While there is a considerable body of research on the pragmatics of apology across the globe, the Indian apology discourse has received hardly any attention from scholars. Political apologies particularly, have been neglected as an important area of research in India. The act of tendering public political apologies, which was almost absent from the Indian repertoire, is an emerging trend in India. This article aims to identify the salient characteristics of Indian political apologies by contextual analysis of the apology texts and is a first of its kind as far as known to the authors. Indian political leaders use evasion and manipulation in apology utterances to avoid an explicit apology. The graver the transgression, the greater the hesitation to offer an explicit apology. We suggest that the categorization of political apologies should take into consideration the stature of the political apologizer also and not just the magnitude of the offence, as this can have a significant impact on the apology behaviour.

中文翻译：

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印度政治道歉的语用：对不起，但不是对不起

虽然全球对道歉语用学的研究相当多，但印度的道歉话语几乎没有受到学者的关注。尤其是政治道歉，在印度被忽视为一个重要的研究领域。向公众公开政治道歉的行为在印度几乎没有出现，但在印度已成为一种新兴趋势。本文旨在通过对道歉文本的语境分析来确定印度政治道歉的显着特征，据作者所知，这在此类文章中尚属首次。印度政治领导人在道歉话语中使用回避和操纵来避免明确的道歉。越是违法，就越是犹豫要不要做出明确的道歉。