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In 2 years, Delhi has gone form “Tu Jaanta Nahi Mera Baap Kaun Hai” to #NotInMyName. What is the reason for this particular ‘woke' behaviour our everyday junta is displaying? Are we suddenly more conscientious than we used to be? Has social media galvanised a coming together of people for protest that wasn't possible earlier? Or has the political and administrative condition of the country so fledgling that individual citizens shall have to hold the government accountable at Jantar Mantar. ‘Lynching' – named after Capt William Lynch, head of a self-constituted judicial tribunal in America, land of the free and home of the brave, and hopefully soon, Trump's grave. But what is this paschimi sanskriti of foreign words. We shall Make in India and call it Mo-died. Because lynching connotes lack of legal sanction, but mo-deification has the sanction of all the pantheon of Hindu Gods and the cow. Moo. In every lynching (sorry Mo-died) the excuse – of appearing to eat beef or smuggling cows; how often are the reasons found to be true? And who is accountable when human life is lost on pretext, rumour, lies? How can one person be killed for seeming to have meat while the other not be tried after committing murder! © Twitter This is not creating an environment of fear, this is fear itself – a cancerous system that does not take any opposition, any entropy and crushes all form of dissent. There are no scams in this government because whistleblowers are killed (Vyapam anyone?) and even a certain news house, the last bastion of media to rear its head against the authorities, despite their televised protests, are harmonising in tune. This is how Consent is Manufactured. You can run the police, police the RBI, reserve the judicial appointments and justify political overreach but protests—that last bastion of democracy; that which cannot be stage managed by the party leadership—will be pooh-poohed by the right wing intellectual. This is the plight of the protestor: Damned if you do, damned if you don't. They'll call you a keyboard warrior if you don't go and a perfumed privileged protestor if you do. Since when does the advantage of caste class education (if found true among these protestors) de-legitimize the voice of a citizen, when it comes to stand together against murder in broad daylight? The regular what-aboutery of why didn't you speak when the Mughals were taking over your country is too ridiculous to address but, even when it comes to a nuanced critique of why this protest was a ‘flop show' people have been killed, nay mo-died. Shall we be protesting the murder or the nature of the protest against the murder? © YouTube Orijit Sen, who also designed the poster of this protest (mentioned in a different context). “I am Hindu, Male and Upper Caste, if I don't speak out, who will.” Privilege makes it easier to be the first line of defence against atrocity, and you mock the middle class when they try to share it. This protest has shown that privilege can insulate you from the crimes of the state, but it does not make you immune from empathy. On 28th June, 2017, in not only Delhi but cities across the country and some abroad, people - liberal, visceral, guttural—all stood up together to be counted, against a government that is quiet and complicit. We stood up as a population taking their agency back from those that claim ‘the largest mandate”. A statement issued from the authorities reeks of Orwellian doublespeak. We can hear you say the words but we also see the discrepancy in the actions. How else is it that massive nationwide protests are barely covered on TV news? All of the information coming out is on social media! It took 12 protests for the leadership to declare a hollow sounding statement, what is it going to take to get them to act. © Twitter #Notinmyname achieved quite a few things but most of all it made us step out of our echo chamber and kitchen politics into the streets for the ultimate confirmation; that we are not indifferent, or alone, one will stand up for the other. There will be witnesses, there will be versions of stories and vantage points; not one truth that the nation doesn't want to know anymore.