'One Nation, One Culture', Or Else; Nagpur Municipality Defies HC and Demolishes Homes of Riot Accused, Trump to Penalise India for Buying Venezuelan Oil

Trump has Opened a Nuclear Pandora’s Box

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

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Over to Siddharth Varadarajan for today’s Cable

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Snapshot of the day

March 24, 2025

Siddharth Varadarajan

The RSS laid down a new diktat over the weekend – ‘one nation, one culture’ – and we should fully expect the state and non-state actors who subscribe to its worldview to now enforce their vision of a “harmonious and organised Bharat’.

“No civilisation in the world is as inclusive as Bharat,” said Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankar today, adding, “We have never believed in confrontation.” But this legendary inclusiveness has not come in the way of the police in Mumbai filing a criminal case against stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra on Monday for lampooning Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. This is the kind of reflex move one has come to expect from the state in Narendra Modi’s ‘Naya Bharat’.

On Sunday, Shiv Sena members had damaged the Habitat Comedy Club in Mumbai where Kamra’s show had been filmed, as well as the hotel on whose premises the club is located. As the shocking visuals triggered outrage, an FIR was registered against the vandals. But the powers that be decided that in the interests of ‘inclusive Bharat’, Kamra too had be prosecuted, hence the