While China has become the undisputed manufacturing hub of the world, producing sixth-generation fighter jets, zooming along on a 10G broadband backbone, developing AI marvel DeepSeek, testing maglev trains capable of running at 600 kmph, and erecting 10-storey buildings in 28 hours, we Indians are busy killing each other in the name of religion and dancing in front of places of worship trying to establish a mythical Ramrajya in the name of an avatar who left no historical trace of his existence. We are now the world's most populous country, housing the largest slums, and that seems to be our only claim to fame. Other than that, our netas gloat about the fact that 820 million people below the poverty line subsist on government dole. We are the land of the world's largest political party that runs WhatsApp groups with twenty crore members and has the claimed ability to spread any news, true or fake, with the party leaders taking almost Nobel Prize-winning pride in this achievement. India is the only country in the world where the government itself trolls, abuses, threatens and gaslights its citizens through its in-house IT cell. We are masters of hatemongering and bigotry, a country at the point of no return—but our rulers have brainwashed the masses into believing "all ijj well." In saner countries, this dubious distinction would be an iteration of danse macabre, but in Naya Bharat, it is the new normal.
