US Lawmakers Concerned Over Detention of Umar Khalid, Others; Attacking SRK Exposes Hindutva Right's Double Standards on Bangladeshis; Indore Residents Had Warned of Contaminated Water In October
A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by Sidharth Bhatia, Siddharth Varadarajan, Sushant Singh, Seema Chishti, MK Venu, Pratik Kanjilal and Tanweer Alam | Contributing writer: Kalrav Joshi, with additional inputs by Anirudh SK
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January 2, 2026
Sidharth Bhatia
After a video surfaced showing a police officer placing a smartphone on a slum resident’s back and claiming – amid his insistence that he is from Bihar’s Araria – that the ‘device’ indicated he is from Bangladesh, the Ghaziabad police commissionerate on Friday announced a probe and said that the Kaushambi station house officer was ‘interrogating and verifying residents living in temporary settlements and slums’ during ‘area domination’ and that he has been ‘strictly warned’ not to repeat his actions. Earlier this week a Hindu extremist group was seen distributing swords in Ghaziabad in anticipation of a ‘Bangladesh-like situation’, and over the last year Indian authorities have rounded up and expelled numerous people – mostly Bengali-speaking Muslims – to Bangladesh, some of them wrongfully so.
Residents of Indore’s Bhagirathpura, where water contamination killed several people over the past week, had flagged the problem via the mayor’s helpline number as early as October, Anand Mohan J. finds. The process for a new pipeline in the congested neighbourhood had begun in late 2024 but the “work order to execute the final leg of the project was passed on December 26, 2025, just when the deaths started coming to light”, he cites sources as saying. The official death toll remains at four, but the mayor has said he was informed of ten deaths, and locals have said 14 people died. Hundreds of others fell ill. The source of the contamination appears to be a toilet without a safety tank built over a leaky water pipe.
With the Union government earlier this week announcing a new tax on cigarettes that will kick in on February 1, shares of Indian tobacco firms fell yesterday, with ITC (Gold Flake) stocks losing 9.2% and Godfrey Phillips (Marlboro) falling 14.1%. Tax adjustments have been among the tools New Delhi has used to control tobacco consumption in light of their health impact, and while it “has not specified the impact of the duty change on retail prices, analysts say higher taxes could prompt companies to raise prices”, notes Reuters.
No fewer than three tankers carrying Russian oil in the Arabian Sea have signalled Reliance’s Jamnagar refinery as their destination and are expected to unload their cargoes totalling almost 2.2 million barrels early this month, Bloomberg reports citing Kepler data. However Reliance – which is now buying Russian crude from non-sanctioned entities after a pause – has denied buying the cargoes. The ships’ destinations could change as they approach India, the news agency notes.
Eight Democratic US Congresspersons wrote to Indian ambassador to Washington Vinay Kwatra last month expressing their “continued concern regarding the prolonged pre-trial detention” of those still in jail in connection with the 2020 Delhi riots ‘conspiracy’ case, including Umar Khalid. “With respect for India’s democratic institutions and its role as a key partner of the United States, we request that your government share the steps being taken to ensure that the judicial proceedings against Umar Khalid and those of his co-accused who remain in detention comport with international standards,” they wrote, noting India and the US’s interests in upholding the rule of law in light of their status as the world’s largest democracies.
The Lokpal has scrapped its tender for seven BMW cars totalling Rs 5 crore following backlash from the public and from opposition parties, reports PTI.
India pioneered job guarantees. A new law could weaken them, critics say speaking to The Washington Post.
Meanwhile, the Economist on cults of personality up and down the hierarchy in Indian politics: “A visitor to India will encounter Modi’s face more often in one day in Delhi than Xi Jinping’s in a month in Beijing.”
Notably, Modi’s personality cult has thrown up comparisons between him and the divine (nevermind the prime minister’s own suggestion that his birth was not biological). But earlier this week it is the Congress’s Nana Patole who remarked that Rahul Gandhi is “doing the same work [that] Lord Ram did”, prompting – ironically – the BJP to cry foul.
Delhi’s severe air pollution drew global attention last year as thick smog disrupted flights, forced schools into hybrid classes, and overshadowed football icon Lionel Messi’s high-profile visit. The episode renewed criticism with the “Delhi chief minister slated as efforts to cut pollution fail to make impact in first year in office,” notes Nikkei Asia.
Last month the Kolkata Knight Riders hired Bangladeshi left-arm pace bowler Mustafizur Rahman for Rs 9.2 crore, which has prompted some on the Hindu right to train their guns at owner Shah Rukh Khan. Not only religious leaders, including babas, but also a BJP leader Sangeet Som called him a ‘traitor’. That India does business with Bangladesh and ex-PM Shaikh Hasina is living in exile in India doesn’t seem to strike them.
When the Indian Union Muslim League’s Kerala president Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal received a phone call congratulating him for his piece in the state BJP mouthpiece Janmabhoomi, he did a double take – it has now come to light that the newspaper on Thursday accidentally published parts of IUML mouthpiece Chandrika‘s pages for the day. This was due to a snafu at the computer-to-plate centre that makes the plates for both papers, reports Abdul Latheef Naha.
Police in Agra earlier this week arrested 22-year-old Priyanka Varun after a video of her burning the Manusmriti circulated on social media. She has claimed that the video is three years old, but the police said they learnt of it just now and invoked charges of breaching the peace against her.
Incidentally, Ambedkar had burned the Manusmriti in Mahad almost exactly 98 years before Varun’s video was circulated, as BBC Hindi recalls in its article about two Maharashtrian women who had thrown ink at a statue of Manu at the Rajasthan high court in Jaipur in 2018 and gone to jail for it, why they did it, and the statue’s history.
A recent compliance audit report by the Comptroller and Auditor General has pointed to a number of fiscal lapses and executional failures by several scientific and environmental departments of the Union government, including crores in dues that the Board of Radiation and Isotope Technology and IMD could not recover, thousands of crores in unspent funds, shortages of personnel in the National Biopharma Mission and delays in the Zoological Survey’s work.
Australian batter Usman Khawaja has announced his retirement from international cricket after the fifth Ashes Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground, using his farewell press conference to speak about racial stereotyping, discrimination, and the pressure he faced for expressing political and humanitarian views during his career. “I’m a coloured cricketer,” Khawaja said, adding, “The Australian cricket team is our pride and joy, but I’ve felt very different in a lot of respects, particularly in how I’ve been treated. I was criticised for missing a game, yet other teammates who weren’t playing weren’t questioned at all.” His farewell also “shows how cricket can be an expression of character,” writes Gideon Haigh.
The Guardian has an obit on Sara Banerji, whose “storytelling made the surreal real, bringing a fresh voice to fiction by interweaving fantasy with the absurdities of everyday life.”
Rupee falls to record low, crosses Rs 90 against dollar
The Indian Rupee has hit a historic low, breaching the Rs 90 mark against the US Dollar for the first time. The steep fall has triggered concerns across financial markets and raised fresh questions over inflation, import costs, and the broader economic outlook. “Forex traders said persistent foreign fund outflows and strong dollar demand from importers further dented investor sentiment.”
J&K cricketer wearing helmet with Palestinian flag questioned by police
The Jammu and Kashmir Police on Thursday questioned cricketer Furqan Bhat, who wore a helmet in the Jammu and Kashmir Champions League that appeared to have the Palestinian flag on it during a tournament in the Union Territory. After videos of the match were widely shared on social media, several persons demanded action against Bhat, The Hindu quoted an unidentified player as saying. As of Thursday evening, no first information report had been registered in the matter, the newspaper quoted unidentified officers as saying.
Academics condemn sacking of SRM University professor for social media posts
A group of 161 academics and concerned citizens has condemned SRM University’s termination of Lora Santhakumar as assistant professor for her social media posts in May opposing the “celebration of killings during the [India-Pakistan] border skirmish” and “noting that the victims of such violence are the innocent and vulnerable, including children”. They especially criticised the way Santhakumar was treated by a university panel before being canned: she was “forced to answer questions posed by the committee members with either a ‘yes’ or ‘no’,” while her “termination notice is a remarkable document [that is] replete with logical fallacies”. “This use of institutional procedures as a tool to harass and demean colleagues for holding views contrary to a section of public opinion is not a new strategy,” they observed.
The Long Cable
Attacking Shah Rukh Khan exposes Sanghi double standards on Bangladeshis
Badri Raina
You might have thought there was one positive feature to the auction of human beings in the IPL stock market, namely that its lucre brought homo sapiens from all sorts of climes together to the bull ring, setting aside considerations of nationality, race, religion, class. All that seemed to matter is how much spectacle the bulls could provide to the gasping zealots so the money could keep on jingling.
Even the so-suspected Kashmiri Muslim youth could find a place in its all-embracing merchandise, so long as the said youth delivered the fastest ball or the crookedest googly, or the longest sixer guaranteed to draw in the ticket sales.
Not any more.
In his commercial innocence, the actor Shah Rukh Khan who owns an IPL club chose to bid for a player from Bangladesh.
Lo and behold, a well-known, upfront scion of the Sanatan parivar did not lose a minute publicly to dub the successful actor a “traitor” for cottoning to a Bangladeshi , who, it stands to reason, must be a Hindu-baiter.
Do remember that elections to the West Bengal assembly are due in a few months, and the anti-Hindu Bangladeshi is the centre-piece of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s campaign.
But here is the catch: what is one to think of the Indian Foreign Minister from the Modi cabinet visiting Dhaka to condole the passing of an erstwhile Bangladeshi prime minister who was never known to be particularly friendly to India – indeed, if anything often in footsie with right-wing radical Islamists?
And what is one to think of EAM S Jaishankar shaking hands with her son, now expected to be the next hostile Bangladeshi chief executive?
What is one to think of India exporting goods worth some 80,000 crores annually to keep Bangladeshis well-provided?
Why isn’t the Adani power establishment in Jharkhand which sells electric power to Bangladesh traitorous?
And, if Shah Rukh is such a villain for affording space to a Bangladeshi player, what is to be said of Narendra Modi who is shielding Sheikh Hasina?
After all, not a few Hindus were killed there even when she was in the saddle.
Further, if Pakistani players have been proscribed from entry into the IPL by the BCCI, why not Bangladeshi ones?
What does that say of Jay Shah’s patriotism?
Then there are those who equally treacherously suggest that Hindutva warriors may after all be devotedly engaged in doing that to Muslims and other “different looking” Indians at home which the Bangladeshi Muslim is accused of doing to Hindus in that beleaguered neighbouring country.
Be it Kangra, Kaithal, Bareilly, even a town in Kerala, and another in Madhya Pradesh, variegated with the racial murder in Dehradun, what is the difference?
Both in Bangladesh and in Bharat the overwhelmingly majority communities seem in dire danger from the five percent minorities of diverse description.
Only fascist times are known to have wrought such miracles of ideology.
Another thing: no Bangladeshi mullah that we know of has ever enunciated the thesis that all Bangladeshis are essentially Muslims;
But our own Oracle, Bhagwat has often claimed that all Indians are essentially Hindus.
That being so, how does a Shah Rukh Khan become such a heinous Muslim teaming up with another Muslim from abroad, and never mind the many movies this celebrity actor, married to a Hindu, has made denouncing “terrorists” and pleading “my name is Khan but I am not a terrorist”.
A time is here it seems when only well-protected vigilantes may certify who is or is not either a desh bakht (patriot) or a traitor, not just as polemics but as law.
Do recall that eloquent vignette from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar wherein a so-Roman mob, following the murder of Caesar, accosts a fellow named Cinna and , thinking him a Senator of the opposite political camp, sets to belabour him.
When the poor man screams “I am not the Senator, I am the poet Cinna” the shout goes up” kill him for his bad verses”.
Fellow Indians, that time may indeed be here pass we write.
Tailpiece
It is rumoured that, inspired by Bhagwat, Donald Trump is readying to pronounce America a Christian Rashtra wherein all denizens are essentially Christians.
And those who disagree are free to migrate to other climes.
Imagine what a glorious prospect that would be for a fast-forward Bharat: all 54 lakh people of Indian origin would return to us as Hindus, making the Hindu Rashtra more secure both in economic and cultural terms.
There is also the wisecracker who observes how Shri Modi has received highest national honours from more than half a dozen exclusively “Muslim” countries.
The question therefore can be asked: should this exemplary fact at some point oblige honourable Modi to don the Muslim skull cap at home even if only to dignify friendship with those Muslim countries, if not with Muslims at home?
(Badri Raina taught at Delhi University.)
Reportedly
With less than a fortnight left for elections to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the richest civic body in the country – with a budget of nearly R 75000 crores – political parties are leaving no stone unturned to capture power. The united Shiv Sena controlled the body for 25 years and elections are being held four years later than normal. In between, many things have happened–the Shiv Sena split, as did the NCP and the BJP, which partnered with the Sena the last time, is now emerging as a powerful presence on its own. The estranged Thackeray brothers, Uddhav and Raj, have combined to stave off the threat of the BJP, and are playing the nativist card. The polarisation is on several counts – Hindu/Muslim is of course one of them, something the BJP is a past master at, but there is also the north Indians and Gujaratis vs Marathi speakers divide, which is an on-off topic that keeps surfacing every now and then. The Gujaratis are said to be supporters of the BJP, but the faultline goes deeper than that, because the Gujaratis control the capital.
Drawn and quartered
Deep dive
The world knows how India is changing under the ruling regime, from Gandhi’s land to Modi’s land. The New York Times recently published on the frontpage, a report that says RSS has penetrated deep into politics, bureaucracy, judiciary, media and it will be difficult to reverse the process now.
Prime number: 108
Translator Chittajit Mitra has compiled a list of 108 Indian-language books that were translated into English and published last year.Opeds you don’t want to miss
As India enters the New Year, the most consequential contest it faces is not between parties, personalities or ideologies, Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes, but between the allure of fantasy and the discipline of reality. “There is a refusal to confront the everyday evidence of failure: The foulest air, polluted rivers, degraded cities, and precarious work cannot be reconciled with claims of Incredible India or an economic renaissance.”
On the idea of a Vishwaguru complex and how supremacist rhetoric accompanies national decline, Anand Teltumbde says that “this boastfulness operates as a substitute for capability. Instead of proprietary technology, industrial depth, or strategic leverage, slogans perform the work of achievement.”
“Ad hoc changes and poor implementation mar the [Election Commission’s] special intensive revision of electoral rolls”, and “this situation could have been avoided had the Court gone beyond limited interventions … to properly vet the new SIR procedure for constitutionality”, The Hindu charged in its editorial.
In India, lynchings are not “episodic lawlessness”, they are “a structural form of political violence,” argues Burhan Majid in this razor sharp piece.
Shirin Akhter argues that the New Year’s strike by gig workers is important “because it exposes the myth that platforms are technological entities, it shows clearly that without labour, there is no delivery, no convenience.”
Listen up
What’s behind India’s prohibitively costly home prices, what are the sociological ramifications when a large share of the population is unable to afford housing, and what can be done to ameliorate the situation? The Hindu‘s Serish Nanisetti spoke to architect Ashok Lall and urban specialist Tikender Panwar.
Watch out
Standing in a long-closed subway station beneath City Hall, Zohran Mamdani on Thursday, was sworn in as the New York City mayor, becoming the first first Muslim, first South Asian and first African-born person to hold that position. The 34-year-old Democrat took the midnight oath on a centuries-old Quran, marking the first time an NYC mayor used Islam’s holy text to be sworn in. Watch his speech below:
Over and out
Zainab Tambawalla’s latest exhibition Seen and Unseen captures the sights and colours of Mumbai’s often unseen elements, to tell their story. And as Rahul Jacob writes in a lovely piece on her art, “Her view is more Steinbeckian than Stardust.”
Anant Gupta and Raghav Kakkar’s ground report in August on Malda resident Amir Sk’s wrongful expulsion to Bangladesh was hard-hitting, but so was the ‘food coma’ they slipped into after a rice and chicken dish at Amir’s home, they reveal. The meal was so dangerously delectable that he will forever “make sure to avoid [it] while out reporting”, Gupta declares in a piece in Scroll staffers’ year-starter series.
That’s it for today. We’ll be back with you on Monday, on a device near you. If The India Cable was forwarded to you by a friend (perhaps a common friend!) book your own copy by SUBSCRIBING HERE.