The term was popularized during the JNU sedition row of 2016. It was then used to brand left-wing students of Jawaharlal Nehru University who protested the hanging of Afzal Guru, who had been convicted of aiding terrorists. In a cellphone video that surfaced after the protest, some protesters can be heard raising anti-national slogans such as “Bharat tere tukde honge” (India, you will be split into pieces). Some students, including Kanhaiya Kumar and Umar Khalid, were arrested on charges of sedition and later released on bail for six months.

Sudhir Chowdhary, editor-in-chief of Zee TV, took the credit for coining the term. According to him, it was targeted at “designer journalists”, and “English-speaking Page 3 celebrities” who allegedly “sympathize with terrorists” and “corrupt the judicial system”. Shivam Vij credits Republic TV’s Arnab Goswami for popularizing it as a tool to lump together all left-liberal critics of the government and portray them as traitors who allegedly want to see India break into pieces wanted to

Since then, several senior members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have used the phrase several times, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Law and Justice Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Minister of State for External Affairs S Jaishankar. In December 2019, Shah described protesting people while addressing a gathering in Delhi

The term was used after 2016 to brand JNU students, but recently BJP leaders have used it to refer to political opponents. PM Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah have used it in their speeches during several rallies to attack the opposition, including Rahul Gandhi of the Congress. Shah, who is also the BJP chief, said at an event last month that the people of Delhi should punish the Tukde Tukde gang responsible for the violence in Delhi.

@aditya: News ‘Quest’