Wikipedia tells me that, as of December 2022, a mere 7.2 per cent of Indian citizens possessed a valid passport. This was a surprise because I assumed most of my fellow brothers and sisters were ready to make international travel plans over the past month. I thought about that surprising statistic in January, as debates raged over whether we should condescend to visit the Maldives. Some of their ministers had made disparaging remarks about our most honourable Prime Minister, apparently, so the entire country was deemed unworthy of our attention. Angry Indians on Twitter warned of an impending apocalypse and predicted a meltdown of the Maldivian economy. Neither has occurred yet, but it’s only February.

I understand we must now assume that any insult to the most honourable Prime Minister is an insult to us personally, but I wondered if our collective reaction on social media was warranted. Did we really need to get so hot and bothered about a few statements from people we have never heard about? Then again, I keep forgetting that this is a New India. It is a place where a foreign country may or may not encroach upon a few thousand kilometres of land without repercussions, but insulting tweets will not be tolerated.