See All News by Ravish Kumar
<<< Previously Next >>>
Eight Million People, No Kings, and the War That Won't End
While Washington wages war and New Delhi preaches unity, the streets of America ask the question that governments have stopped answering: who benefits when bombs keep falling?
Namaskar. I am Ravish Kumar. We are now into the fifth week of this war. Every week, a new hope is manufactured — a ceasefire rumour, a backchannel whisper, a diplomatic deadline — and every week, the war grows more savage. The hope is the real weapon of mass distraction. The bombs are just the punctuation.
Let us begin where the powerful least expected it: with the people.
The Streets Answered Back
On 28 March, in all 50 states, across 3,300 locations, more than eight million Americans walked out into the streets to say: not in our name. This was not a fringe gathering of activists in coastal cities. Organisers reported that nearly half the protest sites were in areas considered Republican strongholds — Trump country, if you will. Journalists, retired military officers, film stars, and ordinary working people marched shoulder to shoulder. Even some of Trump's own voters showed up, holding signs against a war their president chose without asking them.
This movement began as No Kings — a protest against Trump's crackdowns on immigrants. But Iran changed everything. When American missiles began falling on Iranian universities, the protest absorbed a new fury. The numbers jumped sixty percent compared to June's demonstration. The message expanded from "stop the deportations" to "stop the war."
Trump is 80 years old. He is not dreaming of one war. He is dreaming of several. And now, once again, it is American soldiers being sent to the front.
The White House's response? Press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the entire protest as "Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions." In other words, if you object to your president's war, you are mentally unwell. The protester is the patient. The government is the doctor. This is the language of autocracy, dressed in a press briefing.
The Monarch Butterfly and What It Knows
In the Rio Grande Valley of southern Texas — land that borders Mexico, land where ICE agents have been making arrests — protesters did something remarkable. At every spot where an immigrant had been detained, they put up a banner bearing the image of the Monarch butterfly. The butterfly whose migration route is now disrupted by Trump's border wall.
This is what political imagination looks like. No banner of outrage, no slogan of fury — just a butterfly. A creature that crosses borders by nature, that cannot be stopped by walls, that carries the journey of its ancestors in its wings. Without this kind of imagination, there is no public. Without a public, there is no democracy.
Think of this when you are told that dissent is anti-national. Think of the butterfly.
And since we are speaking of things destroyed: in Gaza, Israel has bombed millions of olive trees. Not by accident. The olive tree is the Palestinian economy, culture, and memory condensed into bark and root. Destroying the tree is destroying the continuity of a people. This too is a kind of war — slower, quieter, and almost never on the front page.
The Economy Is Already a Casualty
While the military counts its missiles, let us count what the rest of us are losing.
Crude oil has crossed $115 per barrel, up three percent in a single news cycle, after Yemen's Houthis declared they would fight on Iran's side — meaning disruption not only at the Strait of Hormuz but also at the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait. Two chokepoints. One war. Every country that imports oil is now paying the price of this conflict in its petrol pumps and grocery bills.
Bloomberg and The Economist have both published analyses warning of two to three years of global economic disruption. Goldman Sachs estimates the war is costing the United States 10,000 jobs every month. Israel has separately proposed an additional $10 billion in its defence budget — a signal, analysts say, that it is preparing for a long war, not a short one.
For India, the numbers are equally grim. Foreign investors have been withdrawing more capital than they invest for the past five months. The rupee is under pressure. Banks are strained from dollar sales. Eight Indian nationals have already lost their lives in this conflict. And yet, in much of India's media, the question being asked is not "what does this cost us?" — but "how do we stay united behind the narrative?"
Iran's Mathematics of War
Iran's strategy is neither reckless nor irrational. It is methodical. Iran has struck Israel, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Iraq, and Jordan — simultaneously. Kuwait's water plant, which reportedly supplies forty percent of the country's water, was targeted. Kuwait's airport has been hit twice in one week: once in a tanker explosion, once with damage to radar systems.
In Saudi Arabia, at Prince Sultan Air Base, Iran destroyed what is reported to be an E-3 Sentry aircraft — the "flying radar" worth approximately $300 million, capable of detecting aircraft across vast distances. America deployed six such aircraft to the Gulf before the war began. The Pentagon has not confirmed the loss. But multiple news organisations and weapons analysts have reported it. Pentagon press briefings have been suspended for several days now. The same Pentagon that, during Vietnam, was proven to have systematically concealed the truth from the American public.
Iran has also struck the UAE's aluminium infrastructure, reportedly tied to American aerospace contracts. Emirates Global Aluminium acknowledged significant damage to its Al-Tabila site. UAE stock markets have shed $120 billion in value since the war began. The Dubai index has fallen sixteen percent. Over 18,400 flights have been cancelled.
And yet: Iran's own economy is not unscathed. A temporary lifting of oil sanctions has doubled its daily oil revenues. But its steel sector — shut down amid the conflict — could cost it $7 billion. US-Israeli airstrikes have struck two Iranian universities — Tehran University of Science and Technology and Isfahan University of Technology. In retaliation, Iran has threatened to target American university campuses across the Middle East.
Inside Iran's parliament, a bill has been tabled to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The head of the National Security Commission, Ibrahim Rezaei, has publicly written that remaining in the NPT has brought Iran no benefit. If this escalates to nuclear posturing, every calculus changes — for everyone.
The Vietnam Lesson No One Wants to Learn
During the Vietnam War, American citizens were told for months that their country was winning. The media obliged. Then journalists like Walter Cronkite, Gloria Emerson, David Halberstam, Frances FitzGerald, and Seymour Hersh began reporting what they actually saw. The public learned the government had been lying. People filled the streets. President Lyndon B. Johnson ultimately chose not to seek re-election.
Those who protested the Vietnam War were called traitors. History proved they were the more patriotic ones.
Hersh is the subject of an excellent documentary on Netflix — worth watching, especially now.
Today, Trump attacks the press for reporting on the war's failures, threatens to revoke broadcast licences, and calls journalists enemies of the state. His Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, rather than holding a press briefing, led a prayer session at the Pentagon — asking, reportedly, for divine sanction against those who deserve no mercy. The Pope, meanwhile, has been speaking plainly: those who start wars have blood on their hands, and Jesus does not hear their prayers. Whether or not one is religious, the moral clarity is striking.
The Unity Trap
In India, as this war unfolds, a familiar argument is being deployed: this is not the time for questions. Stay united. Do not rock the boat. Trust the government. The media is obligingly falling into line — channels shut, Twitter accounts suspended, YouTube channels taken down. No one knows whose platform will disappear next.
Eight million people marched in America while their government threatened them, surveilled them, and dismissed them as mentally ill. They marched anyway. In India, the mere imagination of such a protest — carrying banners against a government's war on public streets — is becoming difficult. If you cannot even imagine it, you have already separated yourself from the democratic imagination. A democracy without imagination is just a schedule of elections.
"Unity" is being used here to mean silence. "Patience" is being used to mean: absorb the crisis without complaint. This is not unity. This is managed consent.
I will say again to the people of this country: let us face this crisis with calm minds, with solidarity, with care for one another. But not with closed eyes. The crisis is real. The cost is real. You deserve to know, and you deserve to speak.
Facts
- Over 8 million Americans protested across 3,300 locations in all 50 states on 28 March, with participation in the "No Kings" protest rising more than 60% compared to June's demonstrations. Approximately half of all protest events occurred in Republican-leaning areas.
- Crude oil has risen approximately 3% to $115 per barrel, driven by Houthi entry into the conflict and threats to both the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait.
- Goldman Sachs estimates the war is costing the US economy 10,000 jobs per month, with oil potentially reaching $200 per barrel under worst-case scenarios.
- Israel has proposed an additional $10 billion in its defence budget, signalling preparations for a prolonged war.
- Iran struck an E-3 Sentry "flying radar" aircraft (valued at approximately $300 million) at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. Multiple weapons analysts corroborate the strike; the Pentagon has not confirmed it.
- UAE markets have lost approximately $120 billion in value; the Dubai index is down 16%; over 18,400 flights have been cancelled. In one month, UAE intercepted 429 missiles and 1,914 drones.
- Kuwait's water treatment plant — reportedly supplying 40% of the country's water — was targeted; one Indian national was killed in the attack.
- Iran struck Tehran University and Isfahan University of Technology. The Iranian parliament is considering a bill to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
- Iran's temporary oil sanction relief has doubled its daily oil revenues, though steel plant shutdowns may cost it around $7 billion.
- Emirates Global Aluminium confirmed significant damage to its Al-Tabila site following Iranian missile strikes on UAE infrastructure.
- During the Vietnam War, journalists including Walter Cronkite, Seymour Hersh, and Gloria Emerson exposed government deception, contributing to the reversal of public opinion. President Johnson declined to seek re-election.
- Foreign institutional investors have been withdrawing more capital from India than they are investing for five consecutive months.
Criticisms
- The Trump administration's characterisation of the 28 March protest as "Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions" is a deliberate attempt to pathologise democratic dissent — to reframe political opposition as mental illness and delegitimise it before it can be taken seriously.
- The Pentagon's suspension of press briefings during an active war, combined with its refusal to confirm or deny losses of American aircraft, follows the same pattern of institutional deception that was proven during the Vietnam War. The public is being managed, not informed.
- Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth holding a prayer session at the Pentagon — calling for ferocious violence against those "deserving no mercy" — while refusing to hold a press briefing is a substitution of religious theatre for democratic accountability.
- Trump's threats to revoke television broadcast licences and his routine attacks on the press as enemies of the state are direct assaults on the free press infrastructure that made Vietnam-era accountability possible in the first place.
- Israel's systematic targeting of Palestinian olive trees — millions of them — is not collateral damage. It is an economic and cultural siege designed to sever a people from their land, livelihood, and memory. It barely registers in mainstream coverage.
- The Indian government's repeated invocation of "national unity" as a reason to suppress questions about the war's economic consequences — falling markets, straining banks, dead citizens — is a misuse of patriotism to avoid accountability.
- India's media ecosystem — channels shut, social media accounts suspended, YouTube pages taken down — has created a climate where citizens cannot access critical information about a war that directly affects their economy and their countrymen's lives abroad.
- The framing of "unity" in India as meaning silence, and "patience" as meaning unquestioning endurance, inverts the democratic function of both concepts. Unity built on suppressed dissent is not unity — it is compliance enforced by fear of consequence.
- Governments and media that reduce war coverage to missile counts and military hardware systematically obscure the human and economic cost borne by citizens who had no say in starting the war. The economy is a front line too — and it is largely invisible in dominant coverage.
- Trump's construction of a $300 million ballroom and an adjacent drone-proof bunker — while American jobs are lost to a war his administration chose — exemplifies how power insulates itself from consequence while manufacturing spectacle to distract attention from it.
