India's gender double standard: Why women's swearing sparks outrage

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi released a video response to young women who had sworn at him during weeks of protests over education reforms in Delhi and other cities, he called what he witnessed a "culture shock." The women had been part of the Cockroach Janta Party demonstrations, directing their anger at the government with language that drew swift condemnation from Modi's supporters and even some of his critics. Modi's framing of the incident—treating the women's expletives as a breach of propriety worthy of forgiveness—has now become the focal point of a larger argument about how India judges political speech along gender lines.

Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi seized on the contradiction at a student gathering in Pune weeks later. Both male and female protesters had used foul language during the demonstrations, Gandhi pointed out, yet Modi had singled out only the women. "If boys swear, there is no problem and it is allowed," Gandhi said. "But if a girl swears, it is a cultural shock." He framed Modi's selective criticism as rooted in patriarchy—a system that grants men freedom to speak as they wish while policing women's words as violations of decorum.

The human toll of this double standard became visible in the case of a fifteen-year-old girl whose protest video went viral on social media. Trolls descended on her with abuse and rape threats. She released a public apology for her language and took down her video, but the harassment continued. Her mother, a single parent, told local media that the family had been forced to relocate multiple times as a result of the controversy. Meanwhile, Modi's government opened an investigation into abusive posts—a response that critics noted came only after the prime minister's supporters had already mobilized against the young protesters.

Journalist Namita Bhandare, who writes on gender issues for the Hindustan Times, told the BBC that the outrage reveals a profound inconsistency. Women in India swear regularly, she noted—it is not a new phenomenon. In villages across northern India, wedding rituals include women from the bride's family singing expletive-laden songs to welcome the groom's party, a tradition no one finds shocking. Yet when young women use profanity in political protest, suddenly the nation's moral guardians awaken. Bhandare pointed to Modi's own record: in 2004, he used the term "Jersey cow" to describe a political opponent; in 2012, he referred to someone as "girlfriend worth 500 million rupees." Such language, she argued, demonstrates the double standard at work. "Women are treated so shabbily and it's so easy to target them," Bhandare said. "And then when they use profanity, everyone asks, how can our girls cuss and swear."

Sunil Jalan, a social activist running the Gali Bandh Abhiyan—a campaign against cuss words since 2014—takes a different angle. His NGO surveyed more than 70,000 people across 28 Indian states and eight federally administered territories last year, finding that 55 percent admitted to using foul language. The 2025 Gali Map of India revealed stark regional variation: 80 percent in Delhi, 78 percent in Punjab, 74 percent in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, while most southern states fell below 44 percent and the northeast between 15 and 18 percent. Jalan argues the focus should be on swearing itself, not the gender of who swears. "This is the first time in the country that a dialogue over foul language is taking place," he told the BBC, "and hopefully something good will come out of it."

Yet younger Indians see the issue differently. Sourav Das, a spokesperson for the Cockroach Janta Party, told the BBC that profanity and protest have long been intertwined. "There's a shock-and-awe factor to it, which is fundamental to protest," he said. "It may be distasteful to some people and not to others. But it absolutely can't be criminal." The use of expletives has become increasingly common across Indian public life—in television debates, courtrooms, and parliament itself. A video that circulated recently showed a female presenter on the government-owned Doordarshan channel struggling to manage a temple priest who unleashed a barrage of cuss words at a Congress party spokesman, who then responded in kind.

Sociologist Shiv Vishwanathan frames the rising tide of profanity as symptomatic of democratic erosion. When expletives appear in parliament and courts, he argues, it signals a breakdown of language, a decline of argument, and ultimately a decline of democracy itself. The use of profanity by protesters, he suggests, reflects a weakening sense of mutual respect—when people no longer feel heard or respected, expletives become their response. The question India now faces is whether the outrage over young women's swearing will prompt a genuine reckoning with how the country conducts political discourse, or whether the focus will remain narrowly on policing women's speech while leaving men's unchecked.