Recalling Twelve Unforgettable Years

No force on earth can stop a regime from leaving when its time is up. In the current context, history will surely recall July 20, 2026 as the tipping point, when the very Gen Z that had not known any regime other than Modi's (and was being nurtured assiduously with his post-truth poison) tore away from Putana's breast. The scenes of how brave-hearts were mercilessly beaten up by maddened minions of state power are etched in public memory – for they shattered the dome of fear and re-awakened India.

Every move by the regime has, thereafter, backfired – as the General Will, that Rousseau grappled to explain, had just walked away from it, showing it the exit door. The fact that martinet has finally lost the plot after a dozen years of careful crafting of enforced obedience and that he is surely going, is clear from the near unanimous derision and unabashed disgust with which every instance of corruption, high-handedness or incompetence is now greeted with by all.

The first response that lights up with this realisation that much of India has snapped out of its induced trance is not relief – for the final struggle has just commenced. It is a mixed feeling of partial fulfilment that a dozen good years of many people's spent lives in fighting and suffering were not in vain.

When most people preferred silence in public

Twelve years ago, when India voted decisively for Narendra Modi – thanks largely to a unprecedented campaign, carefully designed, lavishly financed and meticulously carried out – India burst out into a choreographed euphoria. Realists were almost swept away, as they clung to their belief that this "Hindu Hriday Samrat" who had waded his way to power through riots and deaths in thousands, could never metamorphose into a grand benevolent ruler.  Little did many people realise that the simple leader in half-sleeved kurta with a fixed grin (and a commoner's one week's stubble on his face) would soon upgrade himself into the most vain and expensive dresser after Louis XIV, and always give a menacing scowl. As his sidekick explained later, most of what he promised as AchheDin then were jumlas or fakes.

But it was apparent before 2014 was over, that most people, including many liberals, preferred silence in public, while expressing horror in private. "Neutrality" became the common alibi of many who sought to evade reality and play safe. It were, ultimately, the tactless ones in every walk of life who came out in the open, braving the tsunami of public opinion.

They could see the Weimar Republic's fate repeat itself in India – but they could only forewarn a largely non-receptive audience. What hit fast and furious was the shocking realisation that liberal democracy had really so shallow roots in India and that millions could be easily and dangerously attracted to brazen communalism. Families split down the middle, as many openly flaunted religious supremacy, and childhood friends parted, bitterly and irreconcilably.

There is little point now in repeating the sequence of events – how each of the fortresses, that were nurtured for seven decades to protect constitutional rule, were smashed. A single determined megalomaniac managed to handpick heads (usually civil servants, housetrained to be upright and perennially negative) to destroy them. Those assigned the task obviously considered personal loyalty or the goods of office more important than their sworn obligations.

Like in the Indira era, many top courts, from the districts to the apex, swung to favour an authoritarian regime – and some actually felt it a duty to contribute to a Hindu India. Where the present cabal bettered Indira's was in its scientific planning to select user-friendly judges and chiefs, well in advance.

Majoritarianism supplanted pluralism almost seamlessly

But then, those who saw the rise of neo-fascism in all this were told by the vast majority to get their eyes or their heads examined. Majoritarianism supplanted pluralism almost seamlessly, and one lost more friends in a year than in a whole lifetime.

One can, thus, understand the factors that prompted V-Dem, the international calibration agency for the health of  democracies, to plunge India's rank from 40th position in 2014 to a pitiful 105th among 179 countries, in 2025.

But even as the tactful held their tongue, the blunt and mindless uncompromising lot decided to fight, from June 2014 itself – or perish, come what may. This is when India rediscovered itself, not in the Kangana Ranaut sense of the term, and one was pleasantly surprised to find so many co-warriors to brave the huns. They called out the Ku Klux Klans of cow vigilantes immediately after an innocent Mohammad Akhlaq was killed in Dadri and, thereafter, did not a single outrage pass without a "hue and cry" at least – hoping to shake up a mesmerised people.

The tactless cried hoarse that 80% of Hindus in India could hardly ever be threatened by a panic-stricken Muslim 14%. They refused to celebrate the arrival of long-shackled Hinduism and to consider Islamophobia to be a most patriotic virtue – and were routinely heckled by, friends, kinsmen and "countrymen".

Reprisals by the establishment for dissent were brutal and decisive, more visibly so in the media, where most owners got the message and genuflected. Bolder editors and anchors were soon smoked out and recalcitrant TV channels like the NDTV were singed or taken over by crony capitalists (or both). Simultaneously, a new crop of godi TV anchors sprung up – to make millions by grovelling and by screaming toxic views. They are now the butt end of public ridicule.

What is more interesting is, however, how a large number of prominent journalists stood up from 2014, to criticise unconstitutional conduct and paid the price for this. They appealed to audiences over the heads of the complicit media, and it is encouraging to note a decade later that they continue to kick and thrive.

This holds good not only for the English and Hindi but for regional as well – where scores of stalwarts rose to challenge India's most vindictive ruler in living memory. Authorities made life miserable for independent publications, but some like The Hindu, The Telegraph and Indian Express battled anyway. This smaller part of the media surely made up for the majority that had crawled.

Large number of former bureaucrats stood up

The bureaucracy produced few spectacular heroes who opposed Modi's ominous omnipresence. But then, it is difficult to know as the profession is genetically engineered to counter political bosses behind scenes, without ever making them public. Modi's periodic public rants at babus were often occasioned by many officers who silently refused to be a party to selling family silver cheap to cronies. As an insider (who could take it no more), one can vouchsafe that a large chunk just did not give in, despite threats, frequent transfers and being ignominiously "reverted to their parent cadre".

But, as in the media, a large section of bureaucrats did turn Quisling, for a few forgettable rewards. They were more than made up by the countless numbers of retired officers who constituted formidable groups like "Constitutional Conduct" to publicly oppose and expose the regime's shenanigans. They were deprived of even decent behaviour from all and sundry, including their own former colleagues and institutions – lest Big Brother take offence. The defiant lot can cite numerous cases when an invitation to them to speak at a domestic or foreign institution or forum was cancelled at the last minute – as "someone had rung up".

Nevertheless, it is for the first time in history that large numbers of retired bureaucrats and diplomats (and policemen and other servicemen) ever stood up to actively oppose a regime so openly for transgressing the law or the public interest. Since no government permits its civil or military service to defy it, many officers just waited to retire and take it on, knowing better than others how vicious this establishment is. This is, indeed, a high water mark in the evolution of the democratic spirit in India.

The battle royal was in social media, the same bean-stalk that Modi climbed on to power and the WhatsApp platform became an early decisive battlefield. Countless dedicated users could counter somewhat the forces of a tech-friendly, corporate-supported regime that spewed toxicity and injected daily fixes into bhakts. The number of WhatsApp users in India has, incidentally, shot up from just 7 crores in 2014 to 20 crores in three years and to 50 crores by 2021.

Twitter (now X) is another no holds-barred boxing ring and fighting the Right wing's vermin that infest its putrid drains, continues. Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms are not spared by either side but the reptilian breed is continuously defanged.

Liberal amateurs appeared all over India to joust with poisonous and high-paid professionals often engaged by "IT Cells", for years together. It was only recently that hopelessly disorganised opposition parties and groups appear finally to have got their act together, to effectively combat post-Truth social media.

The digital media held the upper ground

But the most spectacular fight where pluralists always held the upper ground was the new born digital media, including journals and YouTube platforms. The Wire, Scroll, Newslaundry, Mooknayak, The News Minute, Newsclick, The Quint and Article 14 emerged as India’s alternative digital-media warriors. They fought and captured a large domain of neutral presentation that media barons had surrendered. The the neo-fascist regime then enacted five new laws and sharpened other draconian regulations – but this media just punches harder.

The nose-bleeding fight that individual YouTube personalities like Ravish Kumar, Dhruv Rathee and Akash Banerjee, Abhisar Sharma gave (along with numerous others in every language of India) is a glorious saga in its own right. Record-breaking audiences that cheer them so deafeningly loud reinforce the postulate that this regime's departure is imminent.

Civil society also woke up in these dozen years and stood its ground, in almost every town and state. Few had thought this was possible for the conscientious but largely seminar-resolution tribe. A nation under painful stress brings out dormant qualities and produces unexpected vigour to resist.

Dracula's fangs then bit into selected individual dissenters, like the 16 activists, lawyers, academics, and writers tormented in the Bhima Koregaon case. The National Crime Records Bureau reports that, from 2014 onwards, at least 20,992 persons are in jail under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Many are surely detained for anti national activities, but then, the repeated denial of bail to Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam by the Supreme Court appears to demonstrate a doctrinal shift in "the right of bail", which has serious implications for undertrials. Naxalism is tossed around much too maliciously.

But despite all this and an overwhelming majority secured in decisive elections (engineered by a well financed Wehrmacht), as well as  the unimaginable vindictiveness of petty tyrants, India has simply not allowed the much-threatened Hindu Rashtra to materialise. The additional concern now is that the Election Commission has sunk to an unprecedented nadir and the top courts "see no evil" – which is dangerous, to put it mildly.

Nevertheless, it has been no mean feat for liberals to have thwarted the juggernaut of relentless Hinduisation and homogenisation for twelve long years. The parliamentary elections of 2024 gave the first glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel, while the Gen Z's uprising of 2026 is a resounding gong that time is up.

The spirit of democratic India that had been (and continues to be) mauled by the most draconian regime fought back – with a valiant belligerence that defied all calculations of those who sought to destroy. It really gives great satisfaction to recall the sheer exasperation of India's most intolerant regime at the continued open defiance by constitutionalists. This phase will be remembered for years to come, as will be the collusion and treachery of so many.

The fear has largely gone but the fight is on. Even it is won, there's no guarantee that he'll ever leave gracefully. Let history roll its dice – as we brace to give the final push, to reclaim and restore the India we were all born into.

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