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The Slave-Making Government and the Crumbs of Justice

In an atmosphere of fear where a single oral remark from a judge becomes a bolt of lightning, the Bombay High Court’s Justice Madhav Jamdar reminded the state what democracy once meant. The relief that followed tells its own story — about the suffocation we have learned to live with.

The Thunderclap That Started It All

Justice Madhav Jamdar of the Bombay High Court was hearing a routine petition against an externment order when he paused, looked at the state’s lawyer, and said what millions have felt but only the black robes can occasionally speak aloud: “People are being made slaves of the Government of India. They cannot protest, they cannot agitate. The moment they do, cases are registered against them.” [1]

Instantly, the remark travelled through court corridors, entered social media, and became a headline. The sheer astonishment — the disbelief — that a judge had said this tells you more about our condition than the remark itself. We have become so accustomed to a state that treats protest as a crime that a defense of basic liberty sounds like rebellion.

The judge was not announcing a new philosophy. He was merely reading the Constitution. But in today’s India, that is revolutionary. The relief among citizens was palpable, yet tinged with suspicion — as if something so sane could not possibly survive the system.

The Externment Order: Weapon of Choice Against Dissent

The case before Justice Jamdar was that of Sayyed Ahmed Abdul Wahid, the general secretary of the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI). The Mumbai Police had issued an order exiling him from Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, and Panvel for one year, citing five FIRs registered against him for participating in protests. These protests targeted, among other things, a cement godown in Chembur’s Mukund Nagar that was causing severe air pollution — residents complained of TB, asthma, and lung cancer. After written complaints to the municipality, the railways, and the pollution board yielded nothing, a demonstration was held. An FIR followed. [2]

The externment order was slapped under the Maharashtra Police Act, a colonial-era provision now routinely used to remove inconvenient voices. The petitioner had, as the judge noted, also chanted slogans like “BJP Sarkar Murdabad” and “Amisha Murdabad.” To the state, these were grounds to expel a citizen from his home city.

Justice Jamdar was not amused. He questioned the basis of the entire action: “Is this grounds to throw someone out of a city for a year? If you simply pick out one active citizen and exile them, do you think protest stops? This is done to show the world — and the people — that India still has democracy. But on the ground, citizens are being targeted one by one.”

The Constitutional Shield: Articles 19 and 21

In his order, the judge leaned on the twin pillars of the Constitution — Articles 19 and 21. Citizens have not only the right to express their opinions freely but also the right to live with dignity. An externment order, he said, directly violates the fundamental right to movement and the right to live honourably. He declared that no citizen can be banished from a city merely for opposing government policies. If such coercion is permitted, it corrodes the very soul of democracy. [3]

The order explicitly called out the police’s malafide intent. “The petitioner’s fundamental rights have been adversely affected. The externment order is intemperate, disproportionate, and must be set aside.” Along with quashing the order, the judge warned the police that they are not servants of the Chief Minister or the Prime Minister but public servants, and threatened heavy fines on officers for such conduct.

The Ghosts of Precedents: Gujarat HC and Supreme Court

Justice Jamdar did not create new law; he dusted off principles that the higher judiciary has already established — and that the executive has conveniently ignored. He cited the Gujarat High Court’s judgment in Muhammad Kalim Taufiq Ahmed Siddiqui vs. State of Gujarat, where a similar externment order issued because the petitioner protested against a state policy was struck down. The Gujarat HC held that “a citizen cannot be externed merely because he is protesting against the government.” [4]

He also invoked the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Anuradha Bhasin vs. Union of India (2020), which held that Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code cannot be used to impose a blanket ban on the expression of democratic rights. The apex court had affirmed that lawful assembly and protest are integral to the democratic process, and restrictions must be reasonable, not whimsical. [5]

The very fact that these judgments had to be repeated in 2025, for a routine externment, exposes the deep rot. The state has learned to ignore the law until a judge loses patience.

The Satire of Power: When Defections Deserve Laughter

In an unscripted aside that captured the tragicomedy of Indian politics, Justice Jamdar wondered aloud about the priorities of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly. “The other day a ten-year-old child died in an accident,” he observed, “and in the assembly, the discussion was about how the election of the presiding officer takes place, and how a member went from one party to another. What is this?”

Then, in a tone dripping with sarcasm, he turned to the petitioner’s counsel: “Your client should also consider changing his party. After all, horse-trading is going on across Maharashtra. There is a washing machine; you know how it works. Just think about changing sides.” [6]

The term “washing machine” has entered Indian political vocabulary to describe the process by which tainted politicians are “cleaned” through defections, often with the complicity of the ruling dispensation. The judge’s remark was not just humour; it was a sharp indictment of a system that rewards opportunism and punishes dissent. A citizen who shouts “BJP Sarkar Murdabad” faces exile; a politician who switches loyalties for power gets a clean chit.

A Ray from Delhi: The Raghav Chaddha Precedent

The Delhi High Court, too, recently tried to draw a boundary between abuse and political satire. In the case of Raghav Chaddha, Justice Subramonium Prasad opined that politicians must tolerate political satire and criticism of their decisions, alliances, and policies. He distinguished between vulgar, obscene content — which does not enjoy free speech protection — and lampooning, which is intrinsic to a vibrant democracy. [7]

Justice Prasad’s order removed five social media posts that were explicitly offensive, but he refused to treat the general ridicule of Chaddha’s defection as defamation. “Criticism of a political figure’s decisions invites humour and sarcasm, and that cannot be labelled defamatory simply because it hurts feelings.”

When read alongside Justice Jamdar’s observation, a pattern emerges: judges in different high courts are independently pushing back against the state’s effort to choke criticism. It is as if the judiciary is sending out distress signals, hoping that someone somewhere is still listening.

The Illusion of Democratic Space: A Reality Check

Yet despite these moral victories, the ground reality remains chilling. The relief that washed over the petitioner’s face — “I had full faith that one day I would get justice from the High Court” — should not obscure the larger darkness. For every Sayyed Ahmed who gets relief, hundreds remain entangled without remedy.

The protests at Jantar Mantar tell the story. Permission to hold even peaceful demonstrations is now a bureaucratic nightmare. When the “Cockroach Janata Party” — a satirical group — was given permission to protest, the political class was jolted. “How could the government grant permission?” they asked, and soon the conversation shifted to who was behind the protest, undermining its credibility. The very fact that a protest needs suspicions about its handler reveals the stranglehold: a protest without an invisible hand is now unimaginable.

The fear is so pervasive that citizens think twice before joining a dharna. The organizers of the NEET paper leak protests in Delhi know this; participants arrive hesitantly, scanning for plainclothes policemen, acutely aware that an FIR could destroy a career or a family. The younger generation is learning to calculate the cost of shouting slogans — and the answer keeps rising.

Installment-Based Justice: The Ones Who Wait

Talk of judicial courage must be tempered by the agony of those who never receive it in time. The accused in the Bhima Koregaon case — human rights activists, poets, lawyers — spent years behind bars before any bail was granted, on evidence that even the prosecution struggled to substantiate. Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam, and countless others continue to languish without trial. [8]

The system is not dead; it delivers justice in instalments, just enough to keep hope on life support. When Justice Jamdar’s remark made headlines, it was celebrated not because it was exceptional justice, but because the judiciary appears to survive only in fragments. One judge says the right thing; another grants bail after three years; a third chides the police. These are crumbs, not a feast.

Conclusion: The Borrowed Breath of Democracy

The Bombay High Court’s oral observation is important precisely because it should not be. In a functioning democracy, a judge stating that citizens are not to be treated as government slaves would not be news. But here, it becomes a landmark — a sign that we have fallen so low that the bare minimum looks like a rebellion.

Justice Jamdar’s words have pierced the silence that has settled in court corridors after years of disappointment. They ring in the ears of those who return from courtrooms, heads bowed, having lost yet another battle against a vindictive state. They remind us that there are still judges who can see the suffocation of the common person and feel the restlessness themselves.

And yet, the same system fails to deliver when it matters most — when entire communities are branded, when bail becomes a punishment, and when the court’s calendar seems to obey a political clock. The judiciary is not dead, but it is breathing on a ventilator. Each good order, like Justice Jamdar’s, is a gasp of air. For now, we survive on those borrowed breaths.

Criticisms

• The right to peaceful protest is being systematically dismantled through the misuse of externment orders and preventive laws.
• Citizens exercising fundamental rights under Articles 19 and 21 are being treated as potential criminals and driven out of their homes for shouting political slogans.
• FIRs are registered selectively to cripple activists financially and psychologically, creating a climate of fear that stifles dissent.
• The Maharashtra Police Act and similar colonial statutes are being weaponized to suppress opposition, bypassing judicial scrutiny.
• Political defections and horse-trading are facilitated with impunity, while ordinary protesters are punished for the same act of standing against government policies.
• The term “washing machine” has become institutionalized as a method of cleansing corruption, with the ruling establishment acting as enabler.
• Law enforcement agencies are made to serve the political executive rather than the public, undermining the very concept of a neutral police force.
• Sedition and UAPA are deployed as tools to incarcerate intellectuals, activists, and students without trial, eroding the principle of bail being the rule and jail the exception.
• The state’s narrative is repeatedly manufactured to portray every protest as a conspiracy, delegitimizing genuine grievance and turning citizens into suspects.
• Judicial relief, when it comes, is often delayed and fragmentary, forcing the conclusion that the rule of law is delivered in doses approved by political expediency.

Citations

[1] Oral remarks of Justice Madhav Jamdar, Bombay High Court, reported by Live Law, April 2025.
[2] Sayyed Ahmed Abdul Wahid v. State of Maharashtra & Ors., Bombay High Court (WP Stamp No. .../2025). Details of externment order and FIRs from the court’s narration.
[3] Constitution of India, Articles 19 and 21.
[4] Muhammad Kalim Taufiq Ahmed Siddiqui v. State of Gujarat, Gujarat High Court.
[5] Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India, (2020) 3 SCC 637.
[6] Courtroom exchange as reported, with reference to the “washing machine” metaphor widely used in Indian political commentary.
[7] Raghav Chaddha v. Union of India & Ors., Delhi High Court, W.P.(C) .../2024.
[8] Bhima Koregaon case (NIA Special Court), bail denials and prolonged incarceration widely documented; see People’s Union for Civil Liberties reports.

The Fall of Six Prime Ministers and the Fortress of Indian Power

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The Fall of Six Prime Ministers and the Fortress of Indian Power

Britain is about to welcome its seventh prime minister in a decade. Keir Starmer, who swept to power with a landslide just two years ago, has resigned. His approval rating plunged to a catastrophic minus 45 per cent, and his own party has forced him out. Before him came Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Theresa May, and David Cameron — a cascade of prime ministerial downfalls that tells us less about individual failure and far more about the machinery of accountability. For anyone in India who has forgotten the name or face of a single one of these former PMs, rest assured, the fault is not yours. The revolving door at 10 Downing Street has spun so fast that it has blurred into a spectacle. Yet within that spectacle lies a brutal democratic logic — one that stands in chilling contrast to the political culture we have normalised under the present government in New Delhi.

The Brexit Dominoes: A Quick Tour of a Decade of Collapses

The trail of departures began with the 2016 referendum. David Cameron staked his premiership on remaining in the European Union, lost, and resigned immediately. Theresa May succeeded him, Britain’s second female prime minister, but could not get her Brexit deal through parliament despite three attempts. Her cabinet ministers mutinied, the government collapsed, and Boris Johnson rode the chaos into power on a promise to “get Brexit done.”

Johnson did deliver Brexit, but then came the revelations of Downing Street parties during the Covid lockdown. When that news leaked, the nation was stunned. An investigation was launched, yet Johnson refused to leave until a sexual misconduct scandal engulfed his own parliamentary conduct. His ministers resigned en masse, and he was gone. Liz Truss entered and lasted forty-nine days — the briefest tenure in British history. Her mini‑budget triggered such economic turmoil and public fury that even the lettuce famously outlasted her. Then came Rishi Sunak. He gambled on a general election and lost, in part because of his bizarre plan to fly asylum seekers to Rwanda. It is worth noting that Sunak’s photograph appeared more frequently in Hindi newspapers in India than Nehru’s is remembered today — a tragicomic marker of misplaced attention.

After Sunak, the Labour Party won a thumping majority in June 2024. Starmer became prime minister, and in less than two years he has become yet another ex‑prime minister. The British public, battered by rising unemployment, inflation exacerbated by the Iran conflict, and a cost‑of‑living crisis, tired of him. His approval rating collapsed. The party rebelled. He had no option but to resign.

The Machinery That Forces Accountability

Why do prime ministers fall so frequently in Britain? The answer is not always ideological collapse. It is the relentlessness of democratic institutions. A British prime minister has to face press conferences. That may sound obvious, but reflect on the fact that India’s prime minister has not held a single press conference since assuming office in 2014. Starmer could not ignore newspapers; he could not hide from cameras. He had to answer questions in real time, and the press, however flawed, kept watch.

Select committees in the House of Commons scrutinise government decisions with forensic energy. Opinion polls constantly gauge the public pulse, and that pulse is not ignored. When a leader’s approval rating crosses into negative territory so deeply that the party’s electoral prospects are threatened, the internal machinery of the party itself begins to act. The British system does not have an anti‑defection law. A Member of Parliament who votes against the whip does not lose their seat or face disqualification; they are suspended at most. This means the government can genuinely fall if enough of its own MPs turn against it — something that happened to Boris Johnson and, later, contributed to Starmer’s undoing.

Additionally, Britain’s opposition forms a shadow cabinet. There is a shadow prime minister and shadow ministers for every portfolio. They are not token figures; they are expected to question, challenge, and present themselves as a government‑in‑waiting. This institutional pressure leaves no room for the arrogance of unchallenged power.

The Farage Factor and the Trap of Appeasement

Amid this chaos, a familiar demon has been swelling — Nigel Farage and his Reform UK party. Born in 2018, Farage’s outfit is now surging. They have captured 1,454 council seats and control 14 local councils. Farage peddles the typical far‑right cocktail: anti‑immigration rhetoric, deep tax cuts, denial of climate change mitigation, and often outright xenophobia. His rallies attract milkshake‑throwing protesters — a sign of public anger, not a healthy reflex. Yet Reform UK’s rise is not merely a story of British bigotry; it is a textbook example of what happens when mainstream parties try to mimic the far right.

Starmer, terrified of Farage’s momentum, abandoned progressive policies and began sounding like a soft echo of nativist talking points. He tightened immigration rhetoric, skirted green pledges, and drifted rightward. The result was that voters could no longer distinguish him from the genuine article — and they flocked to Farage. The same tragic script unfolded in the United States. Kamala Harris, in the 2024 presidential election, began co‑opting Trumpian themes on immigration and energy production, even campaigning with ex‑Republican representatives. Her surrender of progressive ground only emboldened the far right, and she lost. When a centrist leader lets the far right set the agenda, the far right wins — not at the ballot box but in the battle of ideas, which subsequently translates into electoral gains. Britain is now staring at that danger.

A Tale of Two Democracies: The Accountability Gap

To truly understand the chasm, place the two systems side by side.

Dimension	United Kingdom	India (Modi era)
Prime Ministerial Press Conferences	Regular, often weekly. Facing media is non‑negotiable.	None since 2014. The PM avoids all press interactions.
Anti‑Defection Law	Does not exist. MPs can vote against their party without losing their seat.	Strictly enforced. Dissent leads to disqualification. MPs are reduced to mute followers.
Party Whip	Exist, but defying it does not end a parliamentary career. Backbenchers frequently rebel.	Absolute. The whip is an instrument of total control. Even parliamentary committees are neutered by it.
Shadow Cabinet	Formalised institution. Opposition is a mirror government, forcing accountability.	Absent. The opposition is fragmented, often silenced, and cannot mirror the executive meaningfully.
Parliamentary Sessions	In 2025, a single session ran for 150 days.	Often truncated; recent sessions have seen fewer than 7 days of actual sitting, with bills bulldozed without discussion.
Leadership Change Mechanism	Internal party rules, followed by contests and votes. When the leader loses confidence, they are removed — often brutally, but democratically.	Resignations occur only when the party high command decides. They are often cosmetic, aimed at rebranding, not at owning failure.
Media Scrutiny	Aggressive, even absurd: The Economist once compared Liz Truss’s tenure to a lettuce, and the meme became a national conversation. No law punishes satire.	Journalists face UAPA, sedition, and intimidation. Satire is a dangerous occupation. A similar lettuce comparison could land a publication in court or worse.

The British prime minister, despite all the imperfections of that democracy, cannot run from answerability. No one in India’s ruling establishment is forced to even stand still and be questioned. The contrast is not a minor nuance; it is the difference between power that must be earned daily and power that has been taken for granted.

The Indian Silence: Where Resignations Lost Their Meaning

India’s political history has known moments of genuine accountability through resignation. Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned as Railway Minister after a train accident, taking moral responsibility — a standard that remains unmatched. The Kamaraj Plan of the 1960s saw senior Congress leaders voluntarily resign from ministerial posts to reconnect with the grassroots, because it was believed that power had insulated them from the people. V.P. Singh resigned from Rajiv Gandhi’s cabinet on principle, and later, as Prime Minister, he implemented the Mandal Commission report knowing it would cost him the office; the BJP withdrew support, but he accepted the consequence rather than cling to power by abandoning the policy.

Now, look at the present dispensation. Chief ministers have been changed in BJP‑ruled states — Trivendra Singh Rawat, Vijay Rupani, B.S. Yediyurappa, Sarbananda Sonowal — but their resignations were internal musical chairs, not admissions of failure. When the Ram Temple consecration was accompanied by a stampede, no one resigned. When massive paper leaks destroyed the futures of millions of students, no minister stepped down. When the ethanol policy blunder was flagrant, the blame was deflected onto others. The Prime Minister’s office simply does not answer. The whip system has made the MP’s individual voice a relic. It is not that MPs do not think; it is that we will never know what they think, because speaking out invites swift disqualification. The anti‑defection law, originally meant to prevent governments from falling due to horse‑trading, has become a tool to kill intra‑party dissent. The political stability India once achieved through the 1985 anti‑defection law has now given way to a silent, brittle authoritarianism.

A Media That Could Have Held Power — And Chose Not To

British media is far from perfect. Oligarch ownership, tabloid excess, and political bias are rampant. Yet the sheer vigour with which it holds the prime minister’s feet to the fire cannot be dismissed. Recall the Economist’s lettuce — a vegetable used to mock the fleeting prime minister, an idea that went so viral that it became a national barometer. In India, any publication attempting such a critique of the prime minister would face a probe under UAPA, and its existence would hang by a thread. Hindi newspapers would rather print glossy photographs of Rishi Sunak’s Indian origins than ask why their own prime minister remains inaccessible. The timidity is structural, enforced by a hostile regime that labels every challenge as sedition. A free press is not a luxury that Britain alone can afford; it is the oxygen of accountability. In India, that oxygen has been pumped out of the room, and the suffocation is now normal.

What Does This Tell Us About Power?

The British experience is not a fairy tale. It is messy, often farcical, and frustrating. Yet every prime minister who fell was forced out by a combination of public anger, party ethics, institutional checks, and a media that could not be silenced. Starmer’s departure is not a failure of democracy; it is democracy’s brutal, corrective pulse. In India, the machinery of accountability has been so thoroughly dismantled that the notion of a leader facing consequences for failure seems almost quaint. The whip, the absent press conference, the defanged opposition, the tamed media — these are not accidents. They are pillars of a system that has made power immune to the people.

If democracy is to mean anything, it must retain the ability to throw out those who fail. Britain’s revolving door may be dizzying, but it is a door that still turns. In India, we have replaced the door with a fortress wall. That is not stability. It is stagnation in the guise of strength.

Criticisms

• - Press conferences have not been held by the Prime Minister since 2014, denying the public direct accountability.
• - The anti-defection law has been weaponized to silence all internal dissent within parties, reducing MPs to obedient numbers.
• - Parliamentary sessions have been drastically shortened, with bills passed without adequate debate or scrutiny.
• - The appointment and removal of chief ministers are dictated by the party high command, not by democratic failings or popular mandate.
• - Media organisations have been intimidated through laws like UAPA, and journalistic independence has been severely curtailed.
• - No resignation on moral grounds has been tendered for major governance failures, including paper leaks and stampedes.
• - The centralisation of power in the Prime Minister’s Office has eroded the collective functioning of the cabinet.
• - A culture of silence has been enforced within the ruling party, where even elected representatives fear expressing dissent.
• - The rise of far-right discourse globally has been met with appeasement rather than principled opposition, both in Britain and the United States, a pattern that only strengthens extremism.
• - Public trust in democratic institutions has been systematically eroded by the refusal to answer legitimate questions.

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The Unbearable Indifference: Sonam Wangchuk's Hunger Strike and the Death of Dialogue in Modi's India

It is the sixteenth day of Sonam Wangchuk's hunger strike at Jantar Mantar in Delhi. Sixteen days of a 69-year-old man refusing food, sixteen days of his blood sugar plummeting, his blood pressure collapsing, his body shedding eight kilograms with no end in sight. Sixteen days, and not a single representative of the Indian government has walked the short distance from the Raisina Hill to the protest site to speak with him. No minister, no bureaucrat, no emissary has been sent to even pretend that a dialogue matters. The government's silence is now a roar: it tells the nation that a life on the line counts for nothing when pitted against the ego of power. And as we watch this tragedy unfold, we must ask ourselves — what kind of democracy allows a citizen to starve himself to near death just to be heard?

The Fasting Man and the Wall of Silence

Sonam Wangchuk is not an ordinary name. He is an engineer, an innovator, an educator, and a Ramon Magsaysay Award winner—an honour often equated with the Nobel Prize of Asia. He could have chosen a life of comfort and acclaim, far from the merciless heat and rain of Jantar Mantar. Instead, he sits here, draped in a white shawl, his body weakening with every passing hour, demanding accountability for a country that seems to have forgotten what accountability means. His supporters, a mix of students, labourers, activists, and YouTubers from across India, watch helplessly. One of them, a construction worker from Jalgaon, Maharashtra, told me through a choked voice: "We came here to support Sonam sir, to demand justice for paper leaks and a broken education system. But now we are scared. We don't know how much longer his body can take this."

The protest began with a specific set of demands: the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, the disbanding of the utterly compromised National Testing Agency (NTA), a complete ban on the coaching centre mafia that thrives on paper leaks and solver rackets, and a thorough reform of an examination system that has repeatedly failed innocent students. These are not fringe demands; they are the cries of a generation that has been robbed of its future by a corrupt and negligent machinery. Yet, the government has chosen to treat them as background noise. Why? What is the thermometer that tells the state that a man's life is worth less than the political cost of an admission of failure?

Health Crisis Ignored: A Government's Ego on Display

Medical reports from the protest site paint a grim picture. By July 13, Wangchuk's blood sugar had dropped to dangerously low levels; his blood pressure was in free fall, and he had lost 8 kilograms in barely two weeks. He had stopped issuing video messages after July 11 because he was too weak to speak. His team had to issue an SOS on social media, begging every Indian to pay attention. The message read: "We don't know how many more days he can survive like this. He tells us he can continue, but we are terrified." It is a heart-wrenching irony: a man who has dedicated his life to building sustainable futures for others is now betting his own life against the stone wall of the Indian state's indifference.

The question that haunts the thousands gathered at Jantar Mantar is no longer about paper leaks or policy — it is about basic human decency. Will someone in the government please come and break this fast? Can the Congress, the Left, or any opposition party appeal to him to save himself since the government won't? The tragedy is that the narrative has been turned on its head: instead of asking why the government refuses to engage, we are forced to plead with the victim to surrender. This is a perversion of democracy, a moral inversion that the Modi administration has perfected over the last decade.

The Paper Leak Scam and the Rot in India's Examination System

What brought Sonam Wangchuk to this point is not an abstract cause. The medical entrance exam NEET was leaked; lakhs of rupees were paid to solvers who impersonated real aspirants; thousands of genuine students had their dreams crushed. The UGC-NET was cancelled minutes before the exam due to similar fears. The CSIR-UGC-NET and NEET-PG were postponed, sowing chaos and anxiety across the country. This is not an isolated incident but a systemic collapse. The NTA, which was supposed to be a tech-savvy, transparent body, has been implicated in a series of bungles and alleged malpractices. Coaching centres, many with deep political connections, have turned into factories of fraud. Yet, not a single head has rolled. The Education Minister remains in his chair, shielded by an opaque loyalty that places party above people.

At Jantar Mantar, a young activist from the Krantikari Yuva Sangathan, who has been sitting in a rain-drenched tent since June 20, told me: "Our first demand is that Dharmendra Pradhan be dismissed. The NTA must be disbanded. And all coaching centres that have been found involved in these scams should be banned. We are here because the system is killing our children." Another protester, a small-time YouTuber from Balrampur, Uttar Pradesh, arrived after seeing the protest on social media and decided to stay. "Everyone who has a phone has the right to oppose wrong policies. When I saw the situation, I couldn't go back." Their faces are the faces of India's youth, and their anger is legitimate. But the government has decided that acknowledging that anger would be a sign of weakness.

From Wrestlers to Wangchuk: The Pattern of State Apathy at Jantar Mantar

If this story sounds familiar, it's because we have been here before. In 2023, India's top female wrestlers—Olympic medallists and world champions—sat at the very same Jantar Mantar, demanding the arrest of a powerful sports official accused of sexual harassment. They braved summer heat, monsoon rains, and police brutality. When no one from the government came to speak to them, in desperation, they announced their retirement from wrestling. They even brought practice mats to the protest site, training in full public view to draw media attention, but the controlled media barely covered them. Their protest, like Wangchuk's, was treated as an irritant rather than a moral crisis.

The wrestlers' struggle laid bare a fundamental shift in how the Indian state handles dissent. Before 2014, under the Manmohan Singh government, it was common for ministers to visit protesters at Jantar Mantar, engage in dialogue, and even invite them to ministerial offices. During the Anna Hazare movement against corruption in 2011, the government's emissaries held marathon negotiations, and television channels covered the fast 24/7. Many of the people who were part of that movement are now comfortably aligned with the BJP, their voices silent about the protests of today. But the template has changed: the current regime believes that ignoring a protest is the best way to delegitimize it. The message is chilling — if we don't acknowledge you, you do not exist.

The Death of Media, the Rise of 'Godi Media'

This state apathy is made possible by the complicity of India's mainstream media. After 2014, the relationship between Jantar Mantar and the newsroom underwent a dark transformation. Media houses, particularly the Hindi and English news channels, turned into what critics now sarcastically call "Godi Media" — a cabal of outlets that serve as cheerleaders for the government rather than watchdogs for the people. They systematically ignore protests that challenge the ruling establishment or, if forced to cover them, spin them as anti-national conspiracies. The wrestlers complained on camera that hundreds of reporters would record their statements, but by evening, nothing would appear on the prime-time bulletins. Farmers who protested against the now-repealed agricultural laws were labelled "terrorists" by these same channels. The label "Jaichand" was dusted off to brand any dissenter a traitor. When Sonam Wangchuk fasts, the studios do not debate education policy; they ask, "Who is behind him? Is it a foreign conspiracy?" This silence is not just editorial bias — it is a systematic annihilation of public discourse.

The consequence is that a government with a captured media feels no heat. It can let a Ramon Magsaysay laureate starve on the streets while prime-time anchors discuss election strategies or temple politics. The media has become a weapon for the murder of democracy, and Wangchuk's emaciated body is the evidence.

Farmers' Agitation: A Lesson in Forced Retreat

The farmer protests of 2020-21 offer another parallel. For over a year, tens of thousands of farmers camped at Delhi's borders, demanding the repeal of three farm laws. The government's response was a masterclass in bad-faith negotiation: it dug trenches on highways, erected concertina wires, and deployed barricades to prevent tractors from entering the capital. It held mock dialogues with handpicked farmer leaders while the real protesters were beaten and tear-gassed. When the Supreme Court formed a committee, it was seen as a delaying tactic. Finally, in November 2021, overwhelmed by the sheer numbers and the international embarrassment, Prime Minister Narendra Modi went on television, apologized, and repealed the laws. He also announced a committee to decide on minimum support price (MSP) guarantees — a key demand of the farmers.

The MSP Committee: 48 Months, 54 Lakh Rupees, Zero Report

That committee has now become a symbol of the government's contempt for protesters. An RTI investigation by Newslaundry's Akanksha Routh revealed staggering data:

Detail	Status / Data
Time elapsed since formation	48 months (4 years)
Full committee meetings held	6
Sub-committee meetings held	42+
Expenditure incurred	Rs 54 lakh
Final report submitted	No

The Prime Minister’s own announcement, his word to the nation, has been reduced to a farce. Millions of farmers are still waiting, while the committee burns public money and produces nothing. This is how promises are made in Modi's India—with the full knowledge that they will never be kept, because the media will not follow up, and the people will either forget or be too exhausted to protest again.

Cockroach Janata Party: Has Fear Killed Satire?

In the early days of the NEET paper leak protests, the internet was flooded with memes about the "Cockroach Janata Party" — a satirical take on the situation that even had songs and animations. But soon, the algorithm seemed to scrub it clean. The trending hashtags vanished. The memes stopped spreading. Did the government's digital machinery manage the narrative, or were people simply scared into silence? When a government can twist a protest into a law-and-order problem and unleash the full force of the state against ordinary citizens, who can blame the scared? Satire, the last refuge of the powerless, is being methodically exterminated.

And yet, the protesters at Jantar Mantar continue. The "Cockroach Janata Party" members — students and young professionals — have been sitting in unyielding humidity for over 25 days, their entire lives shifted to this one patch of concrete. The government's lack of response is not just apathy; it is a strategic message: no matter how long you stay, we will not bend. Your life is cheaper than our ego.

What Kind of Democracy Can't Tolerate Protest? Wangchuk's Global Comparison

In one of his last video messages before falling too weak to record, Wangchuk spoke of his recent visit to Switzerland. He stood outside the Swiss Parliament and marvelled at the openness. Citizens could walk right in, and designated spaces in front of the parliament were regularly used for peaceful protests. He compared it with the Westminster in London, the parliaments in Sweden, Denmark, Australia, and New Zealand — all democracies where the people's house remains open to the people. Then he turned to his own capital: "Here in New Delhi, Section 144 is slapped on the city. The new Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) under section 163 makes protest impossible. The Constitution grants us the right to peaceful assembly under Article 19, yet Delhi is perpetually under prohibitory orders. Jantar Mantar is allowed only from 10 am to 5 pm. Is this constitutional? Gandhi said if a law is wrong, it is better to break it." The irony is gut-wrenching: a man of peace is forced to quote the necessity of civil disobedience because the world's largest democracy has barricaded itself against its own people.

The Ladakh March: Precedent of Detention

It is not the first time Wangchuk has faced the government's iron fist. Last year, he led a march from Ladakh to Delhi, demanding constitutional safeguards for the fragile Himalayan region and climate-action commitments. On the night of September 30, just outside Delhi, he and 150 companions were detained and kept in custody for two days. They responded with a hunger strike inside the police stations. After release, they went to Raj Ghat to honour Mahatma Gandhi. No government representative ever met them. The pattern is now unmistakable: the state will physically block, detain, and silence the messenger rather than listen to the message.

A young activist named Shiv Kumar Diwari, who came from Balrampur in Uttar Pradesh, told me with a mix of anger and despair: "Our public and our netas—both are fools. I came here because what is happening is wrong, and we have the right to oppose wrong policies." He is not a hardened politician; he is a small YouTuber who decided that the least he could do was show up. And the government tells him he does not matter.

Criticisms

• The health of a 69-year-old Ramon Magsaysay Award winner was allowed to deteriorate dangerously without a single ministerial visit.
• No formal dialogue was initiated by the Education Minister or the Prime Minister's Office during sixteen days of fasting.
• The demands of students and youth protesting against systemic paper leaks were dismissed as negligible by the state apparatus.
• The National Testing Agency (NTA) was not disbanded despite repeated evidence of malpractices and question-paper leaks.
• Pro-government media outlets were observed to have blacked out the protest coverage or reframed it as an anti-national conspiracy.
• The MSP committee, announced by the Prime Minister, was revealed via RTI to have expended Rs 54 lakh over 48 months without submitting any final report.
• Peaceful protesters, including top female wrestlers and farmers, were met with police repression, barricades, and bad-faith negotiations.
• The instrument of Section 144 and BNSS 163 was misused to permanently stifle the constitutional right to peaceful assembly in the national capital.
• The detention of Sonam Wangchuk and 150 followers on the outskirts of Delhi during the Ladakh march was executed without accountability.
• Public trust in the examination system was fatally eroded by a government perceived as protecting coaching-centre lobbies and corrupt officials.

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The Temple Heist and the Cracking of a Forced Consensus: How Opposition Is Rising From Within the Religious Sphere

Something remarkable is unfolding in the domain of religion. An opposition is being born. Not in parliament. Not on the streets. But inside the very sacred space that was carefully manufactured into an unchallenged monolith. And if this opposition grows—and there are signs it will—the BJP knows its support base could suffer a deep wound.

The same religion whose name was weaponized to annihilate the political opposition—where every question raised by the opposition was branded anti-Hindu, anti-Ram—that same religion is now nursing an opposition within itself. The theft at the Ram Mandir has done something no political party could achieve. It has cracked open a space for dissent inside the fortress of faith.

The Two Destructive Centers of Religious Dissent

The opposition forming within the religious sphere has two destructive centers. The first comprises prominent figures connected to religious institutions who are openly opposing the dominance of a single organization in the temple administration and Ayodhya's expanded construction. Sometimes they name names through hints and gestures. Sometimes—increasingly now—they directly name the RSS and the VHP. The manner in which these organizations have been challenged from religious platforms in Ayodhya after the temple theft, the questions raised about control—this demands our attention.

Consider what has happened since 2014. The long era of the Modi government manufactured a broad consensus in the religious sphere. A consensus enforced through power and authority, through which it was simply assumed that within the domain of religion, there existed no second opinion about Modi, about the BJP, about the RSS. But now, a second opinion is being heard. And a third.

Organizations connected to Hindu religion, religious leaders—everyone started chanting "Modi, Modi" after 2014. They still do. They will continue to. But the voice of protest arising from the temple theft does not sound like it belongs to this era. The BJP knows its political foundation is religious. It is because of religion that people overlook the government's countless failures and cast their votes. If opposition intensifies within the religious sphere itself—if the religious supporter becomes angry because of a theft at the temple—a challenge could emerge.

"Do Not Curse the House" — And Who Exactly Is the House?

Film actor Anupam Kher's statement deserves attention. He said that when a theft occurs in your house, you curse the thief, not the house. Hindus, he said, should understand this. Those who donated here did not bribe God. Donation happens without expectation. Do not curse the house.

And what is this house? The house is the RSS, the VHP, and the BJP. And who are the heads of this household? Prime Minister Narendra Modi. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat. The temple incident is being framed as a family matter. But the public is reading it differently—are the accused, who are important people, being protected in the name of the family?

Anupam Kher is not alone. From the first day, the line was drawn—who are these others to level accusations? The truth is this: had Akhilesh Yadav not dared to make the allegation, had he not taken this risk, the matter of the temple theft would have been quietly pushed aside. Managed. No one would have known.

News about the theft spread like fire after Akhilesh's statement. The BJP's religious supporter became alert. Ears perked up. People started asking whether morality was being observed in this matter. Was accountability being demanded? Was action taken immediately, or delayed by months, by weeks?

The Desperation in "It's a Family Matter"

The BJP, on the other hand, was reading the meaning of this anger. That is why it repeatedly emphasized: this is a family matter. An internal matter. A theft occurred. The family members will manage it among themselves. They will catch the thieves. Wait fifteen more days. Be patient. Don't worry. But—do not, under any circumstances, fall into the trap of those who wish to defame Ayodhya, who wish to insult the Ram Janmabhoomi temple.

The BJP's restlessness is visible in these statements. It knows that all its explanations about the temple theft and the Trust's land purchases are not generating much trust. Countless questions exist in the minds of its own supporters. Some have started speaking openly. Some remain silent out of fear. But even those who are silent have questions in their hearts.

The BJP must be thinking: if, because of religion, its supporter becomes vocal, becomes enraged, or silently angry and drifts away to the margins—then there will be trouble. And if those religious organizations that were silenced before the colossal influence of the RSS start speaking, and if other religious organizations follow their lead—then the consensus imposed upon the religious sphere will shatter.

The Consensus Has Already Cracked

The consensus has cracked. And from that crack, the opposition is visible, emerging from within religion itself.

Shankaracharya Swami Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati of Jyotir Math is demanding the dissolution of the temple Trust. He is issuing warnings continuously. Repeatedly asking: why are RSS people sitting in the Trust? What is their work? They should be removed.

Mahant Dinendra Das, the head of the Nirmohi Akhara—which was a party in the Ram Janmabhoomi case—is saying that if a theft occurred in Ram Lalla's house, it means Ravan has reached there. He says the senior officials of the temple Trust gave him no responsibility because, perhaps, he does not belong to their ideology. Understand this: Mahant Dinendra Das says that including him in the temple Trust must have been a compulsion for these people, because the judgment clearly stated that the Nirmohi Akhara should be given effective representation.

Mahant Dharamdas of Hanuman Garhi, also a party in the Ram Mandir case, is opposing the Trust. He demands management through the Mahanti system. Mahant Dharamdas has been leveling allegations of theft and looting against the Trust since the two-thousand-teens. He had submitted a written complaint at the police station that temple money was being invested in business.

But then, there was no uproar over his words. Because by then, the BJP, the RSS, and the Modi government had established complete control over the religious sphere. No voice of disagreement could be heard from anywhere. And if a voice emerged, it received no support.

The Silencing Machine: 2014 to 2024

After 2014, such voices stopped being heard. In 2019, no one could dare to speak. In 2024, the temple's inauguration silenced everyone. Religious institutions are considered independent of any political party. But in the atmosphere of 2024, everyone started appearing as BJP workers. Everyone started repeating the BJP's line.

The whip with which the BJP was driving all religious organizations—after the temple theft, many saints have come forward and grabbed that whip. Santosh Dubey is sitting in Ayodhya, single-handedly opening a front. Giving interviews every day. Speaking of threats to his life. His interviews are being shown. Santosh Dubey is speaking about theft and embezzlement, against the control of the RSS and BJP.

Had this same Santosh Dubey spoken in 2019, no Godhi channel would have shown him. But today, his profile is being printed. Through Anil Mishra's case, people are speaking openly against the control of the RSS and BJP.

Therefore, the opposition forming in the religious sphere—the voices of protest breaking out—should be heard. It is possible that after some time, these voices will fall silent. But one possibility is visible: the control of the RSS over religious institutions rests only on the strength of political power. Whenever that power appears weakened, such voices will be heard again.

This is why the BJP is aggressively targeting the opposition parties that exposed the temple theft. But on the other hand, when the people and saints of Ayodhya target the control of the RSS and BJP, the party falls silent. It cannot call them anti-Ram or anti-religion.

Can the BJP call Mahant Dharamdas anti-religion, anti-Ram? During the Ram Mandir movement, he accused the VHP of embezzling donations. That matter was closed. Suppressed. Now statements about that old matter are being printed again. Being shown again. It seems as if many people were waiting for this very day—for something to happen so they could vent their anger. So they could speak about the control of the RSS and VHP.

Even the Worship Is Being Questioned

A report by Nitin Mishra of Amar Ujala shows saints raising before the Trust the lack of adherence to tradition. They say the worship is not being conducted according to the Ramanandi tradition. Several standards of the Ramanandi tradition are not being followed. The Trust's treasurer, Govind Dev Giri, has said that improvements in the worship system and the arrangements for devotees will be visible in the next two to three months.

Consider this: questions are being raised even about how the worship is being conducted. Traditions are not being followed. These complaints are rising. And now they are being heard. These voices should be seen as a form of protest rising from within the religious sphere.

Was all this possible before the temple theft? Questions are being raised even about the worship. Is this a small question? There are thousands of sadhus and saints in Ayodhya, not just two or four. Only two or four are shown in the media. The day the media's camera turns toward all these sadhus and saints, you will begin to hear the voice of protest. With greater articulation.

This anger within the religious sphere was suppressed. It was crushed. It remained suppressed even when Ayodhya politically ousted the BJP.

Ayodhya's Silent Rebellion

It was the effect of this very dissent and opposition that the people of Ayodhya, in 2024, without making a noise, without raising slogans, defeated the BJP on the Ayodhya Lok Sabha seat. The year the temple was inaugurated, the BJP lost the Ayodhya seat. Samajwadi Party's Awadhesh Prasad became the hero. But Ayodhya fell silent after that. Ayodhya was watching. Watching to see if the BJP would understand the meaning of this. And whether it would withdraw the control of one organization's ideology over the temple and the city.

Doing so was not possible for the BJP then. Nor is it possible now. The neglect of local people and local traditions in Ayodhya's expansion also compelled the people of Ayodhya to become a political opposition. But now the opposition is emerging with the support of the religious sphere and religious symbols.

This is not the opposition connected to opposition parties. This is the opposition that was standing on the BJP's side.

The BJP thought the protest was political. So it engaged in trying to manage it. After Dinesh Prasad became the MP, the allegations of rigging in the Milkipur by-election were not even acknowledged. The BJP's victory was declared a great victory. Even then, the process of opposition forming in Ayodhya did not end. That same opposition is visible to you now in the religious sphere after the temple theft. Water is being poured repeatedly on that fire of opposition being formed. But the fire is not being extinguished.

Dattatreya Hosabole's Revealing Appeal

A month after the temple theft, the RSS felt it should speak. Dattatreya Hosabole's statement arrived. And observe the appeal made in that statement: "Defeat the conspiracies of anti-Hindu, anti-national forces to defame Hindu religion and society." An appeal is being made to the entire Hindu society. That means that within the religious sphere, within the religious support base, the voices of rebellion and opposition are troubling the BJP.

The BJP is afraid that its political foundation—which is, in fact, a religious foundation—could crack. Who are these "opponents of Hindu religion"? Will you call those who exposed the temple theft opponents? How can they be opponents of Hindu religion?

It was the effect of this very opposition and dissent that in the case of the theft at the Ram Mandir—which the BJP was trying to make a family matter, appearing indifferent—as soon as the news of theft at the Badrinath temple arrived, the party realized the matter could slip out of hand. Immediately, an FIR was filed. The Chief Minister started issuing statements. An inquiry committee was formed.

But recall: in 2023, senior priest and vice-president of the Char Dham Teerth Purohit Samaj, Santosh Trivedi, alleged that a scam of one hundred twenty-five crore rupees had occurred in the maintenance of the Kedarnath temple. The sanctum sanctorum's wall was plated with copper instead of gold. The administration's inquiry gave a clean chit to the temple administration. It was said that the gold wall exists. At that time, the Badrinath-Kedarnath Temple Committee denied these allegations and said there was a conspiracy to damage the temple's reputation.

But this time, on social media, it started circulating that the offering money was being spent on politicians. This information was not provided by the Chief Minister. Not by any leader connected to the BJP. Not by any religious leader connected to the RSS. This information came out through an RTI. Immediately, the Badrinath-Kedarnath Temple Committee swung into action. An inquiry committee was formed. An FIR was lodged. And the accused personal assistant, Pramod Nautiyal, was even suspended.

Whereas in the Ram Mandir theft case, it took eighteen days for an FIR to be filed. It took a month for Champat Rai and Anil Mishra to resign from the Trust.

The Meaning of the Delay

The meaning is clear. Someone was sensing. Someone was feeling that if the anger of the people in the religious sphere grew, the support base the BJP possesses on the foundation of religion could crack.

The theft at the Ram Mandir is being called a great sin. By saints. By the public. The offerings made at the temple of Lord Ram—what would you call their theft? And this great sin has been committed by the BJP and RSS together.

The saint's words are scathing: the temple of Lord Ram was taken under control, but the work done was "Ram on the lips, dagger under the armpit." Theft was committed in the name of Lord Ram. And the reality is that only forty days of theft have been caught. In forty days, the temple was looted seventy times. They have left even Ghazni behind. And these self-proclaimed, so-called protectors of Hindutva—the RSS and BJP—neither cared nor were troubled.

But this time, opposition has been born within religion.

The Ghosts That Are Returning

The story of Praveen Togadia, expelled from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad organization, is surfacing again. How he was removed. What happened to him. Suddenly, Praveen Togadia's voice is becoming relevant.

In Guwahati, Togadia said that a theft has occurred at the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya—the Trust and the police have admitted it. For millions of Hindus, this is an assault, a sorrow, and an outrage. We had not imagined even in our dreams that a dacoity would take place at the center of Hindu faith. We are stunned. His demand: not a single person should be spared. A fast-track court case should be run, and a sentence of life imprisonment or death by hanging should be given.

And another event has occurred. The old history of Nripendra Mishra, connected to the temple construction committee, is being dug up. Prakash Sharma, an RSS-BJP member and spokesperson for Champat Rai, wrote on Facebook that Nripendra Mishra served innocent Ram devotees with gun bullets during the Janmabhoomi movement. Santosh Dubey is also giving statements—that the bullets on Karsevaks were ordered by Nripendra Mishra. Only the late Mulayam Singh Yadav was defamed for this.

Now think: why is Nripendra Mishra being targeted? Through him, whose control is being targeted? You will arrive at the control of the RSS, VHP, and BJP.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, in his speeches, talks about the Samajwadi Party—that in their government, bullets were fired at Karsevaks. Why is Yogi Adityanath reviving this memory? Is it so that Nripendra Mishra's history is dug up? So that the Samajwadi Party is forced into a debate, making Nripendra Mishra an issue?

Nripendra Mishra himself has stated that the bullets were not fired on the orders of Mulayam Singh Yadav. The district administration fired them. In administrative procedure, the Chief Minister gives directions. Orders are given by the Chief Secretary, the Principal Secretary. Nripendra Mishra was the Principal Secretary in Mulayam Singh Yadav's government.

Yogi Adityanath should ask Prime Minister Narendra Modi why the Modi government awarded the Padma Vibhushan to that same Mulayam Singh Yadav—whose name he takes in his gatherings, the person he says ordered bullets fired at Karsevaks. Why was he honored? Can the Modi government honor a person it believes ordered bullets fired at Karsevaks connected to the Ram Mandir? Nripendra Mishra was also given the Padma Vibhushan by the Modi government.

Now the RSS, BJP, and VHP—all three—should clarify what Nripendra Mishra's role was in the matter of firing bullets at Karsevaks.

"House" Whose Walls Are Crumbling

The BJP says this is a family matter—ghar ki baat. People know whose family matter this is. It is the family matter of the RSS, VHP, and BJP. But people want to see whether you can take action against the big people of your own house.

People are asking: it is a family matter. The house was in your hands. Those in whose hands it was—will their accountability be demanded? It took a month just to resign. Anil Mishra and Champat Rai were removed. No FIR has been filed till now. The needle of suspicion also points toward Gopal Rao. When Champat Rai breaks his silence, against whom will he speak? What will he say? Against Gopal Rao—or against those people who stopped him from filing an FIR? Who were those people? Will Champat Rai ever be able to say all this?

This is why the BJP is deeply troubled by the formation—by the very possibility of the formation—of opposition within the religious sphere.

The Three Centers of Emerging Opposition in Religion

The opposition forming in the religious sphere has three centers:

• Within religious institutions
• Within the BJP's religious support base
• Within the narrative of Hindu unity

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi's electoral successes, the narrative of Hindu religious unity was exaggerated and amplified. It was shown that the RSS and Prime Minister Modi had transformed caste-divided politics into Hindu unity. An atmosphere was created in the name of this unity. Questions related to caste were dismissed.

These people never tried to understand what kind of religious issues were emerging within that religion, within that unity. Thousands of religious institutions may have one purpose, but everyone's religious and economic influence is different. There is competition among them. There are clashes of interests. Disputes occur. Murders happen.

The politics of religion cannot appear one-sided and monolithic. The voices of dissent within it were suppressed. Crushed. Those same voices are now rising again.

This is not only about Ayodhya. In Mathura too, a section of the saint community is opposing the beautification plans. But no one is listening. In Banaras too, there is resentment. In 2024, like Ayodhya, resentment was visible there too. But there too, silence dominates. The people there are unable to voice their concerns. The people of Dal Mandi are troubled. But the prominent people of the city, out of fear, are not standing with them. The heads of religious institutions can no longer voice the concerns of the public.

When Shankaracharya Swami Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati of Jyotir Peeth started speaking continuously against the government, a case was fraudulently imposed on him. The same way the political opposition was frightened with cases and litigation, voices from the religious sphere were also silenced. Because of this fear, many saints and mahants fell silent. But the restlessness within many is now growing.

Why Did No One Speak for So Many Years?

In the religious sphere, apart from the public that practices religion, there are institutions connected to its management. Akharas. Ashrams. Heads of maths. Several saints have said that theft had been ongoing at the Ram Mandir for years. Then why, for years, could no one say anything? How did the heads of religious institutions keep sitting with so many questions? Were they afraid of the E.D.? Did they see the threat of their ashram's control being snatched away?

After the temple theft, everyone has found an opportunity to speak. Those who appeared hesitant on the side of the ruling establishment are now appearing vocal on the side of the opposition.

We were shown that the opposition had been eliminated from politics. But the opposition had also been eliminated from within the religious sphere. Now opposition is forming in the domain of religion. The BJP is becoming restless.

Do not connect these matters to elections. The election results have no relation to these matters. Elections are now won through other means. But the BJP's supporters stay silent about that victory because of this very religious unity. If opposition begins forming in the religious sphere, if restlessness increases—the questions of all of them could also become connected to electoral victory.

If theft at the temple is a great sin, then stealing votes and snatching away the right to vote is no act of virtue either.

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Criticisms

• A forced consensus was manufactured in the religious sphere after 2014, silencing all dissenting voices through power and authority.
• Religious institutions were effectively converted into extensions of a political party's machinery.
• The temple theft was attempted to be managed and suppressed as a "family matter" rather than treated as a criminal act demanding immediate accountability.
• Eighteen days were taken to file an FIR in the Ram Mandir theft case, while an FIR in the Badrinath case was filed almost instantly—revealing selective urgency.
• The RSS and its affiliated organizations are accused of exercising total control over the temple Trust, sidelining legitimate stakeholders like the Nirmohi Akhara.
• A Padma Vibhushan was awarded by the government to an individual whose own party's narrative holds responsible for bullets fired at Karsevaks—a contradiction never explained.
• Religious leaders who dared to question the administration were threatened with fabricated legal cases, mirroring the treatment of political opposition.
• The narrative of "Hindu unity" was used to bury legitimate questions of caste, tradition, and local rights under a monolithic political project.
• No FIR has been filed against senior Trust officials even a month after resignations, suggesting protection rather than accountability.
• Offerings and donations at major temples were allegedly diverted, with oversight mechanisms either absent or controlled by the same organizations benefiting from the opacity.
• Local populations and local traditions in Ayodhya were neglected in the rush to construct a political symbol, turning residents into an opposition force.
• A climate of fear was systematically created where saints and mahants remained silent about years of alleged misconduct, afraid of losing control of their own institutions.
• The distinction between a religious institution and a political organization was deliberately erased, making independent religious voices nearly impossible to hear.

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The Day the Bazaar Wept: When Trump Spoke of War and Iran Answered with a Coffin

It was around noon when the news broke. America had declared an end to the ceasefire with Iran. No more talks, Trump announced. The message had barely landed in Mumbai when the market began its freefall. By the end of the day, Sensex had plunged 1,677 points, Nifty 50 shed 516 points, and over 8 lakh crore rupees of investor wealth evaporated into thin air. The immediate trigger? Trump had revoked the temporary waiver that allowed Iran to sell oil, and with that, crude prices started their familiar, violent surge. The world, once again, tumbled into a vortex of economic anxiety.

But away from the bourses, a different kind of procession was underway. On July 4—America’s 250th Independence Day—Iran began the funeral rites of its Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. His body was being moved through city after city, and millions poured onto the streets, not just in Iran but across the border in Iraq, where a national holiday had been declared for July 8. The images coming out of the region were staggering: a sea of mourners, defiant and unafraid, even as American bombs and talk of war filled the airwaves.

The Hangover of a Ceasefire

The Trumpian approach to diplomacy is, at best, a capricious pendulum. One day it is “the deal of the century,” the next it is “no more talk.” On this occasion, the pendulum swung violently, and the Indian market, perpetually drunk on FII inflows and global sentiment, felt the hangover immediately. Consider the numbers:

Index	Point Drop	% Change
BSE Sensex	1,677	-2.8%
Nifty 50	516	-2.9%
Investor Wealth Lost	Over ₹8 lakh crore

Crude oil climbed back above $85 a barrel, as the Strait of Hormuz once again became a geopolitical flashpoint. The American withdrawal of the oil sales waiver was intended to bleed Iran dry. But the Indian economy, so deeply tethered to imported crude, bled alongside it. This is the cost of a foreign policy that has, for years, prioritized photo-ops and strategic alignments over strategic autonomy.

A Funeral That United Enemies

July 9 was to be the day Khamenei would be laid to rest in Mashhad. But the days preceding it rewrote the map of loyalty. Iraq and Iran fought a brutal eight-year war in the 1980s. Hundreds of thousands died. Khamenei, then Iran’s President, was a face of that war. And yet, on his death, millions of Iraqis crossed bridges of memory and pain to carry his coffin on their shoulders. Iraq’s Prime Minister and top officials joined the mourners in Najaf. The commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force, designated a terrorist by the U.S., was seen accompanying the funeral procession on Iraqi soil. The war of the past had been rendered meaningless by a shared grief.

It was exactly on this day that Trump chose to speak of war. The irony is too thick to ignore. A man who thinks he can redraw the map with tariffs and threats failed to read the room. Sometimes, dates consume all the power you think you possess. The millions who walked with the corpse were not running towards bunkers; they were walking towards a shrine, towards history, and in that act, they were telling the superpower: drop your bombs, we are already home.

The Strait of Tensions

Central to the renewed confrontation is the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has never relinquished its claim of authority over the chokepoint, and America’s insistence that tankers need not coordinate with Tehran has become a recipe for perpetual friction. Reports surfaced that Iranian authorities had begun turning back ships through the Omani corridor, instructing them to sail exclusively through Iranian waters. The New York Times reported that Iran and Oman were considering a joint plan to levy tolls on vessels passing through—a voluntary system, initially, with potential concessions for China and friendly nations.

Just a week earlier, Trump had balked at any such proposal, even threatening Oman with consequences. Yet the two countries persisted. America’s revocation of the oil waiver was meant to isolate Iran economically. But Iran, this time, was not sitting with its accounts book open in despair. Instead, missiles were being readied on the very same shoulders that carried the Supreme Leader’s body.

Bombs and Bullets: The Military Dance

Between July 7 and 8, the military tit-for-tat escalated sharply. US Central Command claimed that in response to Iranian attacks on three oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman—two Saudi, one Qatari—American forces struck multiple targets in southern Iran. Over 80 sites were hit: air defense systems, coastal radar installations, fast-attack craft. One Iranian soldier was reported dead.

The very next day, Iran retaliated by targeting American positions in Bahrain and Kuwait. NATO’s chief swiftly endorsed the US action, stating that Iran had been violating the ceasefire and that the strikes were justified. Iran’s Parliament Speaker, Qalibaf, tweeted that the US had violated the Memorandum of Understanding and that the “reality of the Strait of Hormuz cannot be tampered with.” The cycle of threats, bombings, and sanctions had locked itself into a grotesque rhythm.

The Karbala Resonance

To understand the imagery of these days, one must understand the Shiite consciousness. Khamenei’s coffin was not merely a box of bones. It was a re-enactment of Karbala, a grief that is relived every Muharram by millions beating their chests. The martyrdom of Imam Hussain is a narrative that defies geography. When the funeral entered the shrine of Hazrat Ali, it was a moment of profound symbolic condensation. A leader, vilified by the West, was being absorbed into the very legend that has sustained a civilization through centuries of tyranny.

Can you recall any other instance in modern history where the funeral of a nation’s supreme leader was invited, welcomed, and shouldered by millions in a once-enemy country? It hasn’t happened. The popular legitimacy that could not be manufactured by elections was being written in the streets of Basra and Karbala. Netanyahu and Trump, watching from their respective dens, must have seen their own tactical calculus dissolve into that crowd. The more bombs they threatened, the larger the procession grew. The fear was mocked into boredom.

When Markets Tremble, Who Pays?

Back in India, the Sensex graph had turned into a downward dagger. But what about the larger architecture that makes such a crash possible? The Indian government’s relentless pursuit of a strategic embrace with the United States and Israel has led to a situation where energy security is outsourced to American whims. After Trump’s first withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018, India quietly reduced its Iranian oil imports to zero by 2019, bowing to the threat of secondary sanctions. The Chabahar port project, once a proud counterweight to Gwadar, has been slowed down by the fear of American displeasure.

Now, on July 4, when America celebrated its 250th year of independence with parades and fireworks, India’s market was busy collapsing because a foreign president uttered a few words. The same India that celebrates US Independence Day with curated enthusiasm from Lutyens’ Delhi could not protect its own investors from the whims of that very ally. The Prime Minister’s much-photographed hugs with Trump and the “Howdy Modi” spectacles have yielded no strategic cushion. Instead, they have exposed the economy’s soft underbelly. Every time the American president wakes up on the wrong side of the bed, Indian retail investors are handed a collective loss of 8 lakh crore rupees. This is not sovereignty; it is surrender.

The Hypocrisy of War Merchants

The contrast between the methods of war cannot be starker. Israel, under Netanyahu, has perfected the art of assassination by innovation: pagers that explode, drone strikes on sleeping leaders, missiles that flatten apartment blocks in Gaza, killing the homeless and the unarmed. It is a form of warfare that operates in the shadows of plausible deniability, deriving its power from technology and treachery. Iran, on the other hand, announces its presence. Its missiles are not hidden in pockets. They are launched from the same shoulders that bear coffins. There is a brutal honesty in that—a directness that does not pretend to be anything other than what it is.

Netanyahu, who has spent years lecturing the world about existential threats, must have watched the crowds in Karbala and felt a deep despair. Those millions were not hiding. They were not pleading for a ceasefire. They were walking, and in their walking, they were telling the profiteers of war: you have no monopoly on fear.

Criticisms

• - The Indian government's foreign policy is criticized for sacrificing energy security at the altar of strategic posturing.
• - Economic sovereignty is undermined by an overdependence on volatile global oil markets, a vulnerability left unaddressed by years of missed reforms.
• - The alignment with American and Israeli interests is seen to have failed in protecting domestic markets from the fallout of distant conflicts.
• - The reduction of Iranian oil imports under external pressure is considered a betrayal of long-standing bilateral ties and national interest.
• - The Chabahar port project's stagnation is attributed to a lack of political will in the face of American sanctions, weakening India's connectivity ambitions.
• - The US administration's frequent and sudden reversals on ceasefires and waivers are condemned for destabilizing the global economy and increasing the price of essential commodities for developing nations.
• - The unilateral use of military force without exhausted diplomatic avenues is deplored, particularly when launched on days of significant cultural or religious observance.
• - Israel's tactics of targeted killings and the deployment of explosive devices in civilian spaces are denounced as violations of international humanitarian law.
• - NATO's uncritical endorsement of US strikes is seen as a failure of multilateral institutions to act as honest brokers for peace.
• - Mainstream media's selective outrage is noted for amplifying war rhetoric while neglecting the human cost of sanctions and bombings on ordinary people.
• - The stock market's knee-jerk reactions are considered a symptom of an unregulated financial ecosystem that punishes small investors while speculators profit from geopolitical chaos.

At this moment, the world is suspended between the threat of war and the hope of a peace that nobody seems to know how to build. Trump will continue to mutter about power. Netanyahu will fume in his office. But the images from the streets of Iran and Iraq have already delivered their verdict: the age of fear is over. The bombs may fall, but the coffin will keep moving. America’s 250th Independence Day will be remembered not for the fireworks over the Potomac, but for the processions that taught the world what independence truly looks like.