Let us be real, slurs are nothing uncommon. They have existed since time immemorial, but to justify, propagate and normalise them shamelessly is nothing short of Hitlerian levels of villainy, and we are proud to say that it has become our nation's culture. We have a history of taking regular words and making them ugly to an extent that revulsion accompanies them thereafter.

Historically, there have been an umpteen number of slurs like niggers, denigratingly used by whites for black people, coolie, used by whites to connote servitude and inferiority of South and East Asians. The use of Bhangi, Chamar, etc., to insult Dalits. A recent one is Pajeet, used online extensively to racially abuse Indians. The list is endless.

All these, when placed on a comprehensive social benchmark, are considered hideous and indicative of the unculturedness of the person who uses such derogations. However, not so in India, where derogatory slurs are considered the epitome of saffroniality and a model of probity.

With this context as the background, Himanta Biswa Sarma's "Miya" remarks are nothing to be repulsed by. The judiciary also appears to endorse such usage, as evidenced by its inaction in direct contravention of its own 2023 judgment. The Supreme Court had, in April 2023, extended the application of its October 2022 order (which directed the Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand Police to take suo motu action against hate speech cases) to all States and Union Territories.

Slurs like these are not neutral names; they encode power imbalances, historical oppression, and social exclusion. Linguistically, such terms function as tools of domination. When used by dominant groups, they are meant to demean and marginalise the targeted group, and reinforce stereotypes and inequality.

The use of slurs reinforces existing hierarchies by assigning a subordinate social role to the target and an elevated one to the speaker — effectively legitimising unequal treatment. Slurs draw on and amplify historical patterns of discrimination.

Repetition of demeaning terms normalises negative stereotypes and lowers social barriers to discriminatory behaviour. People in societies with high levels of bigotry, like in our nation, where casteism is the bog-standard, are more likely to express or act on prejudiced views if slurs are commonplace because they reduce the social cost of expressing prejudice.

These terms, then, become offensive not only because of the words themselves but because they index long histories of exploitation, violence, and exclusion. The more deeply a term is embedded in historical oppression, the more powerful and harmful its use becomes.

Their use signals that treating the targeted group as inferior is becoming socially acceptable, and arguments for empathy and moral norms toward fair treatment are weakening. We are able to observe exemplifications of such behaviour in the release of rapists, like in the Bilkis Bano case or more recently that of Unnao rape case perpetrator Kuldeep Singh Sengar and the recent FIR registered against Deepak Kumar, who tried to defend a 70-year-old Muslim suffering from Parkinson's and was targeted by Hindutva goons.

It was "traitors" like Deepak who founded the idea of modern India; we need more of them and not "nationalists."