The Diesel Ultimatum: Is India Trading Strategic Autonomy for American Approval?

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India’s strategic autonomy is not being tested in a seminar on international relations. It is being tested at the negotiating table, where Washington has demonstrated its willingness to threaten punitive tariffs, suspend them when American interests require it, and retain the threat as leverage over countries such as India. The immediate issue is oil. The larger question is whether New Delhi still determines its foreign policy on its own terms, or whether it is increasingly adjusting its choices to accommodate the political and economic priorities of the United States.

The spectacle is difficult to ignore. President Donald Trump’s administration has threatened countries buying Russian energy with additional tariffs of up to 100 per cent under the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026. It subsequently waived the specified penalties, citing American national interests, even as Washington pursued additional Russian diesel supplies to ease its own domestic energy pressures. The waiver offers India temporary relief, but it can be withdrawn. The threat, therefore, has not disappeared; it has become a bargaining instrument.

This is where the language of coercion becomes relevant. Washington does not need to issue an explicit ultimatum in every conversation. It can create a climate in which the threatened economic consequences of disagreement are sufficiently severe to influence another government’s decisions. When access to the American market, exposure to secondary sanctions and the prospects of a trade agreement all hang in the balance, the formal freedom to say no may remain intact while the practical cost of exercising it rises sharply.

That is not necessarily blackmail in the strict legal sense. But it is a recognisable form of economic arm-twisting. And when a government repeatedly accommodates pressure while presenting the resulting concessions as diplomatic victories, the public is entitled to ask whether negotiation has quietly become submission.

Washington’s diesel problem, India’s diplomatic predicament

The immediate American imperative is understandable. Diesel is indispensable to trucking, freight, agriculture and much of the wider American economy. Rising fuel costs can feed inflation, undermine consumer confidence and damage an administration facing midterm elections. Trump has powerful incentives to find additional supplies, moderate prices and demonstrate that his policies deliver tangible benefits to American voters.

India’s refining infrastructure offers an attractive opportunity. Reliance Industries’ Jamnagar complex, with a combined refining capacity of approximately 1.4 million barrels per day, is exceptionally well placed to process a variety of crude grades. Its export-oriented operations make it an important supplier of diesel and other petroleum products to international markets.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s recent visit to Jamnagar brought this industrial capability into sharp geopolitical focus. His discussions with Mukesh and Anant Ambani concerned energy cooperation, opportunities involving Venezuelan crude and wider commercial partnerships. Rubio also met External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar during his India visit, against the backdrop of ongoing trade negotiations.

There is nothing inherently objectionable about such engagement. India should exploit its industrial strengths, attract investment and pursue profitable energy partnerships. Nor does a visit to a private refinery, by itself, establish that its owners or the Indian government have been subjected to coercion.

The more troubling question concerns the asymmetry surrounding these negotiations. Washington is seeking commercial cooperation from India while retaining the power to penalise Indian exports over New Delhi’s purchases of Russian energy. It is simultaneously relaxing restrictions when its own energy requirements make those restrictions inconvenient.

Consider the underlying principle. If buying Russian energy is sufficiently objectionable to justify punitive measures against India, why should the same energy become acceptable when American consumers need relief? If sanctions are instruments of a consistent foreign-policy doctrine, they should not become disposable whenever domestic political calculations change.

The contradiction is not merely one of American hypocrisy. It reveals the hierarchy of interests at work. Washington’s domestic requirements remain paramount; other countries are expected to adjust to them. American pragmatism is presented as responsible statecraft, while Indian pragmatism can be punished as geopolitical disloyalty.

India should not accept that double standard as the natural order of international affairs.

The anatomy of a pressure campaign

The strongest evidence of American leverage lies not in speculation about secret conversations but in the documented sequence of threats, reversals and continuing uncertainty.

Washington has threatened punitive tariffs on major buyers of Russian energy. It has subsequently suspended the specified penalties while preserving its ability to reconsider them. Indian refiners have already reduced their exposure to Russian crude amid the sanctions threat and changing market conditions, while India’s trade negotiations with the United States continue. The relief, therefore, has not removed the uncertainty confronting Indian policymakers and businesses.

This arrangement creates a powerful negotiating advantage. Washington can offer relief from a penalty that Washington itself has threatened to impose. The suspension can then be portrayed as generosity, even though the underlying threat remains available for future use.

The recipient is placed in a particularly awkward position. Resistance risks renewed economic punishment; accommodation may secure temporary relief but encourages further demands. The stronger party retains discretion, while the weaker party must continually demonstrate that it deserves favourable treatment.

This is how coercive leverage can operate without a dramatic confrontation. A tariff threat need not be enforced to influence behaviour. Its credibility may be enough.

For India, the danger is that a temporary reprieve becomes a permanent habit of deference. Once Washington learns that the threat of economic punishment can induce New Delhi to reconsider its energy choices, the same method may be applied to other issues. Today it is Russian crude. Tomorrow it could involve defence procurement, relations with Iran, technology regulation, digital policy or diplomatic positions on conflicts in which Indian interests diverge from American preferences.

The problem is not that India negotiates with the United States. Every serious country does. The problem arises when the other side acquires disproportionate power to define the price of disagreement.

Blackmail: the allegation that demands scrutiny

The possibility of political blackmail makes the controversy more explosive, but it must be handled with precision.

Epstein-related documents and allegations involving prominent individuals have periodically generated political controversy. In India, opposition voices have raised questions about whether sensitive material, selectively disclosed or withheld, could create leverage over influential people or the government. Such allegations are politically consequential, but their existence does not establish that the documents have been used to compel a particular Indian policy decision.

There is, at present, no publicly substantiated evidence presented here that the Trump administration used Epstein-related material to force New Delhi into energy concessions, that Rubio’s visit formed part of such an operation, or that any specific Indian official was threatened with exposure.

That distinction matters. An allegation of blackmail is not proof of blackmail, and insinuation cannot substitute for evidence. A serious investigation would need to establish what material was involved, who possessed it, whether threats were communicated, what action was demanded and whether any policy decision followed as a consequence.

But refusing to treat an unverified allegation as fact does not require us to ignore the broader vulnerability it raises.

Political blackmail, where it exists, exploits the difference between what a powerful actor knows and what a target fears might be disclosed. Economic coercion exploits the difference between what a powerful state can impose and what a dependent trading partner can afford to resist. Both can narrow the target’s freedom of action by making the cost of refusal appear intolerable.

The analogy is illuminating; the claim of an actual connection remains unproven.

The more defensible criticism of New Delhi does not depend on an Epstein conspiracy. It rests on the observable imbalance between American power to threaten and waive penalties and India’s need to preserve access to the US market while negotiating a trade agreement. That is already a substantial challenge to Indian strategic autonomy.

If credible evidence of personal political coercion ever emerges, it should be investigated independently and transparently. Until then, the focus should remain on what can be demonstrated: the leverage created by tariffs, sanctions and commercial dependence.

The irony of strategic autonomy

For decades, India has cultivated a foreign policy tradition that seeks to avoid exclusive dependence on any major power. The terminology has evolved from non-alignment to strategic autonomy, but the central proposition remains familiar: India’s interests must determine its partnerships, not the demands of an external patron.

The Russian oil controversy exposes the distance between that principle and its practical application.

Russian crude became particularly important to Indian refiners after Moscow redirected supplies following the invasion of Ukraine and Western sanctions. Discounted imports offered commercial advantages and helped India diversify its energy sourcing. They also reflected a straightforward calculation: India’s energy requirements cannot simply be subordinated to the strategic preferences of Washington or European capitals.

Purchasing Russian oil does not mean endorsing Russia’s war in Ukraine. Nor does it require India to ignore sanctions risks, diplomatic costs or the need to diversify suppliers. It means that India should evaluate energy purchases according to its own national interests, applicable law and commercial realities.

Yet when the possibility of punitive American tariffs prompts changes in procurement, the distinction between a voluntary commercial adjustment and a concession induced by external pressure becomes crucial.

The government may argue that reducing Russian purchases is a pragmatic decision to secure trade advantages and protect Indian exporters. That argument deserves examination, not automatic dismissal. India’s exporters have a genuine interest in avoiding punitive duties, and a trade agreement with the United States could offer considerable economic benefits.

But the public is entitled to ask what India receives in return. Is the relief durable? Are tariffs being reduced on terms that benefit Indian industry? Is Washington providing credible assurances against arbitrary sanctions? Are Indian firms gaining reciprocal access to American markets? Or is New Delhi merely exchanging one temporary reprieve for another round of negotiations under the same threat?

A concession is not necessarily a defeat. A concession made under a credible threat, without reciprocal and enforceable benefits, is a different matter.

Strategic autonomy cannot mean refusing every compromise. It must mean retaining sufficient bargaining power to ensure that compromises are mutual, proportionate and consistent with long-term national interests.

Russia, Iran and the price of appeasement

The implications extend beyond oil.

Russia remains important to India’s defence ecosystem, including platforms, maintenance, spare parts and established cooperation in selected areas of military technology. Replacing these capabilities is not an overnight exercise. India’s defence diversification is sensible, but it cannot erase the practical constraints imposed by decades of procurement and operational dependence.

If New Delhi appears willing to subordinate energy policy to Washington’s shifting demands, Moscow may reasonably question how much confidence it can place in India’s commitment to an independent relationship. That does not mean Russia will abandon India, or that every adjustment in oil purchases will damage defence ties. It means that repeated, one-sided concessions could gradually erode trust.

Iran presents a different but related challenge. India’s interests in regional connectivity, including the Chabahar project, require careful management of American sanctions exposure alongside regional realities. New Delhi cannot expect every American decision to accommodate Indian priorities. But neither should it accept the assumption that Washington possesses an automatic veto over India’s legitimate engagement with other countries.

The strategic danger is cumulative. Each individual accommodation can be defended as a practical necessity. Together, however, they may produce a foreign policy increasingly constrained by another country’s preferences.

That would be a profound reversal for a nation that prides itself on making independent choices in a multipolar world.

The Israel question: convergence is not proof of conspiracy

The suggestion that the pressure campaign is designed to serve Israeli interests also requires caution. India, Israel and the United States share certain strategic concerns, including aspects of Middle Eastern security and opposition to Iranian regional influence. Their interests overlap in some areas and diverge in others.

But overlap does not establish coordination. No demonstrated evidence in the material under consideration establishes that Israeli officials directed Rubio’s itinerary, that Israel engineered the tariff manoeuvre, or that the Jamnagar engagement was part of a coordinated operation to subordinate Indian policy.

India should certainly examine how closer American-Israeli strategic coordination affects its own relations with Iran and the wider region. That is a legitimate foreign-policy question. It should not, however, be converted into a claim of a secret trilateral conspiracy without supporting evidence.

The central issue is sufficiently serious without adding an unverified layer of intrigue. Washington has its own reasons to seek energy cooperation with India. The American administration’s domestic political difficulties, commercial interests and tariff powers provide an intelligible explanation for its conduct.

The critical question is whether India can exploit that American need without becoming captive to it.

What should New Delhi do?

India’s response should be firm, practical and transparent.

First, it should insist that energy procurement remain governed by national interest, price, supply security and applicable legal obligations. Russian, American, Middle Eastern and other supplies should be assessed on their merits. No foreign government should be permitted to turn India’s source of crude into a permanent instrument of political discipline.

Second, New Delhi should demand reciprocity in trade negotiations. If India is expected to adjust its energy purchases or expand commercial cooperation, the United States should provide concrete and durable benefits in return. These could include predictable tariff treatment, improved market access and safeguards against arbitrary changes in policy. Temporary waivers should not be mistaken for a stable economic settlement.

Third, India should diversify its economic exposure. The answer to American leverage is not hostility towards America, but reducing the vulnerability that makes threats so effective. Broader export markets, stronger domestic manufacturing, diversified energy supplies and a more resilient technology ecosystem would increase New Delhi’s room for manoeuvre.

Fourth, relations with Russia and Iran should be managed on their own merits, with due regard to international law, sanctions risks and India’s wider interests. Neither relationship should be treated as expendable merely to satisfy another power’s immediate political requirements.

Finally, the government should explain the costs and benefits of major concessions. Strategic autonomy is not simply a slogan for diplomatic speeches. It is a public responsibility. Citizens should be able to judge whether a trade agreement genuinely advances Indian interests or merely relieves pressure created by an external threat.

The final test: who sets the terms?

The diesel controversy exposes a revealing contradiction in contemporary American statecraft. Washington is willing to threaten severe economic penalties against countries buying Russian energy, yet it can suspend those penalties and seek Russian diesel supplies when its own economic and political circumstances demand flexibility. American national interest justifies the reversal. India’s national interest, by contrast, is expected to accommodate American demands.

This is the essence of the double standard.

Trump’s administration is not obliged to place India’s interests above America’s. No responsible Indian government should expect it to do so. The obligation falls on New Delhi to negotiate intelligently, resist disproportionate pressure and ensure that the pursuit of commercial advantage does not become a pattern of strategic dependence.

The evidence supports a serious charge of coercive economic leverage. It does not, by itself, prove personal blackmail, an Epstein-files operation or an Israeli-directed scheme. Those allegations require independent verification. The distinction should be maintained precisely because the established facts already raise uncomfortable questions.

If India changes its energy policy because a different supplier offers better prices or more reliable access, that is pragmatism. If it changes policy because a foreign power has threatened its exports, the government must explain what it secured in return. If the threat can be revived at another negotiating round, the country has not escaped coercion; it has merely obtained a temporary reprieve.

The real test of strategic autonomy is not whether India can maintain cordial relations with Washington. It is whether New Delhi can disagree with Washington without being made to pay a disproportionate price.

A nation of India’s size, economic potential and diplomatic reach should be able to negotiate with the United States as a partner, not behave like a supplicant grateful for the suspension of a punishment. It should welcome investment, trade and energy cooperation, but reject the notion that access to American markets entitles Washington to dictate the terms of Indian foreign policy.

The danger is not that India will suddenly surrender its sovereignty in a dramatic diplomatic spectacle. It is that sovereignty will be diluted incrementally, one tariff waiver, one procurement adjustment and one reluctant concession at a time, while each retreat is advertised as a victory for pragmatic diplomacy.

That is how strategic autonomy can become a ceremonial phrase rather than a working principle.

India does not need to choose between America and Russia, or between commercial engagement and diplomatic independence. It needs the confidence to refuse a bad bargain, the resilience to withstand pressure and the negotiating skill to convert its own strengths into reciprocal gains. Until that capacity is demonstrated, the question will persist: is India shaping its partnerships according to its national interests, or increasingly shaping its national interests to satisfy the demands of its most powerful partner?

#EpsteinFiles, #Blackmail, #Conspiracy #HardeepPuri #Modi #MarcoRubio #IndiaUSRelations #StrategicAutonomy #Trump #NarendraModi #USIndiaTradeDeal #EconomicCoercion #DieselDiplomacy #RussianOil #IndiaRussiaRelations #USSanctions #IndianForeignPolicy #Geopolitics #IndiaUnderPressure

Have Indians Regressed to the Savage Times? Power, communal violence, gendered brutality and the erosion of constitutional morality

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India's civilisational pride rests on its philosophical traditions, spiritual diversity, intellectual achievements and the remarkable capacity of its people to coexist across differences. Yet there is another history that deserves equal scrutiny: the history of conquest, humiliation, religious destruction, caste oppression and the subjugation of women. A civilisation cannot honestly celebrate its achievements while refusing to confront its cruelties.

The disturbing question today is not whether violence existed in ancient India. It did. Nor is it whether victorious armies across the world looted cities, destroyed symbols of defeated rulers, enslaved captives and subjected women to sexual violence. They did. The question is whether a modern constitutional democracy, nearly eight decades after independence, is allowing some of those predatory instincts to re-emerge under the cover of religious nationalism, political patronage and institutional indifference.

Since 2014, allegations of selective law enforcement, communal vigilantism, punitive demolitions and the intimidation of dissenters have become central to India's political debate. The violence of 2002 in Gujarat had already exposed the devastating consequences of communal mobilisation and failures of state protection. The developments of subsequent years have raised a more troubling question: when political power appears to favour one community over another, does violence become not merely a crime but an instrument of intimidation?

The answer requires historical honesty, factual precision and an uncompromising defence of constitutional values. Neither civilisational nostalgia nor partisan outrage is an adequate substitute for evidence.

1. The myth of a permanently benevolent past

Indian history is often presented through two contradictory lenses. One portrays ancient India as an almost uninterrupted golden age of spiritual wisdom and social harmony. The other reduces its history to successive invasions and religious conflicts. Both are distortions.

Pre-modern Indian kingdoms fought wars of expansion, dynastic succession, territorial consolidation and economic extraction. Victorious rulers sometimes plundered the temples of defeated rivals, appropriated their deities and destroyed monuments associated with their enemies. The political significance of temples extended beyond worship: they held wealth, patronage networks and symbolic authority. To seize a rival ruler's sacred image could therefore signify the transfer of political prestige as much as religious hostility.

Historian Richard M. Eaton has documented instances of temple desecration in pre-modern India, including acts committed by Hindu rulers against rival Hindu polities. The Pallava conquest of Vatapi in the seventh century and the military campaigns of the Cholas illustrate how sacred objects could be appropriated as trophies of victory. Kashmir's King Harsha, who ruled in the eleventh century, became notorious for the plunder of temples.

These examples expose an uncomfortable truth: Hindu rulers were not invariably tolerant, just as Muslim rulers were not invariably intolerant. Political ambition, wealth, dynastic rivalry and religious symbolism interacted in complicated ways. Temple destruction by a Hindu ruler did not necessarily have the same motivation as every instance of destruction by a Muslim ruler. Each case must be examined in its historical context. Nevertheless, the assertion that Hindu kings sometimes destroyed the temples of other Hindu kings is historically established.

Nor was India exceptional. Roman armies sacked conquered cities, European conquerors plundered colonies, and warfare across Asia, Africa and the Middle East frequently involved massacres, enslavement and sexual violence. The victors often treated defeated populations as sources of wealth, labour and humiliation.

The distinction between past and present, however, is crucial. In many pre-modern societies, the victorious ruler possessed enormous personal authority, while institutional safeguards for ordinary people were weak or absent. Modern constitutional democracies are founded on a different principle: victory in war, or at the ballot box, does not confer ownership of the defeated.

That is where the historical comparison becomes relevant to contemporary India. Not because the country has literally returned to medieval conditions, but because the temptation to treat political victory as moral entitlement has never disappeared.

2. 2002 and 2014: From communal catastrophe to political normalisation

The Gujarat violence of 2002 remains one of the defining moral crises of contemporary India. Following the burning of a train coach at Godhra, in which 59 people died, large-scale anti-Muslim violence erupted across Gujarat. Muslims were killed, women were subjected to sexual violence, homes and businesses were destroyed, and thousands were displaced. The official death toll was over a thousand, with Muslims constituting the majority of the victims.

The violence generated enduring controversy over the conduct of the state government, the response of the police and the accountability of political leaders. The Supreme Court monitored important aspects of the legal proceedings, and convictions were secured in several cases. At the same time, allegations of official complicity, failures of protection and delayed justice left deep scars.

The lesson of 2002 should have been that no government can be permitted to treat the security of citizens as conditional upon their religious identity. Instead, communal polarisation remained a potent instrument of political mobilisation.

The BJP's victory in the 2014 general election did not inaugurate communal prejudice in India. Anti-Muslim discrimination, caste violence, attacks on Dalits, gender-based brutality and religious antagonism all predated it. Nor can every crime committed after 2014 be attributed to the ruling party. What deserves scrutiny is whether the political climate, public rhetoric and uneven application of the law have made certain forms of intimidation more acceptable, more visible or less costly for their perpetrators.

Cow vigilantism provides a disturbing illustration. In several cases, Muslims and Dalits have been assaulted or killed on suspicions involving cattle transport, slaughter or beef consumption. The killing of Mohammad Akhlaq in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, in 2015, after allegations that beef was stored in his home, became a symbol of the dangers of mob mobilisation around religious identity. Subsequent incidents reinforced concerns that accusations, rather than evidence and due process, could determine who became a target.

The problem is not simply that mobs commit crimes. Mobs have existed throughout history. The more serious problem arises when perpetrators expect political sympathy, when victims are portrayed as enemies of the community, or when public officials appear more concerned with the identity of the accused than the rights of the victim.

A government does not need to order every assault to bear political responsibility for the atmosphere in which such assaults occur. Its responsibility is to condemn violence consistently, protect vulnerable citizens and ensure that the law operates without fear or favour.

That standard applies equally to every political party and every state government. It cannot be suspended when the perpetrators belong to one's preferred political camp.

3. Bulldozers and the punishment of communities

The demolition of homes and businesses following communal clashes or protests has become another flashpoint in India's debate over constitutional government. Authorities have frequently defended such action by claiming that the structures were illegal. In individual cases, unauthorised construction may indeed warrant lawful action.

But the central question is whether demolition is genuinely an exercise in urban regulation or a form of collective punishment.

When a building is demolished shortly after its occupant has been accused of participating in a protest or communal disturbance, the suspicion of punitive intent is unavoidable. If the process selectively targets members of one community, the danger becomes more acute. A family cannot lawfully be punished for an offence merely because one member is accused of committing it. Nor should the destruction of a home become an alternative to a criminal trial.

In November 2024, the Supreme Court of India laid down safeguards against punitive demolitions, emphasising procedural fairness, notice and the opportunity to challenge proposed action. The Court made clear that executive authorities cannot simply substitute demolition for judicial punishment. Its ruling was an important reminder that the government is bound by law even when public anger demands immediate retribution.

The principle is straightforward: the state must establish wrongdoing through lawful procedures; it cannot manufacture guilt through the destruction of property.

The significance of this debate extends beyond Muslims or any other particular group. A state that can bypass due process for an unpopular minority may eventually use the same powers against political opponents, inconvenient journalists, protesting students or ordinary citizens who lack influential connections.

The bulldozer is therefore more than a machine in this controversy. It has become a symbol of the temptation to replace adjudication with spectacle and justice with intimidation.

4. Dalits, caste violence and the selective value of citizenship

India's democratic achievements cannot conceal the persistence of caste oppression. Dalits continue to face discrimination, social exclusion, assaults and, in some cases, killings arising from attempts to assert equal rights. Violence associated with inter-caste relationships, access to common resources, social status and resistance to traditional hierarchies exposes the distance between constitutional equality and lived experience.

The caste system is not merely a relic of an ancient past. Its consequences remain visible in unequal access to opportunity, degrading labour practices, social segregation and violence against those who challenge established power.

Yet it would be historically inaccurate to suggest that caste atrocities began in 2014 or that only one political party bears responsibility for them. Governments led by different parties have failed to eliminate these injustices. The appropriate test is whether authorities register complaints, investigate impartially, protect witnesses, prosecute offenders and deliver justice without political interference.

The same principle governs communal violence. A Muslim citizen, a Dalit citizen, a Christian citizen and a Hindu citizen must enjoy equal protection, regardless of the popularity of their beliefs or the political influence of their community.

The Constitution does not recognise grades of citizenship. It does not authorise a majority to decide which minority deserves safety, dignity or justice.

When a person is assaulted because of religion or caste, the injury is not confined to the individual. It communicates a threat to everyone who shares that identity: keep your place, remain silent and do not challenge those who claim superior status.

This is how violence becomes a mechanism of social control. It need not occur everywhere to influence the behaviour of millions. The fear of becoming the next victim can be as effective as the actual assault.

5. Women: Citizens, not the spoils of power

Perhaps the most disturbing continuity between historical conquest and contemporary brutality is the treatment of women as objects over whom powerful men believe they can exercise ownership.

Sexual violence has accompanied warfare and political domination across civilisations. Women have been assaulted to humiliate families, terrorise communities, enforce hierarchies or satisfy the appetites of men who believe themselves protected from consequences. But sexual violence is not confined to war. It flourishes wherever entitlement, impunity and institutional indifference combine.

The cases of Kathua and Ankita Bhandari demonstrate why this issue demands more than partisan outrage.

In January 2018, an eight-year-old Muslim girl from the nomadic Bakarwal community was abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua district. The prosecution alleged that the crime was intended partly to intimidate the community and drive it from the area. In June 2019, six of the seven adult accused tried in the case were convicted; three received life sentences and three police officers received prison terms for destroying evidence. The Supreme Court's subsequent proceedings also addressed the trial of an accused claiming to have been a juvenile.

The case was horrific not only because of the victim's age but because of the communal mobilisation surrounding it. Lawyers and members of the public protested in support of the accused, and political figures associated with the BJP participated in demonstrations defending those arrested. The episode exposed the appalling possibility that religious solidarity could be invoked to excuse even the most indefensible crime.

A child cannot be made an enemy because she belongs to another religious community. The moral bankruptcy lies in allowing communal allegiance to compete with the elementary obligation to protect a child.

In September 2022, nineteen-year-old Ankita Bhandari, a receptionist at a resort in Uttarakhand, was murdered. The resort owner, Pulkit Arya, was the son of a former BJP leader. On 30 May 2025, a court sentenced Arya and two employees to life imprisonment for the murder.

The case provoked widespread public anger and questions about the influence of political connections. But factual precision matters: Ankita's murder conviction does not, by itself, establish every allegation subsequently circulated about the case, including claims of a wider conspiracy or the involvement of other political figures. Such allegations require independent investigation and evidence.

What the case undeniably demonstrates is the vulnerability of a young woman employed by men who possessed greater economic and social power. Her refusal to comply with demands allegedly made of her, the events leading to her death and the subsequent investigation raised urgent questions about workplace safety, power and accountability.

These cases should not be reduced to a Hindu-Muslim confrontation. Sexual violence is not the monopoly of any religion, caste or political party. Nor should every rape or murder be described as the behaviour of a conquering army. Doing so risks obscuring the individual circumstances of crimes and the structural causes of gender-based violence.

Nevertheless, when a woman's vulnerability is compounded by communal prejudice, political influence or institutional indifference, the analogy with predatory power becomes chillingly relevant.

A woman's body is not the property of a victorious community, a powerful employer, a dominant caste or a political establishment. That principle must hold regardless of the identity of the accused.

6. Jantar Mantar: When the guardians of law become the accused

The allegations emerging from the Jantar Mantar protests in October 2026 bring the question of state power into particularly sharp focus.

Three women journalists alleged that Delhi Police personnel sexually harassed them while they were covering protests on 3 October against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, amid demands for his resignation over alleged irregularities in electoral-roll revisions. One journalist alleged that an assistant commissioner of police touched her inappropriately and pushed her when she questioned the absence of women police personnel during the detention of demonstrators. The police transferred the complaints to the Crime Branch for investigation. The National Human Rights Commission subsequently took suo motu cognisance of the reported incidents and sought a detailed report from the Delhi Police Commissioner.

These are allegations under investigation, not findings of guilt. That distinction must be respected. The accused officers are entitled to due process, just as the complainants are entitled to a fair investigation and protection against intimidation.

But the seriousness of the allegations cannot be minimised merely because the investigation remains incomplete.

Police officers possess powers that ordinary citizens do not. They can detain people, restrict movement, use lawful force under prescribed circumstances and initiate criminal proceedings. That authority comes with a heightened obligation to exercise restraint, especially when dealing with women, journalists and peaceful demonstrators.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly recognised that constitutional freedoms do not disappear when citizens criticise the government. Freedom of speech and peaceful assembly are protected under Article 19 of the Constitution, subject to lawful restrictions. Article 21 protects life and personal liberty. The dignity of women and the prohibition of arbitrary state action are not optional courtesies extended by the police.

If officers entrusted with enforcing the law sexually harass the people they are supposed to protect, the problem is not simply individual misconduct. It is a potential abuse of the state's coercive power.

If a woman journalist is intimidated while documenting police action, the implications extend beyond her personal safety. Other journalists may become reluctant to record abuses. Protesters may fear that challenging authority will expose them to humiliation or violence. Public scrutiny weakens, and official power becomes less accountable.

The appropriate response is neither to presume the accused officers guilty nor to dismiss the complaints as politically motivated. It is to ensure an independent and credible investigation, preserve CCTV and other evidence, examine witnesses, register offences where the legal threshold is met, and impose proportionate punishment if misconduct is proved.

Anything less would betray both the complainants and the principles of justice.

7. Are we really returning to the age of conquest?

The comparison with ancient and medieval violence is useful only if we understand its limits.

Contemporary India is not a pre-modern kingdom. It has an elected Parliament, an independent constitutional judiciary, a written Constitution, a free—though increasingly contested—press, civil-society organisations and competitive elections. Courts have convicted the perpetrators in the Kathua and Ankita Bhandari cases. The Supreme Court has imposed safeguards against arbitrary demolitions. The NHRC has intervened over the Jantar Mantar allegations.

These are not insignificant facts. They demonstrate that the institutions of accountability have not disappeared.

Nor do crime statistics establish a simple, uninterrupted escalation of violence since 2014. The National Crime Records Bureau's reports provide important information about registered offences, but they cannot independently measure every instance of communal intimidation, political complicity or under-reporting. The official data have limitations, including the absence of a separate nationwide category for mob lynching in the published crime statistics.

Consequently, it would be irresponsible to claim that every form of violence has increased continuously, or that the entire country has become more violent simply because several horrifying cases have occurred. Equally, it would be misleading to use national crime totals to dismiss specific patterns of targeted violence. The number of registered murders cannot, by itself, tell us whether particular communities are being disproportionately intimidated or whether the police respond impartially.

The deeper issue is the relationship between political power and public morality.

Democracy is not merely the right of the majority to elect a government. It is also the obligation of the majority to respect the rights of those who did not vote for it, do not share its religion and may openly oppose its policies.

A government elected by millions does not acquire the moral authority to humiliate minorities. A police force does not become the private instrument of the ruling party. A religious majority does not become the owner of the nation.

When these distinctions are blurred, democratic institutions may remain standing while the ethical foundations supporting them begin to erode.

That is the danger worth taking seriously.

8. The real regression is moral, not chronological

Have Indians regressed to the savage times?

Not literally. The comparison is too sweeping to be a sound historical diagnosis. Contemporary India retains institutions, laws and civic traditions that distinguish it fundamentally from societies in which victorious rulers exercised virtually unchecked power.

But there is a more disturbing possibility: a society can preserve the outward forms of modern civilisation while reviving the moral assumptions of conquest.

It happens when the humiliation of an opponent is celebrated as strength; when a minority's suffering is dismissed because the victim belongs to the wrong religion; when caste domination is defended as tradition; when a woman's dignity is subordinated to a powerful man's entitlement; and when police misconduct is excused because the victim was protesting against the government.

It happens when the question asked is not, "Was an injustice committed?" but, "Whose side was the victim on?"

This is not the inevitable consequence of Hinduism, nationalism or Indian civilisation. Millions of Indians reject such conduct, including devout Hindus, members of the armed forces, police officers, judges, journalists, activists and ordinary citizens. Many have risked their careers, reputations and personal safety to defend the vulnerable. Their courage deserves recognition.

The struggle, therefore, is not between one religious community and another. It is between two conceptions of citizenship: one based on equal rights and human dignity, the other on hierarchy, collective punishment and the privileges of the powerful.

The answer lies in strengthening independent policing, ensuring impartial prosecution, protecting witnesses and journalists, enforcing safeguards against arbitrary demolitions, confronting caste discrimination, and making sexual violence a matter of justice rather than political convenience. Political leaders must be held accountable for incitement and for failures of protection, on the basis of evidence rather than partisan assumption.

Above all, Indians must reject the idea that electoral victory confers moral supremacy.

Ancient kings sometimes treated the defeated as prey. Modern governments are expected to protect even those who despise them. That is the difference between power exercised as domination and power exercised under a Constitution.

India's greatest danger is not that it has forgotten how to build temples, monuments, institutions or technologies. It is that some of its citizens may be encouraged to regard the dignity of other citizens as negotiable.

A civilisation is not measured merely by the grandeur of its past or the scale of its achievements. It is measured by what happens to the weakest person when the powerful believe nobody is watching.

If India wishes to remain a civilisation worthy of its constitutional promise, it must ensure that no citizen becomes the spoils of another's victory.

The real test of a democracy is not how it treats its friends when they are powerful. It is how it treats its opponents, its minorities and its most vulnerable citizens when they are defenceless.

#IndianHistory #AncientIndia #CommunalViolence #IndiaPolitics #TempleDesecration #RuleOfLaw #ModernIndia #HistoricalAnalysis #Post2014India #JusticeInIndia #CowVigilantism #BulldozerJustice #IndianDemocracy #FactCheckIndia #CivilisationalDebate #KathuaHorror #AnkitaBhandari