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.
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