I hate saying this, but India in 2025 has become a masterclass in distraction and dysfunction, a place where the art of misdirection has been elevated to something resembling a national sport. The government, with all the grace of a bull in a china shop, locks horns with comedians over jokes while the judiciary—those guardians of constitutional values—frets over the sanctity of humor as if comedy were somehow more threatening than corruption.

Meanwhile, taxmen descend upon ordinary citizens with notices demanding amounts so bewildering that even mathematicians need calculators to comprehend them, and women’s safety remains such a cruel mockery that it would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic. And what does the nation do? It makes noise either supporting or opposing these sideshows, only to unite again, amnesia washing over the collective consciousness, when another IPL match flickers across our screens. This isn’t governance—it’s a tragicomedy of misdirection worthy of Shakespeare, where systemic failures are expertly buried under an avalanche of noise. We’ve become an India obsessed with shadows while the house burns around us.

The historical parallels are striking and instructive. When Nero fiddled as Rome burned in 64 CE, at least he had the decency to play just one instrument. Our modern-day emperors have orchestrated an entire philharmonic of distractions. In ancient Rome, “bread and circuses” (panem et circenses) was the formula through which emperors kept the population distracted and pacified—free food and entertainment as a substitute for meaningful political participation.

2000 years later, in India, we’ve perfected this recipe, substituting cricket for gladiatorial contests and Twitter outrage for substantive debate. Even the British colonial rulers understood the power of distraction, encouraging communal divisions to prevent a unified resistance. “Divide et impera”—divide and rule—was their strategy. Today’s rulers have simply digitized and modernized these ancient techniques of distraction.

The governments, be it the Centre with its muscular nationalism, West Bengal with its paranoid defensiveness, Uttar Pradesh with its theological swagger, Karnataka with its Silicon Valley pretensions, or some other regional satrapy, are wielding tools like the IT Rules 2023 to transform satire from a form of social commentary into a pressing national security issue. Free speech—that cornerstone of democratic society—is being crushed under the boot of thin-skinned authoritarians who perceive jokes as existential threats.

These governments are busy chasing after jesters and comedians when 21% of Indians—over 300 million human beings—live below $2.15 a day according to the World Bank’s 2024 data. That’s more people than the entire population of the United States surviving on less than the cost of a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

Meanwhile, the judiciary ties itself in knots over, of all things, jokes, arbitrating the limits of comedic taste as if the nation’s survival depended on policing punchlines, while more than 50 million cases await a verdict according to the National Judicial Data Grid of 2025.

Cases involving land disputes, inheritance claims, and basic human rights violations gather dust in cavernous courtrooms while judges in India lecture on whether a comedian went too far with a political joke.

This peculiar obsession with comedians isn’t new to human history. In medieval courts, jesters were often the only ones permitted to speak truth to power—but when they crossed invisible lines, punishment was swift and severe.

1. Demetrius, a Cynic philosopher, was banished by Emperor Vespasian for mocking the emperor’s policies.
2. The Soviet Union imprisoned comedians who dared joke about the state.

But in those cases, at least the authorities were honest about their intolerance. In India, we’ve managed to convince ourselves that silencing humorists is somehow compatible with being the “world’s largest democracy”—a phrase repeated so often it has become a hollow mantra rather than a meaningful descriptor.

Meanwhile, 3,700 farmers killed themselves in 2023 alone according to the National Crime Records Bureau—a crisis that receives less media attention than a single controversial joke. Throughout history, agrarian distress has been a catalyst for revolutionary change.

1. The French Revolution was precipitated partly by food shortages and the plight of rural peasants.
2. Russia’s October Revolution was fueled by the grievances of an impoverished peasantry.

However, in India, farmer suicides are viewed as mere situations, that do not deserve sustained public attention, while the court polishes its halo and deliberates on issues far less important to the nation’s well-being. 

And our PM, a very good orator, as we all know is busy spinning yarns in 3-hour podcasts, longer than most parliamentary debates, which themselves have been reduced to performative shouting matches rather than forums for substantive policy discussion.

And what profound topics dominate these marathonic monologues? India-Pakistan cricket supremacy, the virtues of traditional medicine, and carefully curated anecdotes designed to burnish his image as a sage leader untroubled by worldly concerns.

1. But where’s the detailed plan for addressing the 6 million jobs we fell short of last year according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy?
2. Where’s the strategy for confronting the AI-driven job apocalypse threatening 30% of our workforce by 2035, as predicted by PricewaterhouseCoopers in their 2024 report?

The Prime Minister’s voice booms through the airwaves with the confident cadence of a man who has all the answers, but the silence on real issues—on substantial policies rather than symbolic gestures—is deafening.

This phenomenon of leaders using media to bypass traditional democratic channels isn’t unique to India. Franklin D. Roosevelt pioneered the political use of radio with his fireside chats during the Great Depression. But Roosevelt used these platforms to explain complex policies and reassure a nation in crisis, not to avoid difficult questions or substitute personality for policy. Our modern approach resembles more closely what media theorist Neil Postman warned about in his 1985 book “Amusing Ourselves to Death”—a society where public discourse is reduced to entertainment, where serious issues are drowned in a sea of trivialities.

Yet, every night, this circus of distractions fades temporarily as most of our 1.44 billion compatriots glue themselves to cricket matches for three hours at a stretch. Unemployment? A creaking education system where 50% of graduates can’t be categorised as ’employable’. These important concerns are forgotten as the ball-by-ball drama trumps all, and come morning, the cycle resets with fresh outrages and fresh distractions.

And this isn’t just coincidence—it’s engineered apathy, meticulously cultivated. The government knows a distracted populace won’t question why manufacturing has shrunk down to 13% of GDP according to World Bank data, versus 17% twenty years ago and 15% ten years ago, representing a steady de-industrialization in a country desperate for jobs. They won’t ask uncomfortable questions about why 33% of graduates are jobless according to CMIE data, creating a generation of educated youth without economic prospects. And hate me for saying thus, but cricket, our national obsession, has become the the drug that ensures we’re too busy cheering boundaries to notice the boundaries of our collective delusion.

The Roman poet Juvenal criticized the Roman masses for exchanging their democratic responsibilities for “bread and circuses.” Today, we might update his critique: India has exchanged its democratic potential for cricket and Twitter wars. The British novelist Aldous Huxley warned in “Brave New World” that people would come to love their oppression and adore the technologies that undo their capacity for critical thinking. Given India’s obsession with phones, social media, and streamings, one cannot help but see Huxley’s prediction coming true. 

India’s not a democracy debating its future—it’s a circus where comedians are villains, judges are joke-police, the leader’s a podcaster, and the masses are lost in the roar following a six or a four in a cricket match. We have become an India where issues of genuine national importance—economic stagnation, environmental degradation, social inequality—are drowned out by manufactured controversies and tribal loyalties.

I used to believe India was a nation, a unified force moving towards greatness, a singular entity with shared values and common purpose. But the more I looked, the more I saw a country held together by sentiment rather than structure, a patchwork quilt of languages, cultures, and histories dancing under 1 flag, 1 emblem, 1 anthem.

The north-south conflicts and blatant regional racism that frequently erupt on social media and occasionally in physical violence suggest that India has never genuinely been the monolithic entity our national mythology proclaims.

The British drew the borders based on administrative convenience and imperial strategy, and we inherited them, pretending unity where there is often only friction. The North dictates policy, the South funds the treasury, and the Northeast remains an afterthought in national consciousness.

The Punjab is rife with unresolved grievances, Kashmir is under harsh security measures that would be considered draconian in any other democratic context, and tribal states feel disconnected from the mainstream Indian identity.  However, we enthusiastically chant slogans of a rising superpower, aka ‘The Vishwa Guru’, ignorant to the cracks beneath our feet. 

This pattern of forced unity masking fundamental divisions has historical precedents. The Austro-Hungarian Empire projected an image of imperial grandeur while containing irreconcilable ethnic and linguistic differences that eventually tore it apart. The Soviet Union proclaimed the brotherhood of socialist republics while suppressing national identities that reasserted themselves the moment central control weakened. Even the United States, that other great diverse democracy, continues to struggle with regional, racial, and ideological divisions that periodically threaten its cohesion.

Our Prime Minister acts on visuals rather than results, a master of image over substance. He wears saffron robes one day to appeal to religious sensibilities and fitted suits the next to project modernity, presenting an image of leadership rather than carrying out a clear strategy for national development. Under his leadership, highways are renamed to remove historical links that are ideologically uncomfortable, temples are erected with much fanfare while schools receive little attention, and history textbooks are changed to adhere to a certain narrative. 

Meanwhile, educational institutions collapse, hospitals fail to offer basic care, and cities flood in monsoon rains owing to poor infrastructure. The government displays missiles on television to instill nationalist pride, but soldiers lack basic equipment and compensation. India’s GDP per capita remains stubbornly behind Bangladesh—a country once considerably poorer than India—yet we dream of outpacing China’s economic miracle. Vanity projects overshadow urgent structural reforms, and the world watches, alternately amused and concerned at a nation too distracted by pride to notice its stagnation.

Throughout history, authoritarian regimes have used grand projects and nationalist spectacles to divert attention from domestic failures.

1. Hitler built the autobahn while dismantling German democracy.
2. Mussolini made the trains run on time (a claim more myth than reality) while crushing political opposition.
3. Stalin erected massive industrial complexes while millions died in famines.

The pattern is clear: when substance is lacking, symbolism proliferates.

The loudest cheerleaders of this national illusion are often those with the least to gain from it. I have seen slum dwellers, laborers, and lower-caste workers scraping by on pennies yet defending their political leaders with a fervor that would make religious zealots blush. They buy into the fantasy of a coming golden age, fueled by RSS-fed myths of a glorious Bharat betrayed by foreign invaders. The British, the Mughals, the Mamluks, the Turks—anyone but ourselves can be blamed for current conditions. It is easier, after all, to believe in a stolen destiny than to confront present failures and take responsibility for addressing them.

This psychological mechanism isn’t unique to India. Historian Richard Hofstadter identified what he called “the paranoid style in American politics”—a recurring pattern where complex social problems are attributed to sinister conspiracies rather than systemic issues or policy failures. The “stab-in-the-back myth” in post-World War I Germany asserted that internal foes had betrayed Germany rather than military loss, a story Hitler eventually used. These tales bring emotional fulfillment but do not solve genuine concerns. 

Meanwhile, caste remains our unspoken national shame, a system of hierarchical oppression more sophisticated and enduring than perhaps any other form of social stratification in human history. While the Prime Minister performs photo-ops with priests and conducts elaborate religious ceremonies, Dalits continue to clean sewers by hand and die from toxic gases, a practice that would be considered a human rights violation in most developed nations. Millions still cannot eat or vote without fear of reprisal from upper-caste members. Still, we proudly call ourselves the world’s greatest democracy as if democracy were only about conducting elections instead of guaranteeing the dignity and equality of all people.

The courts, those supposed bastions of justice, increasingly bend to political power. 

The police take bribes as a matter of routine.

The rich rarely face consequences for even the most egregious violations of law.

Corruption is not just a matter of one department, or one indsutry, rather it’s almost expected; it’s a lubricant without which the machinery of everyday life would come to a stop! The rebranding of India as “Bharat” is not a revival of ancient glory but a distraction, a cheap linguistic trick to divert attention from a country afraid to fix its fundamental problems.

While China builds factories, expands infrastructure, and floods global markets with its products, India renames roads and builds statues.

The gap between ambition and reality grows wider by the day, and the world sees through the charade even if we cannot or will not. We can call ourselves anything—Bharat or India or any other name from our rich historical tapestry—but until we confront our institutional rot, we are fooling no one but ourselves.

Similar patterns of national self-deception have played out across history.

1. The late Ottoman Empire styled itself the “Sublime Porte” while losing territory and influence.
2. The Qing Dynasty proclaimed celestial authority while failing to modernize until it was too late.
3. Imperial Russia maintained the facade of divine-right monarchy while revolutionary pressures built beneath the surface.

Names and symbols cannot substitute for substance and reform.

As we approach the centenary of our independence in 2047, the question becomes whether we will continue this elaborate dance of distraction or finally address the substantive issues that determine our national fate.

Will we remain captivated by the shadow play on the wall, or will we turn to face the fire that casts those shadows? Will we continue to treat symptoms while ignoring causes, to focus on symbolic victories while suffering material defeats?

The ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes reportedly wandered the streets of Athens with a lamp in daylight, claiming to be “looking for an honest man.” In today’s India, he might wander with a spotlight and still come up empty. Honesty—about our problems, our prospects, our policies—seems in desperately short supply. Instead, we have become masters of self-deception, experts at avoiding the hard truths that might set us on a path to genuine national renewal.

India in 2025 doesn’t need another distraction. It doesn’t need another statue or renamed street or symbolic gesture.

‘The janta’ ready to call responsibility instead of entertainment, leaders ready to address genuine issues with genuine answers, and organizations ready to defend values instead of cowering before authority all define what it requires. Until then, the circus continues, the distractions multiply, and the house burns ever brighter while we argue about the color of the curtains. 

In the end, perhaps the greatest irony is that this critique itself will likely become just another passing distraction—something to argue about on social media for a day or two before the next cricket match or political controversy captures our fickle national attention. And so the cycle continues, the great Indian circus performs its next act, and the audience remains entertained while Rome burns around them.