Recently, I have noticed a strange kind of admiration for people who are rude in public. Someone shouts over another person, throws in a few abuses, and the video is celebrated as a “savage reply”. A film character humiliates someone and we are expected to cheer. In everyday life too, the person who speaks respectfully is sometimes called timid, while the one who creates a scene is treated as strong.
I do not understand when we began confusing a lack of restraint with courage.
There are times when a firm response is necessary. Wrongdoing must be challenged. An unfair order should be refused. A person being mistreated deserves support, even if speaking up brings consequences. I have far more respect for someone who takes that stand than for someone who stays silent to protect their own comfort.
But what exactly is brave about abusing a stranger, mocking a colleague or shouting at someone who cannot shout back? Such behaviour is often performed in front of an audience. It demands attention immediately and costs very little. The harder test comes when there is no audience, when the person doing wrong has power over you, and when standing by the truth could cost you something.
That is where firmness begins. Volume has nothing to do with it.
Social media has made the distinction easy to forget. A short clip can show an insult and the applause that follows it. It rarely shows what happened before, whether the insult was justified, or what damage was left afterwards. Films have their own reason to favour a dramatic confrontation. But when we carry that performance into ordinary life, we begin treating other people as targets for a clever line.
The result is a cheap idea of personality: be abrasive, call it honesty; be disrespectful, call it independence; lose your temper, call it strength. It is a poor standard for a society to admire. Abusing someone requires no particular intelligence. Humiliating a person in front of others requires no moral courage. If anything, it shows how little control the speaker has over the power of their own words.
Indian thought places a much higher value on restraint. In the Bhagavad Gita, Shri Krishna includes truthfulness, freedom from anger, peace, compassion and refraining from slander among the qualities he describes:
अहिंसा सत्यमक्रोधस्त्यागः शान्तिरपैशुनम्।
दया भूतेष्वलोलुप्त्वं मार्दवं ह्रीरचापलम्॥
— Bhagavad Gita 16.2
Notice that truth and freedom from anger appear together. We have started behaving as though an angry delivery makes a statement more truthful. Often it merely makes the speaker feel more powerful for a moment.
Krishna also describes a person of steady wisdom as one whose mind is not easily shaken by hardship and who is free from attachment, fear and anger:
दुःखेष्वनुद्विग्नमनाः सुखेषु विगतस्पृहः।
वीतरागभयक्रोधः स्थितधीर्मुनिरुच्यते॥
— Bhagavad Gita 2.56
That is a demanding ideal. Most of us will lose our temper at times. But the ideal is revealing: a steady mind is praised as strength. Being ruled by every provocation is hardly a mark of freedom.
There is also a discipline in how we tell the truth. The Gita speaks of words that are truthful, beneficial and considerate:
अनुद्वेगकरं वाक्यं सत्यं प्रियहितं च यत्।
स्वाध्यायाभ्यसनं चैव वाङ्मयं तप उच्यते॥
— Bhagavad Gita 17.15
This does not mean making every difficult truth pleasant. Some truths will upset people, especially those benefiting from what is wrong. It means we should know the difference between saying what needs to be said and taking pleasure in causing hurt. “I am just brutally honest” is too often an excuse for enjoying the brutality.
Our stories of divine strength make the same distinction in a different way. Maa Durga confronts Mahishasura with overwhelming force. The Devi Mahatmya describes her striking him with her trident:
एवमुक्त्वा समुत्पत्य सारूढा तं महासुरम्।
पादेनाक्रम्य कण्ठे च शूलेनैनमताडयत्॥
— Devi Mahatmya 3.40
Her strength is decisive. It is directed at a grave threat. The lesson I take from this is not that a powerful person must always be gentle. It is that power needs judgment. Every disagreement is not Mahishasura. Every irritation does not deserve a weapon, whether that weapon is in our hands or in our speech.
Shri Ram shows another side of strength. In the Valmiki Ramayana, after defeating an exhausted Ravana in battle, he tells him to return to Lanka, recover and come back prepared:
प्रयाहि जानामि रणार्दितस्त्वं।
प्रविश्य रात्रिंचरराज लङ्काम्।
अश्वस्य निर्याहि रथी च धन्वी।
तदा बलं प्रेक्ष्यसि मे रथस्थः॥
— Valmiki Ramayana, Yuddha Kanda 6.59.143
Ram does not abandon his fight against Ravana. He also has no need to turn that moment into an exhibition of cruelty. His restraint does not diminish his resolve; it shows how secure that resolve is.
That, to me, is class. It has nothing to do with clothes, English fluency, social position or a polished public image. It is the ability to hold a firm position without making another person’s humiliation your reward. It is knowing when to argue, when to refuse, and when to act, while remaining in command of yourself.
A person can say, calmly, “I will not approve this because it is wrong.” A person can confront a superior with facts and refuse to sign a false report. A person can defend a colleague whom everyone else is mocking. None of these actions becomes stronger by adding abuses. In many situations, staying measured makes the stand harder to dismiss.
We should be especially wary of people who perform toughness only with those below them. Anyone can shout at a waiter, a junior employee or a stranger behind a screen. If someone is polite to the powerful and insulting to the powerless, the behaviour is neither rebellion nor honesty. It is cowardice dressed up as confidence.
I am not arguing that people must sound calm every minute of their lives. Anger is human, and sometimes it is the first sign that our conscience is still working. But anger should move us towards a response to the wrong. When we begin celebrating abuse itself, we have forgotten the purpose of speaking up.
A society of strong individuals should be able to disagree fiercely without making disrespect fashionable. We should teach people to question, to resist and to stand firm. We should also be honest enough to call public humiliation what it is: a crude performance that lowers the speaker along with the person being attacked.
The truly strong person can make a room uncomfortable by telling the truth. They do not need to make themselves vulgar to do it.
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