When the Referee Becomes the Enemy

Hello my dear readers.

Today, I ain’t here with any philosophies or the mysteries of the human mind and stuff like that. No no no. Today’s article is a bit different than that. Today, I am here to show you some rather uncomfortable things that I saw, verified and came back with proofs. Toh yaaron, let’s begin with me asking you a rather simple question today. What does it take to destroy a country?

Yes. That’s the question.

I know that was a rather big jump. But what is a fundamental way to destroy a country? Your answers can vary but there is one way that is the most deadliest of them all. A way using which entire civilisations have been wiped out, a way using which countries have crumbled to dust without being able to get back up. “Destroying the faith of people in bureaucracy and major institutions necessary to govern the countries.”

Sadly speaking, that’s what’s been happening in our country for the past few years. And since I promised proofs, I am not going to ask you to believe this but rather show you how.

This began all the way back in 2016.

The Uri attack. 19 of our esteemed soldiers killed in a terrorist attack. The Indian Army launches a counter surgical strike in retaliation.

That was when the foundation stone of this entire “operation” was laid. The MPs, MLAs and big political leaders openly mocking the Army and asking for proofs, calling the strike fake. [1, 2]

This might have been simply an attempt to question the army. However it did something much more serious and devastating. It set a precedent of “If we can mock the army once, we can do it again.”

And that’s what happened after 2019 Balakot strike after the Pulwama terror attack where instead of praising the army and supporting the government, the number of terrorists killed became the centre point of discussion[3]. And then once again in Pahalgam terror attack in 2025 [4]

First of all, I want to put up a question. How DARE someone, how the hell someone dares to question, mock or abuse the armed security forces who are doing the one thing they are supposed to do; protect India and its civilians. How dare someone touch the dignity of the officers who are boiling their blood, rotting their flesh and bones and preparing themselves to die for the country? HOW?

But personal emotions aside, let’s centre back to the topic. I don’t think the public at that point of questioning noticed it but you know what it caused? It caused a distrust in the Army, the IAF and all the other armed security forces. What happens after that? The distrust causes people to lose faith in the ones protecting them. These respected officers become subjects of jokes. Their patience and their discipline is seen as their weakness. And when the trust disappears, the authority disappears. When the Armed Forces’ authority disappears, the national order and security is the first thing that gets compromised. And I am not making any of this. It was quite evident in the recent Jantar Mantar protest where the students were mocking, attacking and questioning these officers calling them horrifying names and abusing them simply because the officers were doing their duty of protecting the civilians.

As if this was not enough of a humiliation, there was a recent new wave of mocking the NSA, Sir Ajit Doval. The man who spent almost 60 years of his life in the service of the Indian State is being accused of such serious allegations. And this man is not just a man but the mastermind who has protected the country, counteracted naxalites in North East and led several defence diplomat operations. These organisations work in shadows, their work never gets noticed but they are probably the biggest shield of India. Public criticism can never and should never create any hamper in their work.

Although the work machinery doesn’t get hampered, have you ever thought what kind of psychological backlash and emotional distress it can create in the minds of these people who work in shadows all in the hope of keeping India safe? Think about it yourself. Someone talks rudely to you and you won’t be willing to help them again. And this happened on a public stage in front of hundreds of people in that live auditorium and crores of people seeing this on social media.

Now, let’s go to the other aspect of this propaganda machinery. The courts. The Supreme Court of India. The enforcer of the law and order and The Constitution of India. In this game of governance, politics and protection of people, the courts play the most important role of a referee. Once the trust in the courts gets faltered, the people will not be able to expect an honest, constitutional relief from the judiciary. Now obviously, the politicians can’t make any strong statements against the courts more than “I disagree” / “I respectfully disagree”. But the effect of it is not hidden at all. Hundreds of speakers on hundreds of debates have repeatedly been caught saying widely opposite statements such as “Wo to court decide karegi na…” while declaring serious allegations on someone as if it is a final judgement in the same debate. And you can find evidence for this in the recent news debate on DD News [5]

And now comes probably the most dangerous part of the game, my friend.

Slowly and steadily convincing the people “Your vote doesn’t matter anymore.” Because the biggest positive of democracy is the authority of the people over their government, to change the government which they don’t like and keep the one they do. And when this positive itself gets threatened, the target is not just the government or the Election Commission but the Indian State itself. This part of the game is being studied in political science since decades as the Losers Consent theory. I have identified six stages of this game and it gets darker with every stage.

Stage 1, an election is lost. The loser starts shouting “Hum nahi haare, system ne humein hara dia hai”. What it does is change the goal post itself. Plant a small seed in the minds of people that what happened was not fair. Invoke the emotions of betrayal and tell the people “Tumhare saath to dhoka hua hai.”

Now, the seed is planted. To cultivate it properly, you need some sunlight or Stage 2 of the game. Start yelling at the referee. “The ECI is biased, the officials are corrupt, these officials work only for the government.”

But the plant won’t grow if it is just given sunlight once. Water it day after day after day. Or Stage 3, repeat the same allegations on a public platform in the legal boundary by Constitutional loopholes with speeches, rallies, live broadcasting, social media, presentations. Once repeated enough number of times, this crosses the boundaries of news rooms and goes out to the public. Discussions over a cup of tea, college classes, neighbourhoods, small villages, WhatsApp groups. This starts to form a narrative in the minds of people projecting the loss of a particular political party as a fraud against them which slowly brings people on the streets.

Stage 4, once the narrative is initialised, scale up the narrative, target and impact. It is difficult to believe a big lie directly. Instead start small and increase the scale so that it becomes easier due to the already created negative bias in the minds of people. Slogans such as “Election Commission compromised”, "Bureaucracy compromised”, “Media compromised”, “Courts compromised” become easier to spread. And this manufactures a statement “WHOLE SYSTEM IS RIGGED” which creates the easy pathway into Stage 5.

Stage 5, “If everything is rigged, why wait until the next elections?” This effectively changes the battlegrounds from polling booths down to streets and roads, voters become crowd, feelings become facts and emotions become the evidences. And all this repeated hammering into the brains of people slowly erodes away the trust of people until clash and confrontation seem to be the only possible choice. Unrelated photos and videos are used to mobilise people, rumours are considered truth without verification. At this point nobody remembers the original allegation anymore but questions the legitimacy of the entire governance system itself.

Stage 6, the slow rise of stage 5 creates an easy way here. “Constitutional institutions are beyond repair.” “System mein problem nahi hai, system hi problem hai.” So… if the power change won’t happen from a Constitutional process, how will it happen? By mobilisation of people or the instability of the masses. And this instability becomes the most powerful weapon of foreign networks, hostile agencies, terrorist organisations until there is a state of war.

And this is quite in line with the recent wave of SIR accusations that are being made against the ECI and CEC. The same party which earlier made the requests of fake voter cleanup in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in 2018 [6] is now arguing against it [7]. And this pattern is consistent across Rajasthan (Aug 2018), West Bengal, Kerala (April 2021). So basically, first they make a request for it and the when the institution takes an action, they are the first ones in line to condemn it.

This allegation against SIR has been going on for around a year now. But the strange thing is that before the West Bengal elections, this was quite a big topic of highlight. Suddenly after the election results, the issue got suppressed. Isn’t that counter intuitive? When BJP won that election in West Bengal, it could have been a big proof that the Election Commission cut down the TMC votes. But nope. Didn’t happen. Because at the same time, Tamil Nadu and Kerala election results were out as well. And the same process of SIR happened there as well. And if they had highlighted it then, it would have proved that the SIR is an independent and fair process.

As if these SIR allegations were not enough, the next allegations came against the CEC, Gyanesh Kumar himself. The first allegation came directly as him being a servant to the ruling party. And the second came as him acting as an authoritarian.

So, first of all, the servant allegations? Before 2023, the CEC was appointed by the President on the direct recommendation of the Union Ministers. And there are so many examples of CECs in the past who retired and then were awarded awards like Padma Vibhushan, high positions in the Union Cabinets, Governors, MPs, MLAs (MS Gill, TN Seshan, VS Ramademi and many more). It was only after 2023 that this process was stopped and the new appointments came on the recommendation of a committee consisting of the Prime Minister, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, and Chief Justice of India.

And acting as an authoritarian? Well, after the recent press release by the ECI, it is clear that all the three ECs were making unanimous decisions about all SIR policies. It was not a 2:1 people in favour or against a decision but all the 3 agreeing on the same principle [8]. And before this press release came in, there was a different wave saying that the CEC is acting without any democratic principles and there were 14 disagreements in just 10 months regarding decisions made for SIR. So, let me ask you directly. Isn’t it normal for disagreements to happen in a committee? Isn’t arise of disagreement and then settling it to make a better decision what the whole democratic process is all about?

But how is this presented? All of it is presented as a threat to democracy. These people are playing a very dirty game and unfortunately for us, this is a game they are playing really well. And the contribution from the general public is the long term memory loss where we tend to forget what these people do, say, and act upon when they make such statements. These people are prepared and what these people are doing is an act of war against the Indian State.

Finally, before leaving, I would like to give one last piece of advice to the people who say “Oh I am apolitical” or “I don’t like to have an opinion on this”. People. Be a responsible citizen. I am not asking you to support any political party or ideology from someone else. I am simply asking you to form an opinion and support the people who are in line with your political opinion. There is a world outside sports, movies, anime, food and work. Because the players of this game, the actors of this propaganda are not just outside but inside of India as well.

REFERENCES

[1] https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/sanjay-nirupam-calls-surgical-strikes-by-army-against-pakistan-fake

[2] https://www.indiatoday.in/india/delhi/story/arvind-kejriwal-surgical-strike-proof-bjp-leaders-345069-2016-10-05

[3] https://x.com/PChidambaram_IN/status/1102379329202249728?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1102379329202249728%7Ctwgr%5Ef33b81a8de881ddd410c39cdede5081eb9ab06be%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fscroll.in%2Flatest%2F915317%2Famit-shah-is-milking-air-strikes-for-politics-says-congress-leader-manish-tewari

[4] https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/pahalgam-attack-charanji-singh-channi-surgical-strike-balakot-strike-congress-bjp-visit-pak-and-check-bjp-after-congress-mp-demands-surgical-strike-pr-8315975

[5] https://www.instagram.com/ashokshrivastavx/reel/Dd2x6zrorDF/?hl=en

[6] https://www.deccanherald.com/india/congress-alleges-discrepancies-in-telangana-voters-list-692978.html

[7] https://www.deccanchronicle.com/southern-states/andhra-pradesh/sir-poll-officials-allay-concern-over-deletion-of-4428-lakh-voter-names-in-ap-lists-1983815

[8] https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2315309&lang=1&reg=1