Existential terror https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/existential-terror-the-bjps-fear-of-the-agency-of-articulate-women/cid/1942132
A government that has broken every rule in the book to arrest and jail political opponents and civil society activists has morphed into a born-again believer in due process. Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh’s right to the presumption of innocence is the hill it is planning to die on. Why does this monstrously savvy party find itself in this indefensible position?...
Nobody believes a word of the narrative that the BJP is trying to peddle, from the allegation that the protesting women were looking for an easy route into Olympic competition, to the claim that this protest was staged to steal Modi’s thunder as he peacocked his way through the new Parliament building with an honour guard of hairy mendicants in sketchy orange uniforms....
Over the nine years of Modi’s prime ministership, the arms of government have remade themselves to pander to his narcissism. For the home ministry and the Delhi Police, the wrestlers’ march was a form of lèse-majesté that demanded punitive action. The government made the elementary error of not factoring in the footage that its strong-arm tactics would generate. That top-down picture of Sakshi Malik and Vinesh Phogat on their backs, struggling against dozens of uniforms, was very likely the moment the government lost this battle in the public’s mind....The sangh rallied around Singh because in its deepest being, it is a patriarchal, misogynistic organisation hardwired to discipline recalcitrant women. Just as the sangh parivar uses the idea of a ‘love jihad’ to police the partner choices of Hindu women, it used the Delhi Police to teach successful, articulate, disobedient women a lesson: rebellion doesn’t pay; learn to be pliable clients.