The politics of labelling is not uniquely Indian. Across time and space, governments and political movements have employed the tactic of naming their opponents that carry an immediate stigma. Once a person has been named an "enemy," "traitor," "extremist," or "anti-national," any logical argument becomes secondary. The label does the heavy lifting.

This is particularly visible in the present global resurgence of populist and authoritarian politics. From the United States to Europe and Latin America, political movements increasingly divide society between the supposedly "authentic" "people" and those portrayed as obstacles to the people's will. Political opponents, migrants, minorities, journalists, intellectuals and civil-society organisations are frequently presented not simply as people with different opinions, but as threats to the nation, its culture or its security.

Politics has always been combative. The menace arises when language is deliberately used to create social distance. The opponent ceases to be a fellow citizen and becomes an alien presence within the nation.

History provides chilling examples of such politics. The Nazis began by categorising people, defining who belonged and who did not, and progressively reducing sections of society to undesirable or dangerous categories. Dehumanisation and exclusion develop through language, repetition and social conditioning.

The same principle can be observed in different forms elsewhere. Donald Trump's political vocabulary has included "enemies within"; European far-right movements have portrayed migrants and Muslims as threats to national identity; governments routinely describe journalists, opposition leaders and civil-society groups as foreign agents or enemies of the State.

The phenomenon is particularly potent in the age of social media. A complicated political argument cannot compete easily with a single derogatory word. A label is short, memorable and emotionally charged. It travels faster than an explanation. It does not require evidence because its purpose is not necessarily to prove something; it is to create an impression.

This is where "Dimaagi Naxal" acquires a significance beyond India's immediate political vocabulary. The expression belongs to a broader political strategy in which ideas are increasingly treated as identities, and identities as threats.

The United Nations has repeatedly warned that hate speech and disinformation can stigmatise communities, deepen discrimination and contribute to large-scale violence. The problem, therefore, is the political consequences that language can produce when repeated by powerful institutions and amplified through mass communication.

We should not look at "Dimaagi Naxal" merely as an unusual phrase in a political speech. We should examine the larger pattern in which the current government seeks legitimacy by defining who does not belong to the imagined national consensus.

The nation becomes smaller even while the alienation claims to make it stronger. Citizens look at one another with suspicion. Intellectual disagreement becomes betrayal. Minority opinions become evidence of disloyalty.

We have seen this before, in different countries, under different ideologies and with different consequences. That is why the question "What's in a name?" is not merely Shakespearean because sometimes a name is just a name, but sometimes it is the first boundary drawn between "us" and "them."