Assam has once again found itself at the centre of a storm, and yet again, it is not for policy, governance, or development, but for a campaign video. This time, the controversy erupted over an AI-generated clip shared by a BJP functionary, showing Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma firing a gun at an image of Muslims, with the caption “point blank shot.”
While the outrage was swift and had spread across national and international boundaries, the Opposition launched a scathing attack against the ruling party of the state, calling it a genocidal dog whistle. Soon after, the video was deleted, and reports emerged that the Assam BJP had removed a co-convenor of its social media team for posting it.
But the question lingers beyond deletion and disciplinary action. In an age where political messaging is crafted carefully and amplified deliberately, such content does not emerge from nowhere. Even if officially disowned later, it reveals something about the ecosystem that produces it—what is considered acceptable humour, aggression and symbolism.
AI may have generated the visuals, but the sentiment it played upon was very real. That is what makes it unsettling. When political competition begins to use imagery that normalises violence against a community, even symbolically, it shifts the Overton window of what is considered acceptable speech.
The removal of one social media functionary may close the immediate chapter. But it does not answer the deeper concern: what kind of politics are we slowly getting used to? Because outrage fades quickly. Screenshots don’t. And neither do the ideas they plant.
And this is not even the first time. Not long ago, the Assam BJP’s social media handle shared another AI-generated video titled “Assam without BJP,” portraying a dystopian future where Muslims had “taken over” the state. That was defended, saying this is about illegal immigrants, not Muslims; this is about protecting Assam; this is about safeguarding demography. And perhaps this is exactly where the real question begins.
Human dignity is non-negotiable
When did we become so comfortable with reducing human beings to visual threats?
Even if the political argument is about illegal migration, a legitimate policy issue in any sovereign nation, why must the imagery slip into dehumanisation? Why must it depict an entire community as something to be shot at, erased, or feared? The law can act against illegality. The state can and should enforce borders. Governments have the authority to deport, detain, and regulate affairs in the state. But none of that requires stripping people of dignity.
Even those without legal status remain human beings. And when those in power speak or signal in such dehumanised ways, it reshapes what society considers normal. Perhaps what we are lacking is a deeper understanding of how dangerous it is to normalise dehumanisation. History, across continents, has shown us that once a group is portrayed as a threat rather than as people, it becomes easier to justify anything against them.
We need in India a political culture that values human dignity as non-negotiable. And I think that is the core of it, not whether a video is deleted, but whether we as a society still feel uneasy when human beings are turned into targets, even symbolically.
The uncomfortable truth is this: forget irregular immigrants for a moment, forget even those who have committed crimes. We still struggle, as a society, to grasp something as basic as human dignity for the ordinary person.
If we cannot uphold dignity for the most ordinary among us—the unknown, the powerless, the inconvenient—then debates about immigrants, minorities, or law and order are just surface arguments. The real issue lies deeper. A society that measures people only by utility, identity, or status will always find someone to dehumanise next. We must remember that human dignity is not a Western concept. It is not a legal technicality. It is the foundation of any healthy society. When people feel respected, seen, and protected by the system, they invest back into it. When they feel humiliated or disposable, resentment grows quietly. And resentment, over time, corrodes trust.
The question is not just how we treat “the other.” The question is whether we understand that dignity is what keeps a society from slowly turning cruel, and cruelty, once normalised, rarely stays contained.
And then there is the other layer, we are barely talking about the AI itself.
What we witnessed in Assam is not just a political misstep. It is a glimpse into how easily artificial intelligence can be turned into a weapon. The speed at which such content travels is terrifying. By the time it is deleted, most of the time it has already done its damage.
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Trust & democracy go hand in hand
This is not a problem limited to one party or one country. Around the world, AI is being used to manufacture outrage, deepen misogyny, spread communal fear, and distort reality. Synthetic videos, manipulated audio, deepfakes—they don’t just misinform. They erode something more fundamental: trust. Trust in institutions. Trust in the media. Trust in what we see with our own eyes.
And when trust collapses, democracy begins to wobble.
Democracy depends on shared facts, even when we disagree on values. It depends on citizens being able to argue honestly about policy, not about whether a video is real. If technology makes truth negotiable, if every image can be dismissed as fake and every fake can be sold as real, then accountability becomes nearly impossible.
AI also amplifies our existing prejudices. It feeds us content that confirms what we already believe. It sharpens anger, rewards extremity, and sidelines nuance. In societies already fractured along religious, caste, or ethnic lines, this is combustible.
The question may be, then, is larger than Assam or any single controversy. How will democratic societies regulate, understand, and ethically use a technology powerful enough to manipulate perception itself? Because if we fail to answer that, we may soon find that elections still happen, debates still rage—but the ground beneath them is hollowed out.
Amana Begam Ansari is a columnist and writer. She runs a weekly YouTube show called ‘India This Week by Amana and Khalid’. She tweets @Amana_Ansari. Views are personal.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)