In response to the flood of artistes, filmmakers, scientists and intellectuals returning their awards to the central government, actor Anupam Kher began his "March for India" protest in Delhi on Saturday morning.

"Nobody has the right to call our country intolerant. We are secular people and don't believe in selective outrage," he said before he led hundreds of supporters from Janpath to Rashtrapati Bhavan.

The irony was not missed.

But the response to Kher's protest march was overwhelming – not just on the ground, as his supporters also took to Twitter to cheer him on, so much so that #MarchForIndia became a globally-trending hashtag and remained so all morning, helped no less by those who mocked the very premise of the march.

For supporters of the current government and Prime Minister, however, Twitter became a virtual space for celebration as they posted pictures from the march, urged people across India to show support for Kher in their own cities and declared that March for India was a "slap in the face" of all liberals daring to call India "intolerant".




But it was not all one sided as there were many who also pointed out the problems with Kher's reasoning and made sure to register their dissent against the very premise of March for India:










There were also reports that pointed to some of the participants not being very tolerant:

Things got even uglier as female reporter with NDTV, Bhairavi Singh was heckled and abused.




In spite of this incident, some supporters of the March for Unity seemed unapologetic.