India 2026: Kis ki Aur Kya?
By Poonam I Kaushish
How does one begin an epitaph of 2025? Uncork champagne by welcoming 2026 on wings of hopes and promises? Or twelve months of downhill with no barrier to stop the slide? As 2025 goes down in history as une année charnière a tumultuous year, a mixed bag India steps into 2026 with cautious hope as new set of challenges confront it. Yet, hope smiles from the threshold of the year gone by, whispering, it will be happier. Will it?
Undeniably, Prime Minister Modi is correct. India has much to be proud of: Operation Sindoor, Mahakumbh, Dhwajarohan ceremony at Ayodhya Ram Mandir, winning men’s cricket ICC Championship, women’s Cricket World Cup and Women’s Blind T20 World Cup, Shukla becoming first Indian at International Space Station etc.
Yet, we live in unprecedented times as 2025 ended on an ugly and shameful low of horrific lynching with the creeping normalization of ‘othering.’ A 24 year-old Tripura MBA student stabbed in Dehradun by Uttarakhandis in a hate crime heckled as “Chinese, chinky, momos, Nepali”. Down south, in Odisha and Kerala a 20-year old Bengali and a 31-years Chhattisgarhi migrant workers were called “Bangladeshis.” North-easterners face racism in Capital Delhi exposing deep-rooted racial prejudice and political apathy.
Questionably, can youngsters and workers not move around in their own country without fear and safely? Sadly, no Government has recognized hate crime or racism, police invariably excuse dangerous views and violent incidents as “stray incidents.” But, they are not. They are patterns to this xenophobic and ‘othering’ which remain unaddressed finding brute expression frequently for ‘not local’ students-workers.
Forgetting, ‘othering’ is a systemic poison. Its spread must be determinedly acted upon, if Governments don’t want to end up having to protect people from another. All merrily, dumping the Bezbaruah Committee which recommended either a standalone law or suitable amendments to existing criminal laws to address racial crimes. They seem to have no time for it, their silence exposing the selective outrage and moral bankruptcy at play.
Besides, in an era of political polarisation and contest, multiplicity and overlapping of identities, increasingly, we are getting more racist, casteist and communal whereby a distraught India is searching for her soul under an increasing onslaught of intolerance. Moreso, in the Kafkaesque world where race identity is sticky baggage, difficult to dislodge in social settings.
Appallingly, Christmas was marred by shameful conduct of RSS affiliates VHP-Bajrang Dal activists ransacking, disrupting and harassing carol singers and Christmas gatherings, storming churches and schools, heckling vendors selling Santa caps, hurling allegations of ‘conversion’ in a climate of impunity, assaulting a visually impaired Christian women in Kerala, Assam, Odisha, MP, Chhattisgarh, Haryana and Delhi.
Alas, neither has police taken cognizance nor FIR been filed for outraging religious sentiments and promoting enmity or hooligans arrested. Are they being allowed to roam free confident of assured protection?
Paradoxically, the response oscillates between raising the bogey of “mass conversion” or conveniently dissociating from organisations responsible for disruptions. Sending a chilling message that public order and Constitutional protection can be bent without cost when political patronage is presumed. No matter, Modi attended Mass at a Delhi church to salvage the damage.
Raising, a fundamental question: Does India hold the moral high ground to speak about communal harmony and protection of minorities? The deeper problem is that over the last decade, instead of introspection and social reform, a large section of youth has been fed hatred, communal polarisation, false pride and contempt for others. These sentiments are now being openly vented in public spaces.
The hypocrisy is stark when those who express outrage over mob burning of Hindus in Bangladesh are the same people who justify killings or even celebrate mob lynchings within India. Demanding minority protection in Bangladesh, but deny minorities their rights at home. The youth cannot be blamed entirely; they are acting according to a well-oiled WhatsApp-driven narrative, competing for political patronage from the top leadership of the Hindutva ecosystem.
While ordinary people may carry prejudices, what matters most is the role of political executive, judiciary, media and Parties. Violence against minorities and marginalised cannot be brushed aside as “internal issues.” If that logic were applied consistently, India would have no right to comment on human rights violations anywhere in the world.
Amidst this aakrosh, the common man continues to struggle for roti, kapada aur makaan with an increasingly angry and restive janata demanding answers. Sick of the crippling morass of our neo-Maharajas with their power trappings and suffering from Acute Orwellian syndrome of “some-are-more-equal-than-others” and Oliver’s disorder, “always asking for more”.
On the social front things are depressing. Seventy six years post Independence, after spending trillions on education, health and food, 60% people continue to be hungry, illiterate, unskilled and bereft of basic medical care, never mind Government statistics. A life-style of Nano Yuppiesim, which showcases neglect of rural poverty, unsanitary environments and collapsing sewage and drainage system.
Tragically, nobody has time for aam aadmi’s growing disillusionment with the system which explodes in rage. Turn to any mohalla, district or State, the story is mournfully the same. Resulting in more and more people taking law into their own hands borne out by increasing rioting and looting. Capital Delhi is replete with gory tales of road rage resulting in murders. The system has become so sick that women today are being raped in crowded places, trains with public as mute spectators. Sporadically, converting the country into andher nagri.
It is time for Government to reflect seriously. Do they possess the moral courage to speak for peace and non-violence when their political journey has so often been built in opposition to those very ideals? Can the top leadership finally speak out against organised violence targeting minorities and instruct officials to act decisively against those responsible?
As India enters 2026 our netagan need to stop getting their shorts in knots over excessive trivia, get their act together, take responsibility, amend their ways and address real serious issues of governance. Unemployment, rising prices, plugging learning gaps in education and health. They must realize India’s democratic prowess owes its resilience to the aam aadmi. Our policy makers need to redouble their efforts on the ease of living.
Ultimately, when the battle of ideas and ideologies skid and careen noisily our rulers need to focus on what they are going to do to make 2026 a good year. Time to get back to basics and reignite the magic of simplicity and minimalism, become more humane and see the world through new lens of hope whereby, the principles of ‘Jus Ad Bellum’: right authority, right intention and reasonable hope dictate our responses. What gives? — INFA