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Watching Sonam Wangchuk disappear behind a white sheet, flanked by the relentless energy of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) and other activists – and the young people mobilised by their call – one can’t help but wonder: will this unlikely alliance be able to disassemble the Bharatiya Janata Party’s toolkit before the state straitjackets them with ‘anti-national’ or some other choice epithet made specifically for them?

Over the past decade, the ruling establishment has perfected a toolkit that does not just break bones, it breaks identities and erases reality. It is an industrial factory that manufactures custom straitjackets for anyone who dares to ask a question of power, while quietly sweeping monumental crises under the rug.

Because of this narrative machine, issues that should send shockwaves through the country vanish without a trace.

Consider the silent exodus at the Indian Space Research Organisation, where over 100 top scientists have submitted their resignations or applied for voluntary retirement. Knowledge built over decades on critical projects like the Gaganyaan is walking out the door, yet this massive institutional collapse is met with official silence and gagging orders rather than accountability.

Consider the horrific tragedy in Rajasthan, where a 12-year-old girl was trafficked and gang-raped by 32 men across multiple hotel rooms over several days. A crime of that unimaginable scale should have rocked the nation’s collective conscience to its core, driving millions into the streets just as the Nirbhaya case once did. Yet, under the toolkit’s strict newsroom control, it produced barely a whisper.

And then there is the ongoing, systematic persecution of Muslims, a demographic facing mob lynchings, bulldozer justice tearing through homes, arbitrary disenfranchisement from voter lists, and the constant, echoing threat of........

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