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It looks like incoherent chaos. The prime minister in a benevolent mode, forgiving the very young people that his ecosystem continues to hunt. The same day, injured policemen are paraded before cameras. A girl is booked for abusing the prime minister. An army of friendly influencers descends on Gen Z to lecture them about their manners. And the police, meanwhile, cannot quite explain how a truck laden with stones travelled from their own custody to the edge of a protest.

But it is not chaos. It is choreography. This is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) method at its most refined. Every element performs a distinct function for a distinct audience. In the process, unleashing another cycle of hate, intimidation, and ridicule at the young who protested, delegitimising the protest, while ostensibly posing to appeal for harmony.

The disdain for Parliament and democracy is written large in the prime minister’s appeal, who refuses to address Parliament and talks on Instagram. No explanation, no remorse, no questions, just patriarchal patronage. No accountability, no acknowledgement of anything gone wrong, just an assessment that propaganda tools have changed, moved on to Instagram. For him, Instagram was the problem, Instagram is the solution!

The agitation that sat for over a month at Jantar Mantar, the protests that the Congress youth wing and student organisation carried to scores of cities across two months, was absolutely peaceful. The only day of violence was on the day the police cracked down. Not before that. Not after that.

And it is that single day, that is now being held up as the true face of the protest. A month of restraint is erased; an afternoon of confrontation is promoted to the headline.

Regardless of who actually threw the first stone, who was in disguise, and who instructed them, both the government and, curiously, some protestors like........

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