4 min readFeb 27, 2026 06:26 AM IST First published on: Feb 27, 2026 at 06:26 AM ISTIf men in baniyans were what got our goat, we would have been put out to pasture long ago. Before WhatsApp, the baniyan was our national “good morning” greeting. After Salman Khan, the innerwear also got a life as outerwear. If the fact that Youth Congress protesters dared exhibit their singlets at the government’s showpiece AI Impact Summit was the concern, surely we have more things to lose our mind over.Days ago, a young man drowned near the Capital because water was allowed to accumulate at an abandoned site, and no means could be found to save him as he screamed for help for more than an hour. No one turned out to protest. Not long after, a man died after he fell into a pit in Delhi, again left unguarded by a government authority. No one turned out to protest. Delhi University banned demonstrations on its campus for a month. No one turned out to protest. Jawaharlal Nehru University saw violence during a demonstration against action taken on some students. No one turned out to protest. Our air is toxic, our water comes mixed with faecal matter, and from food to medicines, adulteration can strike anywhere. No one turns out to protest.AdvertisementMuch as we trumpet our status as the “Mother of Democracy”, we are not a country that really believes that after the “festival of democracy”, which is our vote, we get a government of, for and by the people. We are simply grateful for what comes our way.Nor is Congress — and just as Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, we are not referring to “the Opposition” here — a party that can claim to be speaking for the people any more. Mostly, it is a party that cannot get even its own people to speak in its leadership’s language.The fact also is that the handful of Youth Congress men who managed to gain entry into the AI Impact Summit were unlikely to have caught much attention. That they are now being rounded up one by one from across the country, as part of a probe into “some great conspiracy”, ensures they do.AdvertisementAmong the theories being offered is that the protest was a bid to stir up “Gen Z” unrest of the kind that recently toppled governments in neighbouring Bangladesh and Nepal. It’s doubtful even Congress had such expectations, not least because its youth wing leaders are hardly spring chickens. Chief Uday Bhanu Chib, who was arrested Tuesday, and who was not even present at the protest, is 39.As for “shame” at the AI Impact Summit, there was a glaring one — the robodog showcased by a private university, which was exposed as a Chinese invention available on e-commerce sites.The BJP, which has called the protest “gandi aur nangi rajneeti (dirty and naked politics)”, however, is not the first to lose its shirt over a “shirtless” appearance, in all fairness. So “alarming” did Winston Churchill, then an MP, find Mahatma Gandhi’s appearance at the 1931 Round Table Conference, that he remarked: “… it is nauseating to see Mr Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir… striding half-naked up the steps of the Viceregal Palace”.The writer is editor (Planning and Projects), The Indian Express. shalini.langer@expressindia.com