Politics in India: Art of bisyllabic neologism

The predilection of our political class for metaphors from popular cinema is only exceeded by their exuberance for two-syllable neologisms.

To be sure, these impromptu words and phrases often defy logic — etymological or otherwise — but they do inject a degree of imagination and humour into what would otherwise be rather lowbrow political slanging matches.

The characterisation of Narendra Modi as Rambo by his opponents may have lost most of its sly message in translation if the macho Hollywood meme was indeed intended to reach non-English-movie audiences, but it did provoke the BJP spokesperson to retort with two evocative ones of her own.

Her contribution to the name-calling game — Dumbo and Scambo — will probably be much reiterated as election fever builds. Contrary to what many may think, however, her intended target(s) for the second nickname are less obvious than the first, but guessing is part of the game. The need for snarky shorthand and catchy alliteration is manifest as microblogging is now an important tool of political communication.

There is only so much bile that can be compressed into 140 characters without having to waste space on the protagonists’ names as well. Short and sharp epithets work better as hashtags too, as recent cyber-spats have shown. So, the name-calling will continue.