Hindi Imposition Marches On; Tahawwur Rana May Have Been ‘Small Player’ in 26/11 But Can Help Fill in Vital Blanks; Congo Chimps at Vantara

A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by Tanweer Alam, Sidharth Bhatia, Pratik Kanjilal, Seema Chishti, Sushant Singh, MK Venu, and Siddharth Varadarajan | Contributing writer: Kalrav Joshi, with additional inputs by Anirudh SK

---

Dear readers

If you are already a paid subscriber, thank you! And be sure to renew your subscription when it expires.

If you like our work and want to support us, then do subscribe.

Please click on the following link to make a payment and start or renew your subscription - https://rzp.io/rzp/the-india-cable

1. Please give us at least up to 2 business days to activate/upgrade/renew your subscription

2. These are one-time payments and there will be no auto-renewal

Over to Siddharth Varadarajan for today’s Cable

---

Snapshot of the day

April 14, 2025

Siddharth Varadarajan

Murshidabad district in West Bengal saw violence and three deaths over the weekend as a protest against the Modi government’s new Waqf (Amendment) Act led to clashes between protestors and the police. The violence appears to have taken a communal turn in some pockets. Two of those killed were Hindus, though the circumstances of their death are still not established. BJP leaders say around 400 Hindus have been displaced from their homes. The police claim to have arrested 200 people for their role in the violence.

Tamil Nadu governor RN Ravi has again created controversy by exhorting students at the Thiagarajar Engineering College in Madurai, where he was chief guest at a function over the weekend, to chant Jai Shri Ram. The State Platform for Common School System Tamil Nadu, a collective of educators, noted that Ravi was invited “not as a preacher of a particular religion” but in his capacity as governor; it called for his removal from his post. This comes