“This is not the India I grew up in”

IN 1937, the British government set up a body named Mass Observation to ascertain the public mood. A body of researchers was deployed to go to places such as pubs, bus stops and bingo halls, places where ‘ordinary’ people congregated, and eavesdrop on their conversations. The reports of Mass Observation were to prove invaluable during the war with Hitler. They helped the government understand the public mood and their overall morale, particularly at times when the war wasn’t going too well for Britain.

Nothing similar was ever established in India, and till the popularisation of social media—which is fast coming to be the replacement for conversations at tea shops and street corners— the decision-makers were mainly dependant on newspapers to gauge the public mood. Of course, there was a simultaneous dependence of the authorities on reports by lowly policemen in thanas.

The four-day war with Pakistan that was launched shortly after the horrible Pahalgam massacre of April 22 was no doubt fought over the skies. But it was simultaneously waged over social media by both ordinary people and notables.

On the positive side, the multitude of posts and exchanges on platforms such as Facebook, X and WhatsApp groups helped gauge the popular mood. It particularly helped contrarian voices express themselves. On the negative side, there were often very hurtful responses to awkward opinions and bucket loads of misinformation—something that a section of the hyper-nationalist TV channels proved adept at.

As someone who closely monitored, but refrained from over-participation, the exchanges on X, I would like to share some observations of those who—in the language of World War II—either played the role of conscientious objectors or were outright defeatists.

The faultlines were quite clear. Immediately after the April 22 massacre, the contrarians tried to underplay the wilful targeting of Hindus by the terrorists by suggesting, first, that there was a Muslim pony-wallah who too was killed and, second, that terrorists have no faith. The more political interventions sought to pin responsibility for the massacre on the lax security cover provided by the Modi government.

The second phase of the conflict, in the period between April 23 and the evening of May 6, saw the contrarians try and shift the blame away from Pakistan. While a minuscule tacitly endorsed the Pakistani argument that Pahalgam was a false-flag operation by India, others charged the Modi government with trying to engulf India in a war.

Finally, the four-day conflict from the early hours of May 7 saw the polarisation become sharper. First, there were feminist and ‘secular’ objections to India’s retaliation being called Operation Sindoor. Second, the claim that a Rafale aircraft was shot down by Pakistan was gleefully circulated.

Third, the Modi government was targeted for disregarding all international norms over the Indus Waters Treaty. Finally, the conclusion of the conflict was pinned on the heavy-handed intervention of US President Donald Trump.

Who were the contrarians? At the risk of over-generalisation, my scrolling of X prompts some potentially awkward conclusions. Disregarding the usual bunch of communists, Congress fellow-travellers, China-lovers and Hamas worshippers who hate anything even remotely associated with Modi, there is one social group that stands out.

First, they tend to be disproportionately women, earning their livelihood in either journalism or in NGOs. Some of the online news platforms tend to be unambiguously Left-inclined ideological projects supporting the creation of an India that would delight the likes of George Soros. Most of the contrarians either write in or work for these organisations.

Second, most appear to be from the Hindu upper castes and come from affluent family backgrounds. A colleague recently pointed to the growing preponderance of young, female, woke activists from India’s business communities, the entitled daughters of doting businessmen fathers.

Third, most seem to have acquired liberal arts degrees from universities in the US. Their use of the English language tends to be full of jargon, the type we find in the campus publications of American universities.

Finally, most of them view the so-called Hindu Right or the Hindutva brigade as the equivalent of Zionist child-murderers. Worse, this bunch of deplorables is seen to be the Indian equivalent of American Rednecks or British supporters of Nigel Farage— not the types they would share a meal with. Many of these contrarians cried the day Trump won last year and Modi got re-elected.

The favourite line of the more elderly contrarians is: “This is not the India I grew up in.”

It certainly isn’t. And thank Lord Ram for that.

2025 India-Pakistan warOperation SindoorPahalgamPublic moodsocial media