She was harassed for crude remarks about Modi at a Cockroach protest. Now she can’t leave home

The Guardian · 10/20/2026, 6:30:18 AM

After a protest clip went viral, a teenager’s life was torn apart by threats that sent her and her family into hiding. Plus, a book on citizen journalism • Don’t get This is India delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Before 24 July, a person I will call R was preoccupied with the ordinary routines of teenage life: experimenting with makeup, grumbling over mathematics homework and hanging out with friends at a tea stall. That month, as the fever of student protests spread across the country, the 15-year-old watched on her phone as young people poured into Jantar Mantar, the designated protest site in Delhi, demanding education reform. She went too. But an 11-second video clip from the protest site, in which she made crude and profane remarks about the prime minister, Narendra Modi, upended her life. Continue reading...