There was shock, panic, an adverse reaction. No logic. No patience. Soon as Amulya — meaning “Priceless” — uttered the words Pakistan Zindabad, it was clear that she would pay the price. It wouldn’t have mattered what she may have had to say thereafter, which in any case, she wasn’t allowed to.

Amulya, 19, was stupid! Yes. Not naive.

She was stupid not to understand the sensitive times we live in. Stupid to have said Long-live Pakistan in a country, a section of whose people believes it to be so fragile that slogans could break it into pieces. She was stupid not to realise that saying things only because people you are opposing dislike it doesn’t achieve anything.

Even those who had invited her to Freedom Park to protest were seen distancing themselves from her — what with attempts made by the other side to taint them with a Pakistani connection — while some even supported legal action against her. They won’t be wrong in even feeling that she undermined their carefully constructed narrative over many many days.

But what did Amulya want to really say? She wasn’t only wishing that Pakistan lives long, and by no means was she wishing harm to India. Going by her social media post from February 16, she was trying to speak about united humanity; trying to tell her peers and elders that countries are not about land and boundaries but about people.

In her post, after post-fixing Zindabad to a list of countries, starting with India, she has said: “…You teach children that the nation is its soil. We, the children, are telling you that a nation is its people. People who must have access to resources, have basic rights…Zindabad to everybody who serves the people.”

She did not get to say all of this last evening. Her attempted shock-and-awe approach —by starting with Pakistan in her speech—backfired. The police were quick to act, and press some very serious charges, invoking four IPC sections: 124-A; 153-A; 153-B and 505(2).  And, in the dark of night, hours after her disrupted speech, a local judge remanded Amulya Leona Noronha in 14 days of judicial custody.

The first section (124-A) deals with Sedition, and the rest are ones usually piled on, as is evident in many sedition cases. And, the Indian establishments have been increasingly eager, too eager if you ask me, in pressing Sedition charges against individuals. Amulya’s case just gets added to a list of charges framed by authorities in the past several years, most of which have been thrown out by courts.

Now, ensuring justice, liberty, equality and fraternity can be very tiring. Yet, one has to strive every day to prevent authorities from making a caricature of these principles that are the bedrock of Indian democracy.

The Preamble, while describing Fraternity has the “dignity of individual” preceding “the unity and integrity of the nation.” This ought not to have been an accident or a result of oversight. It is so, in my opinion, because those framing our Constitution understood that it is individuals who make a nation.

And, “We the people…” must therefore ensure that we are a Nation — all of us, together — beyond political sloganeering and fragile notions of what can break and divide our country.

India should not become so fragile that a young girl shouting out Pakistan Zindabad wrecks havoc. The country should not have to have an enemy to remain united. Politics will persist. Politicians will scheme and plan. But people must understand.

Here’s how Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is quoted as describing nationalism: “…My idea of nationalism is that my country may become free, that if need be the whole of the country may die, so that the human race may live.” This is just an excerpt, to make a point, Gandhi’s idea of nationalism is sophisticated.

Instead of understanding what Amulya had to say, we’ve been quick to disown her, label her and many of us are clamouring for her to be punished.