In public life today, few things collapse faster than logic. A debate begins with a specific question, a specific allegation, a specific moral or political issue. Within seconds, the ground shifts. The original point disappears. A new accusation is thrown in. Then another. Soon, no one is answering anything. Everyone is merely defending everything.

This is the age of whataboutery.

“What about them?”

“What about when your side did it?”

“What about that old incident?”

“What about another country, another party, another community, another ideology?”

The phrase may sound casual, even harmless. But whataboutery is not merely a debating trick. It is the slow poisoning of reason. It is a method by which accountability is avoided, morality is diluted, and truth is buried under competing hypocrisies.

At its core, whataboutery is the refusal to engage with the question at hand. When confronted with an uncomfortable fact, one does not answer it. One points elsewhere. If a leader is accused of corruption, the response is not a defence of innocence, but a reminder that another leader was corrupt too. If a government fails, the answer is not an explanation, but a lecture on how previous governments also failed. If a nation is questioned on its conduct, the response is not introspection, but a catalogue of another nation’s crimes.

This is not argument. This is evasion dressed up as moral balance.

The tragedy is that whataboutery often contains a fragment of truth. Yes, the other side may also have sinned. Yes, history may be full of double standards. Yes, many critics are selective. But none of this answers the original question. The guilt of another does not become your innocence. Someone else’s hypocrisy does not become your virtue. A previous wrong does not sanctify a present wrong.

If a thief is caught stealing and says, “But others have stolen more,” he may be making a factual statement. He is not making a moral defence.

That is where logic fails.

In a rational argument, each claim must stand on its own. If an action is right, it must be defended as right. If it is wrong, it must be admitted as wrong. But in the culture of whataboutery, right and wrong are no longer judged by principle. They are judged by tribe. The question is no longer, “Is this true?” or “Is this just?” The question becomes, “Does this help my side or hurt my side?”

Once that happens, anything goes.

A lie becomes acceptable if it serves the right camp. Violence becomes understandable if committed by the preferred group. Corruption becomes tolerable if the corrupt person is ideologically useful. Censorship becomes necessary when one’s own side exercises it, but fascism when the opponent does. Institutions are sacred when they favour us and compromised when they don’t.

The same people who demand high standards from enemies demand infinite forgiveness for friends.

This is how public morality dies — not in one spectacular collapse, but through daily exemptions.

Whataboutery also creates a strange comfort. It saves people from the burden of consistency. One does not have to think deeply, judge fairly, or examine one’s own side. All one needs is a counter-example. Every accusation can be met with another accusation. Every failure can be hidden behind an older failure. Every uncomfortable truth can be drowned in historical grievance.

It is the intellectual equivalent of throwing dust into the air.

In politics, this becomes especially dangerous. Democracies depend on accountability. But accountability requires specificity. A minister must answer for his ministry. A party must answer for its promises. A government must answer for its term in office. Whataboutery dissolves this specificity. It converts every debate into an endless museum of comparative wrongdoing.

Ask about inflation, and you are told about past regimes.

Ask about law and order, and you are told about another state.

Ask about institutional failure, and you are told about colonial history.

Ask about hate speech, and you are told about hate speech from the opposite camp.

Everything is connected, and therefore nothing is answerable.

This does not mean historical context is irrelevant. Context matters. Double standards must be exposed. Selective outrage deserves to be challenged. But context is not a substitute for accountability. The question “Why are you silent about them?” may expose bias, but it does not answer the question “What do you say about this?”

Both can be true: the critic may be hypocritical, and the criticised may still be wrong.

A mature society must be able to hold these two thoughts together.

The deepest damage caused by whataboutery is moral laziness. It trains citizens to become lawyers for their side rather than seekers of truth. Every event is processed not through conscience but through strategy. Should we condemn this? Should we justify it? Should we deflect? Should we find an older example? Should we attack the messenger?

This is not citizenship. This is fandom.

And once politics becomes fandom, evidence loses power. Loyalty becomes the highest virtue. Nuance is treated as betrayal. A person who criticises his own side is called weak, compromised, or secretly aligned with the enemy. The possibility of independent judgment vanishes.

The result is a public square where everyone has arguments, but few have principles.

Whataboutery thrives because it is emotionally satisfying. It offers instant relief from discomfort. It allows us to avoid the painful question: “What if my side is wrong on this?” Instead of confronting that possibility, we shift the burden. We accuse the accuser. We change the subject. We expand the battlefield until the original issue is lost.

But truth is not defeated by being inconvenient. It merely waits.

The antidote to whataboutery is not silence about hypocrisy. Hypocrisy must be called out. But the order of reasoning matters. First answer the charge. Then expose the double standard. First state your principle. Then apply it universally. First decide whether the act is right or wrong. Then ask who else has violated the same principle.

A society that cannot say “this is wrong even when my side does it” has lost the foundation of moral seriousness.

The real test of conviction is not whether we can condemn our opponents. That is easy. The real test is whether we can hold our allies to the same standard. Without that, principles become slogans. Justice becomes revenge. Debate becomes theatre.

Whataboutery may win arguments on television. It may gather applause on social media. It may protect leaders, parties, communities, and ideologies from temporary embarrassment. But in the long run, it destroys the very grammar of truth.

Because when every wrong is defended by pointing to another wrong, we do not become more just. We merely become more shameless.

And in that shamelessness, logic fails.

Anything goes.

Author of Operation Phoenix: Bharat Protocol. Grandson, Husband and Father of Two, S Jaganathan - is the Founder of The Verandah Club. Convenor INTACH Coimbatore Chapter. He is an avid traveller, interested in trendspotting and a firm believer in the philosophy - Dharmo Rakshati Rakshitah.