The sight of chest-thumping nationalists now wagging their fingers at the hate-spewing trolls going after Vikram Misri is a masterclass in selective amnesia.
If irony could be mined like metal, their outrage would yield enough iron to rebuild the Statue of Unity several hundred times over, and still have enough left to cast a spine for the media, the bureaucracy, the judiciary, and the uniformed services now expressing shock as if this descent were accidental.
But nothing about this is accidental.
This is the same ecosystem that sneered at dissent, mocked debate, and vilified complexity. The same ecosystem that found it fashionable to call journalists traitors, students terrorists, and activists foreign agents. The same ecosystem that cheered while institutions bent, boundaries blurred, and hate became currency.
And now, as the mob they summoned turns its wrath on a senior diplomat simply for speaking a government line, they want to act surprised. Alarmed. Dismayed.
Let us be clear: this is not a moral reckoning. It is a nervous calculation. A scramble to draw arbitrary lines between “legitimate anger” and “unacceptable abuse”, as if those lines had not already been rubbed out by years of complicity.
The mob was not created by fringe elements. It was manufactured in broad daylight. Fed daily by TV panels and party cells, nurtured in WhatsApp groups, polished in prime time, and applauded by the very voices now clutching their pearls.
It was never about accountability. It was about intimidation.
And now that it has come for someone within the tent, there is panic.
But the mob does not care. Not about merit. Not about intent. Not about service. It does not care that Vikram Misri did not author the ceasefire. That he simply announced it. It does not care about his record, his loyalty, or his family. It does not care that his daughter has nothing to do with any of this.
The mob does not want answers. It wants targets. Preferably human. Preferably defenceless.
And always, always, it stops short of questioning the man with power. The one with whom the buck must stop. The one whose silence emboldens, whose nod signals approval, whose disapproval is never felt because it never comes.
The mob will savage everyone else.
Teachers. Journalists. Bureaucrats. Widows. Comedians. Scientists. Children.
Even soldiers.
Yep, the same ones who are sacrificed like disposable cutlery.
The same ones in whose name votes are solicited.
It will question their patriotism, demand their credentials, invade their privacy, rewrite their lives.
But not him.
Not because the mob is loyal to him, but because it no longer needs him. The man at the top may believe the mob belongs to him. That it acts on his cue. That he can steer it by staying just close enough to benefit, and just distant enough to deny responsibility.
But in truth, it is not his mob. If anything, he is its creature. It was the mob that put him there. And it is the mob that keeps him there, as long as he stays out of its way and foolishly believes that its rage is his will. Like a cock believing it is his crowing that makes the sun rise.
The mob does not care about truth. It no longer even cares about permission. It is simply hungry. For blood. And it must feed. Endlessly.
And here is the bitter truth: the mob is not some external entity. It is people. Individuals. Your neighbours. Your colleagues. Your classmates. Each one convinced they are on the right side. Each one certain that they are safe. That if they chant loud enough, hate hard enough, and blend in deep enough, the storm will pass over them.
But mobs do not pass. They spread.
They do not forget. They mutate, like a virus that adapts only to ensure its own survival, even if it ends up destroying the very host that gave it life.
And when the music stops, they will not check your voter ID card or your pinned tweet. They will not ask what you did last month or whom you trolled last year.
They will just need a name.
And if it is yours?
Well.
You have only two choices: be part of the mob lynching the person who happened to be in their way… or be the person being lynched.
