3 min readFeb 26, 2026 08:16 AM IST First published on: Feb 26, 2026 at 08:16 AM ISTThe punitive crackdown on the Indian Youth Congress is unseemly and disturbing. On Tuesday, Delhi Police arrested the IYC national president, Uday Bhanu Chib, for what they claimed was his role as main “conspirator” and “mastermind” of the protests by his colleagues at the AI Impact Summit last week — seven IYC members were arrested earlier for the incident at Bharat Mandapam’s Hall No 5. The shirtless protesters were demonstrating against the Prime Minister in the context of the India-US trade deal. The BJP-led establishment has the right to contend that criticism of the deal is misplaced, or that the mode of protest or choice of venue was ungainly. Indeed, Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself led the political charge, calling Congress politics “nangi” and “gandi” (naked and dirty). He pointedly drew a distinction between Congress and some of its allies, naming the TMC, DMK, NC and BSP. But then, for Delhi Police to promptly register FIRs alleging “criminal conspiracy”, labelling slogans against the government “anti-national” and invoking spectres of a “riot-like situation”, and for a Delhi court to denounce the protests as a “blatant assault on public order”, imperiling the “Republic’s diplomatic image before foreign stakeholders”, points to a thin-skinned state that reacts to criticism with a strong arm, repeatedly.Surely, the AI leaders who participated in the summit and got pride of place on stage, in front of whom the shirtless Congress leaders are supposed to have lowered India’s dignity, would have taken the protests in their stride. In fact, had they been asked, it is likely they would have deemed the state crackdown needlessly repressive. Today, as was framed by the summit, India has a seat at the AI high table because — and only because — it is a billion-plus democracy teeming with ideas, innovation, energy and unmet aspirations. That includes disagreement and critique.AdvertisementThe BJP-led government, in its 12th year in power, needs to find a new vocabulary instead of treating every protest as an insurrection against it and, over and over again, calling Congress and its leadership “anti-national”. This comes even as, ironically, in many arenas and on a wide range of issues, the Modi government seeks to project — for the most part, successfully — an image that is self-assured and authoritative. For a government that deftly navigates increasing global uncertainty to be so unsettled by a gaggle of Youth Congress leaders speaks of a dissonance the BJP needs to reflect on. It is not the protests, shirtless or not, but the appearance of a prickly and hard-eyed state that stains the image of a democracy with the world’s largest number of young people.