In political speeches, especially during election time when even a personal friend in a rival party is a veritable foe, barbs are quite in order, so long as they are not off colour.

When making a point in a small group, a whisper, a wink, a smirk, a blank look serves the purpose. And in close-up shots, they can even be cinematic moments that fill huge spaces where words can, and often do, fail. But when speaking from a platform to a mass of people, such things always fail. All public speakers know this.

However, television has changed that. Not only do tight shots bring a face into the drawing room for a conversational perception, but they also amplify it. On the other hand, the mass of people facing the rostrum just see a figure that can be identified by them because of prior publicity. Else, he or she is just a figure. Words matter.

Huge television screens around venues help but attention invariably is on the dais. High fidelity sound ratcheted up booms across the space, enveloping the speaker and the audience. And yet, a badly spoken speech can botch it all up. The audience needs words and expressions to which they latch on. Fire and brimstone is not always required.

Atal Behari Vajpayee’s pauses, his choice of words, as well as his syntax did the trick. With Jawaharlal Nehru, it was the cadence – remember his Tryst with Destiny’s delivery which rang through the nation and is remembered? And Martin Luther King, Jr’s I Have a Dream? Just read Abe Lincoln’s Gettysburg speech in a monotone without pauses, and you waste a great speech.

Speakers need to work up some graphic images that, in one word, or maybe two-three, explain a lot more, catch the fancy and drive the imagination of the audience on which other things are layered. Marc Antony’s funeral speech praising Julius Caesar’s assassins could not have had the mob thirsting for revenge had he not called the conspirators “all honourable men”.

That is where Narendra Modi’s 'shahzada' comes in. It is not a derogatory term, but respectable to become a fitting description of a man, Rahul Gandhi, known and even called The Prince in some circles because of his dynastic DNA. That alone has brought him to the forefront of the Congress though he has nothing yet to show for it. He himself talks of his ‘mummy’ and ‘naani’.

And in its anger, the Congress erred. If Modi does not stop it, he may have issues, the party’s spokesmen have declared. They are staying their hand only because of the election-related code of conduct. In other words, they are referring to the party’s cadres’ ability to use muscle on the streets.

A decade ago, Sharad Pawar had used the term 'Shrimant' when referring to Bal Thackeray, during an arduous election campaign. Without referring to the Shiv Sena’s founder by name, it nicely suggested what Maharashtrians know. Shrimant is how the Peshwas were referred to – it also meant the rich. It also implied the grabbing kind, a hint of decadence, of the brahminical cultural ethos.

Shahzada or Sahibzada also conveys a lot. It is the progeny of the king, the rich, spoilt, allowed a free run simply because he is the son of the father of some eminence, of a particular high status. If respectably used, without the contextual conditions now exploited by Modi, it merely means a son.

Modi has also used 'Miyan' in the past. Since his post-2002 anti-Muslim image, it set off the loud peals of the bells among a particular section of the politically correct. In Urdu-speaking societies, Miyan in ordinarily used as an honorific, not a derogatory term. Modi invested in it a meaning by using it for a Muslim, in this case, an Islamic state’s head, Parvez Musharraf.

The subtleties are important when words are the thing. Like Sonia Gandhi’s use of that by now famous Maut ka saudagar for Narendra Modi once was. She had made a telling point under which Modi and the entire Sangh parivar did squirm and a retort was impossible. Like Bal Thackeray using the subtle 'bag of potatoes' to refer to the physically large Sharad Pawar.

Oratory is not just a string of flowery words, phrases, or getting pretentious. It is about getting listeners to warm up to the speaker, using terms that communicate an idea without getting too wordy. While delivering an idea to a non-homogeneous audience, less can be more. The word floats down and sinks into the mind. Lincoln’s speech barely lasted four-five minutes.

In political speeches, especially during election time when even a personal friend in a rival party in the high-stake fight is a veritable foe, barbs are quite in order, as long as they are not off colour. What is a speech worth without the cutting verbal sabre slash, or a few choice imageries developed for the voters to take home?

It is educative to hark back to this conversation between Alice and Humpty Dumpty:

“’When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master - that's all.’"