It has been just over three weeks since the Indian Army launched Operation Sindoor as a response to the terror attack in Pahalgam that left 26 people dead. Since then, the military action has been used as a cover to crack down on social media users across the spectrum.

In Assam, 81 “anti-nationals” have been arrested for “sympathising” with Pakistan, the chief minister said on Sunday. Arrests in the wake of the military action have also been reported from Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Meghalaya, Tripura, Haryana and Maharashtra, though an exact number is not known.

The case that garnered the most attention was the arrest on May 18 of Ashoka University professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad. In a Facebook post, he pointed to the irony of Hindutva commentators praising Colonel Sofiya Qureshi, who had represented the Army during media briefings, even as they ignored the mob lynchings, arbitrary bulldozing of homes and other hate crimes against Indian Muslims.

When the Supreme Court granted Mahmudabad interim bail on May 21, Justice Surya Kant declared that the professor should have used “neutral language” rather than using words with “dual meaning”.

On Friday, the Kolkata police travelled to Gurugram to arrest 22-year-old Sharmishtha Panoli, an Instagram influencer and law student, for a video posted on social media that allegedly hurt religious sentiments. In the video, which Panoli deleted after a backlash online, she questioned the “silence” of Bollywood celebrities on the military operation and also made remarks about Islam.

Bharatiya Janata Party MP, actress Kangana Ranaut, called for Panoli to be released immediately, despite the “unpleasant words” she used in her video. The language used in the video was distasteful and far from being “neutral” – but that should not matter.

In these actions, it has become clear that there is a heavy price to pay for contrariness of any kind in India. In this climate, one would think politically “neutral” individuals would be safe from public criticism. But earlier this month, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri was attacked on social media for simply doing his job, after he announced at a media briefing that a ceasefire had been reached with Pakistan.

Even his daughter was dragged into the controversy as trolls blamed him for the decision rather than the political establishment that made it.

In the battle between political and ideological agendas, a disquieting silence is being forced on the famously argumentative Indian. Arrests of this sort make a mockery of the right to freedom of speech and expression enshrined in the Indian Constitution.

Sneha Roy is a PhD student in International Relations and Political Science at the Geneva Graduate Institute.