Saturday, December 06, 2025 | 11:07 PM ISTहिंदी में पढें
Business Standard
Notification Icon
userprofile IconSearch

Lynch mobs of the gods

To convert non-believers to their cause or enforce adulation of their heroes & gods are running riot

Hanuman, Ram, Sita, Lakshmana
premium

Hanuman before Ram, Sita and Lakshmana. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Arundhuti Dasgupta
Fans, trolls, followers, worshippers; call them what you will. The mobs that seek to convert non-believers to their cause or enforce adulation of their heroes and gods are running riot. Using persuasion, force, skulduggery and whatever tool they can draw out of their arsenal, the lynch mobs are doing all that they can to ensure obeisance to the will of their designated god; invading real and virtual spaces with equal ferocity. 

In this, they resemble the armies that gods of ancient civilisations nurtured to further their dominion. Indra had his loyal Maruts, Odin the Einherjar, while Achilles had the Myrmidions