After a long time, I had an opportunity to go to my school to meet someone. Since there was time before the bell, I thought I’d take a round. As I turned the corner, I saw 7–8 kids in the dazzling corridor of an elite school, and the language they were using made my ears go numb. Gen Z’s fast, chopped-up, emoji-dripping tongue… and in every sentence, a four-letter firecracker.

“Bro, you totally got %&^$^$%* in class today!” Read in Hindi: ‘जेन-जी’ की गाली-गैलेक्सी, भारत के एलीट स्कूलों में हो रहा है भाषा का पतन!

Madam asked what photosynthesis is, and you replied, “When the chlorophyll &*^#@*$ opens up in sunlight!”

“Hey, you don’t talk! Even Premchand would faint listening to your Hindi!”

“Lower your volume or the Principal will shove us into his %&^$^$%*!”

Their fake laughter bounced off those polished granite walls, the same school whose annual fees equal the price of a small house in Hathras. Even the walls must have blushed at this ‘fun’. A girl with AirPods said, “Guys, Mirzapur drops tomorrow. Full abuse marathon! Get popcorn and pack your sister’s laundry!”

Inside the nearby staff room, a 52-year-old teacher looked up, her pen pausing mid-sentence. She had taught generations Shakespeare and Sarojini Naidu, yet today she understood barely one out of every seven words. The other two teachers exchanged a glance, a look that needed no translation: helplessness, disgust, and the silent terror that the language they had guarded all their lives was now chopped, sliced, acronym-ised and emoji-ified into something unrecognisable. They could only say: the language has been snatched from us.

Meanwhile, the CBSE’s November 2025 circular on ‘prohibiting abusive language’ became a meme on WhatsApp within six minutes, wrapped in yet more abuses.

India is now at a point where even the marble corridors of its costliest schools echo with the same four-letter abuses that spill out of OTT web series and Instagram reels.

The CBSE advisory of November 2025, issued over the rising use of expletives in schools, is therefore not just another routine circular; it is an alarm, the voice of an institution reminding us of basic civility. Teachers say teenagers, especially from privileged urban and semi-urban English-medium schools, sprinkle abuses into everyday sentences the way earlier generations used “ji” or “please.” Gender is no longer a filter; girls too use Hindi and English abuses as freely as boys. Once taboo words, especially those targeting women, have lost all boundaries.

Abuses are no longer an act of rebellion; they’ve become the default style of conversation. Short sentences, sudden capitalisation, and emoji clusters, they’ve shredded grammar to bits. The expressive range of an entire generation is shrinking while the dictionary of abuses expands.

Social media and streaming platforms bear most of the responsibility, not because they created abuses, but because they made them the new normal. They monetised them and delivered them with algorithmic precision to minors. A 13-year-old in Dehradun or Delhi doesn’t need to hang out at a local adda to learn colourful abuses; ‘Mirzapur’, ‘Sacred Games’ and countless YouTube reaction channels deliver them in high definition, customised to taste. The message is clear: being “cool” means being hateful, harsh, and aggressive.

The consequences go far beyond embarrassment at parent-teacher meetings. Psychological studies show that prolonged exposure numbs speakers to the emotional weight of words. Empathy shrinks. The child who casually hurls the filthiest word at a classmate is already walking towards dehumanisation. When everyone casually uses words like MC, BC or “randi,” values and decency go up in flames. Discipline weakens, teachers lose moral authority, and schools, once the last public spaces enforcing civility, turn into arenas of aggressive exhibitionism.

Parents, helpless and partly complicit, often give up. Many among them are India’s first generation raised on MTV, cable TV and early internet forums; they’ve lost the moral confidence to correct their kids. Some fear being labelled “old-fashioned” if they object to the language of “New India.” Schools, eager to seem progressive and digital-friendly, have abandoned linguistic supervision. Into this vacuum, streaming platforms and peer groups have happily marched.

The CBSE advisory is well-intentioned and balanced, but its recommendations of counselling sessions, parent-teacher dialogues, and awareness workshops seem inadequate against the tidal wave of digital culture. Counselling alone cannot erase a vocabulary rewarded by likes, subscribers and social capital.

What we need is an active counter-formation: polite language, literature, poetry, scriptures, formal writing, elocution, anything that reminds young ears that language can be beautiful, precise and powerful without being obscene.

The emotional weight of language is vanishing. Empathy is shrinking. Children who treat MC–BC as jokes are slowly forgetting how to see others as human. Schools are losing discipline, teachers their authority, and parents their courage.

CBSE’s suggestions of counselling, workshops, and parent-teacher dialogue are necessary but insufficient in the face of a digital storm.

What we need is a new counter-culture, the purity of language, the sweetness of literature, the rhythm of poetry, the grace of storytelling, and a reminder that beautiful language can be powerful too, without a single abuse. Who knows if we’ll manage that!