environment changed, but the strategy didn't. Now, every insult is like a new beginning. If you create a slur for your opponent, you haven't hurt them; you've just named their group and helped launch it.

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tushar(at)tusharpanchal(dot)co

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tushar(at)warroom(dot)live

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