India, July 21 -- Centrism is not indecision, but a conscious rejection of the emotional trauma, institutional decay and social fragmentation that result from ideological extremes. This is increasingly visible across democracies worldwide. Public discourse has become structured less around policy and more around outrage. Political tribes increasingly define themselves not merely by what they support, but by whom they hate. Under such conditions, centrism is attacked precisely because it refuses to participate in this emotional absolutism.

In periods of political polarisation, moderation is frequently mistaken for opportunism. Yet history had repeatedly demonstrated that societies rarely collapse because they lacked ideological purity; th...