Not a week goes by in this new version of India (that is supposedly on its way to becoming a superpower) where I am not surprised or shocked by statements made by public figures. A politician recently tweeted about how upset he was that an old political prisoner had passed away in jail of natural causes, instead of languishing at the mercy of the state. This barbarity from someone intending to occupy a seat in Parliament ought to have been condemned instantly. It was retweeted and liked instead. No one batted an eyebrow, because that is the level of discourse we have all been trained to expect.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that there is something deeply wrong with our country. Newspapers won’t talk about it, of course, and TV channels will ask us to focus on celebrities getting divorced instead, but we should all know by now that a nation built upon the belief of ahimsa or non-violence has long abandoned that pretence in favour of violent, irrational force against the most vulnerable among us. It’s why we are so inured to video footage of men being lynched, women beaten with impunity on the streets, and students at universities attacked with iron bars for daring to hold up placards. The horror these visuals would have evoked in a civilised society has been exchanged for shrugs as we scroll through memes on WhatsApp.