Democracies are tested not when protests are peaceful, but when they become contentious. The recent confrontation between protesters and Delhi Police near Jantar Mantar has once again triggered a familiar debate. Images of tear gas, lathi charges and injured demonstrators have dominated headlines, while questions about police conduct have understandably attracted public attention. Yet reducing the episode to a binary contest of “state repression” versus “law and order” misses the larger...

Stories of grief deserve empathy. A woman waiting decades to learn the fate of her missing husband is not a political talking point; she is a human being. The term 'half-widow,' used for women whose husbands disappeared during the violent years of the Kashmir insurgency, reflects genuine pain that should never be dismissed. But pain becomes propaganda when it is stripped of context. Recent international coverage has once again chosen to frame Kashmir almost exclusively through the suffering...

Every few months, India witnesses the sudden rise of a flashy new digital “movement.” It appears out of nowhere, gains massive traction overnight, floods Instagram reels and X timelines, attracts armies of anonymous accounts, and is quickly celebrated by sections of India’s urban internet ecosystem as a revolutionary youth uprising or cultural awakening. But increasingly, when one scratches beneath the surface, an uncomfortable pattern emerges. Follower maps begin showing unusual spikes from...