As the world is celebrating the arrival of 2026, India seems to have arrived in 1930s Germany. One one hand, Prime Minister Modi visited a church on Christmas celebrations, while on the other hand, vigilante mobs affiliated to the Sangh Parivar vandalised churches from Kerala to Assam, harassed foreign tourists in Uttar Pradesh, and abused visually impaired women during a Christmas community meal in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh. In Ghaziabad, an outfit called the Hindu Raksha Dal was distributing swords, machetes and axes to each house in a neighbourhood to kill Muslims, while a ‘priest’ from Uttar Pradesh called for establishing armed suicide squads to protect against Muslims. At roughly the same time, a mob vandalised a private birthday party in Bareilly protesting the presence of Muslims.Separately, right-wing groups aggressively supported the perpetrator (a convicted legislator from the ruling dispensation), while a separate rape survivor in Madhya Pradesh attempted suicide because she was being harassed for daring to file a case against a local Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) leader. And finally, in Kerala and Odisha, people were lynched to death on the suspicion of being Bangladeshis.It has been argued that this spate of right-wing vigilantism, which methodically circumscribes and reshapes constitutional morality, is a perverse consequence of mushrooming unemployment. There are also some ‘liberals’ who privately claim that the hate and violence only affects Muslims and Christians, seemingly suggesting that this isn’t their (read a Hindu) problem. Then there are others who claim these incidents are sporadic, driven by fringe elements. Each of these explanations are lazy and stunted. While unemployment has certainly caused discontent, this vigilantism is structured violence sparked by the systematic injection of regressive norms into society by the Sangh Parivar. It would be easy to consciously force yourself to ignore what’s happening (either in privileged escapism, or abject resignation). It would be easier still to keep deluding yourself into thinking these fires won’t reach you. Or that the Sangh sanctioned mobs are acting in the interests of Hindus. Or that you can escape these fires by immigrating. Each of these delusions need to be dissected.The systemic vilification campaignFor the past decade, BJP leaders have systematically caricatured journalists as presstitutes and turned a blind eye as they were targeted (eventually making speaking truth to power a rarity). The BJP also vilified Sikhs as Khalistanis, caricatured Adivasis as Naxalites, Kashmiris as Pakistanis, Muslims as Bangladeshis, liberals as anti-national, North-Easterners as Chinese and Christians as rice bags. Adapting from Martin Niemöller, the BJP has come after everyone.Yes, the BJP originally fanned these flames to engineer an electoral consolidation of Hindu communities against a perceived common enemy. Whether it is social media pages like Gems of Bollywood, or hate speeches by BJP leaders (which rocketed by 1130% after 2014) or mob-violence, the design was to foment an environment of hatred, and culture of violence against minorities. But while the BJP reaped electoral benefits from its performative violence and hate, the fires it lit have run amuck. Case in point is what happened with Anjel and Michael Chakma in Dehradun. A frenzied mob felt it was kosher to harass someone on the basis of how he looks, and felt emboldened enough to take the law in their own hands.The mob almost got away with it because the BJP government in Uttarakhand tried to brush the incident under the carpet, acting after two weeks, only after sustained pressure from the All India Chakma students association and mass public outrage. But the notion that ordinary citizens can take the law in their own hands (undermining the State’s monopoly on violence) to enforce primordial rules of conduct has become mainstream, and is not limited to the fringes. It has emboldened anti-social elements to affiliate with the BJP, since BJP affiliates act with brazen impunity, almost as if the law doesn’t apply to them.Case in point is Vikas Barala, the Haryana BJP chief’s son, who stalked and tried to kidnap a woman in broad daylight. And Ashok Singh, the husband of a BJP councillor in Madhya Pradesh, who raped a woman at knifepoint in December 2025, screaming “Sarkar hamari hai, mera kuch nahi bigadega” (It is our government, nothing will happen to me). And of course, Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya can dismiss a query from a reporter asking questions on water contamination that left at least seven people dead and more than a hundred hospitalised as ‘fokat’ (worthless) and ‘ghanta’ (rubbish). Clearly power (and proximity to it) accords special privileges and immunity from justice.Similarly, those who feel that the Sangh’s attacks are directed against minorities or are in the furtherance of ‘Hindu causes’ need to smell the bitter coffee. The attack on the birthday party in Bareilly targeted a Hindu woman, and the Hindu cafe owner. Likewise, the Unnao and Madhya Pradesh rape survivors (both harassed by BJP leaders) are both Hindu. Ram Narayan Baghel (who was lynched to death by a mob that included BJP workers, on suspicion of being a Bangladeshi) was also a Hindu. As was Ankita Bhandari, who was murdered by those affiliated to the BJP. Equally damningly, the four dozen attacks in the guise of cow-protection since 2015, all spearheaded by vigilante groups affiliated to the Sangh, were never about cow-protection. If they were, these vigilante-mobs would also have targeted the BJP, which not only received donations from companies involved in the beef and abattoir business but whose legislators own abattoirs. And finally, the Mahant of the Kashi Vishwanath temple publicly alleged that several ancient temples were destroyed for the construction of the Vishwanath Corridor at the behest of the BJP. The unvarnished truth is that in the pursuit of its ideological agenda, the Sangh will target Hindus just as easily as it criminalises minorities.There are also those who meekly claim that such problems are because of ineffectual state governments, while prime minister Narendra Modi himself is beyond reproach. Let us for a moment ignore that BJP chief ministers and ministers are hand-picked by the BJP High-Command (prime minister Modi and home minister Shah), with whom the buck stops. Let us instead focus on Prime Minister Modi, who has not only effected a gleichschaltung (the Nazi system of total control over all aspects of a nation) but is projected by the BJP as the face of their “One Nation, One Leader and One Ideology” project. PM Modi on one hand urges Indians to “strengthen Constitutional values through our actions”, but himself made hate speeches in 110 out of the 173 speeches he delivered in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.This includes thinly veiled communal slurs such as “those who are creating violence can be identified by their clothes itself” (referring to Muslims who wear traditional attire such as kurtas and skull caps) and “these infiltrators (Muslims) have threatened the security of our sisters and daughters”. In May 2025, whilst urging for a boycott of cheap Chinese imports, PM Modi deployed racially insensitive comments alleging imported Ganesh idols had “small eyes” that “that don’t even open” (sparking protests in North-East India). Such comments from the highest office in the land not only legitimise racism and communalism, but tacitly encourage attacks against our fellow citizens.PM Modi has remained conspicuously silentIn stark contrast, PM Modi has remained conspicuously silent in nearly every instance of vigilantism. His silence is coupled with shallow symbolism to safeguard his personal image. Whether at the United Nations in 2019, or at diaspora events like at the Madison Square Garden in 2014, or on international fora like the G-20 in 2023, or during state visits in South Africa, United Kingdom, Portugal, South Korea etc., the Indian prime minister frequently invokes Mahatma Gandhi and the values he espoused (namely peace, truth, and non-violence) as an inspiration for the world. Yet at home, PM Modi does nothing to urge BJP states to take action against vigilante groups. The one notable exception was in 2017, when PM Modi publicly condemned cow-protection-vigilantes who attacked Dalits in Una, Gujarat. This was most likely in response to massive protests by Dalit organisations in Gujarat on the eve of a crucial election in the prime minister’s home state – where a loss would have politically weakened him within the BJP. But even in that instance, the prime minister took great pains to not call for the perpetrators of these attacks to be held criminally liable.There are those who might argue that the prime minister is helpless, given policing is a state subject. However, Prime Minister Nehru wrote about 400 letters to chief ministers on a plethora of issues to “build a union of minds”. While adhering to the federal principle, PM Nehru exerted moral force to influence states to act in a certain way. Yet PM Modi, who the BJP’s own ecosystem lauds as the most powerful prime minister since independence, does nothing to urge states to act decisively in safeguarding constitutional morality. Even if the BJP were to falsely claim that every opposition state would be recalcitrant to the union government, the BJP is currently in government in 14 states and two union territories.What is stopping PM Modi from asserting the full force of his office on at least these states? What is stopping PM Modi from ensuring the fair and full application of the rule of law? If nothing else, the Vikas-Purush (development man; yet another moniker BJP uses to slavishly praise PM Modi) surely understands the chilling effect the breakdown of rule of law has on investor sentiment and foreign visitors. Although there were also other contributory factors, it is perhaps no coincidence that Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) pulled out Rs. 94,976 crores from Indian markets in 2025 alone. Similarly, foreign tourists to India dropped from 10.93 million in 2019 to 6.18 million in 2025 (in contrast China welcome 38 million tourists, Vietnam got 15.4 million tourists, Malaysia got 28.2 million tourists and Thailand 24 million – all in 2025). Notwithstanding the BJP’s propaganda machinery’s prompt dismissal of any criticism as an insidious conspiracy, the world is watching with alarm as India, once hailed as a global beacon of democracy and pluralism, descends into lawlessness. It is also no coincidence that 16 lakh Indians have surrendered their citizenship since 2011, and the Indian diaspora find itself in the cross-hairs of concerted attacks and derision. PM Modi’s silence and complicity is costing India dearly – reputationally and economically.Maybe Prime Minister Modi finds himself constrained because the hate and violence satiates hardliners who are BJP’s biggest vote-gatherers? Or perhaps he is sanguine in the knowledge that we, the silent majority won’t do anything in outrage in defence of the constitutional idea of India? This certainly raises troubling questions about us progressives, who know what’s happening is wrong, but chose to look away for a plethora of excuses (and perform intellectual gymnastics on television debates and opinion pieces to blame the Opposition for all of India’s woes).Turning a blind eye to Sangh-sanctioned mob violenceBut even more importantly, it raises troubling questions about India’s fabled steel frame – the administration. Both the bureaucracy and the police know what the Sangh’s vigilante groups are doing is illegal. Yet, barring a few notable exceptions, most consciously don’t perform their duties simply to pander to the powers that be. Clearly what the prime minister and the BJP governments have indirectly instructed the system that the surest way of avoiding official censure and professional advancement is turning a blind eye to Sangh-sanctioned mob violence.That is why Uttarakhand’s state machinery was hesitant to enforce the rule of law because it feared that the mob that attacked Anjel and Michael Chakma may just have the BJP’s blessings. That’s also why a police officer in Ghaziabad plays judge and jury on citizenship, claiming a mobile phone can identify people as Bangladeshi. That is also why, while the Delhi Police alleged (without any hard evidence) that Umar Khalid was involved in the preparation of use of weapons (thus leading to his seemingly indefinite incarceration), in Ghaziabad, the police refuses to act against the Hindu Raksha Dal which has been filmed distributing weapons and inciting communal hatred. What greater evidence do you need of the biased application of the law in India? Obviously, if there is a change in guard, the administration will alter its behaviour. But should the application and enforcement of the rule of law shift based on what the political class deems acceptable? And should justice depend on proximity to power?Whether Prime Minister Modi is the weakest prime minister India has ever had (because he is unable to rein in the Sangh’s hardliners) or whether he endorses what vigilantes are doing is for history to judge. But we should all be worried that the Indian State has lost its monopoly on organised violence, and often colludes with non-state actors in enforcing unconstitutional and illegal norms. Everything we hold dear – life, liberty, property, and our dignity can be attacked at the whims of a BJP leader wanting to seek advancement by either rage-baiting or sacrificing our civic rights and freedoms on the altar the Sangh has forged in the last decade.If they are deemed as politically useful to the BJP, morality and justice are optional. Slowly and surely, we are being conditioned to corrupt our reason, tolerate the vilest crimes and become mute bystanders to the decay of our democracy. In accepting we cannot do anything about this normal, we arm the BJP with its greatest weapon – our silence.This is how democracies have crumbled, with deafening silence. So to every patriot – if you believe there is nothing wrong, go about your lives and believe whatever fable that suits you best. But if you believe that there is something seriously wrong with our country, the only question you (as do we) have before us is this – shall we stand by idly, as the life we love dearly trembles in the balance? Or will we stand up and do what needs to be done, in the defence of our shared values and lives?Pushparaj Deshpande is Samruddha Bharat Foundation’s Director & Editor of The Great Indian Manthan (Penguin).