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Bruises on the face, tricolour in hand, limping around the crowded Jantar Mantar – India didn’t want to see this image. Broken bones, bleeding noses and crying on the street… young people who were tied to their mother’s apron-strings till the other day getting mercilessly beaten up by police and the accompanying goons weave a frightening image of a nation-in-crisis. Who else to blame other than all the king’s horses, dogs and men?

Youth is the country’s future. India will survive and grow on their dreams and energy. Young men lying in hospital with pellet injuries in the face and chest, young girls being tortured by police in Delhi, Mumbai and elsewhere, thousands running around in panic to escape batons and teargas cells…the least such frightening scenes should trigger is an unconditional apology from the prime minister, Narendra Modi, and a collective outpouring of remorse from the de-sensitised ruling party ecosystem. But the prime minister is doing what he knows best – trying to fool the youth by posting silly midnight videos instead of apologising for the police violence. His old technique of surveillance and repression still forms the backbone of the government’s approach.

Thanks to a section of brainwashed Indians, a reprehensible cocktail of whataboutery, blame-game and vilification campaign was on display instead of grief and regret. The BJP spokespersons and the allied media equated the stray incidents of retaliation from the agitated crowds with the brutal repression by the state machinery. Large crowds tend to lose control in difficult circumstances but the police and paramilitary forces are duty-bound to exercise restraint and respond according to civilised norms and laid-down procedures. In case of impending trouble, forces are supposed to issue warnings and use water-cannons instead of resorting to lathicharge and firing teargas cells. Democratic systems understand the difference between an injured policeman and an injured young girl.

What the nation witnessed is not a sense of guilt embedded in the government’s psyche but illogic and hatred for every critic and dissenter. A BJP member of parliament said, “Pradarshankari chhatra nahin bhediye the… (the protesters were wolves, not students).” Bhediya? Who will tell the BJP wolves don’t plead with the tormentors. Wolves don’t sing and dance in protest. Wolves don’t appeal to the conscience of the cruel system with creative........

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