Politics is a blood sport. In India, it’s a blood sport played with a 5G connection and a penchant for the dramatic. BJP MP Nishikant Dubey just threw another brick through the window, and this time, it’s wrapped in the familiar, jagged edges of the "Tukde-Tukde" narrative.

Dubey didn’t just criticize Rahul Gandhi. He went for the branding. Labeling Gandhi the "ringleader" of the supposed gang intent on breaking India into pieces isn’t new, but it is effective. It’s a search-engine-optimized attack designed to trigger a very specific, very loud segment of the internet. The occasion? Gandhi’s penchant for flying across borders. According to Dubey, every time Gandhi boards an international flight, he isn’t just traveling; he’s conspiring.

It’s the ultimate digital-age smear. In a world where your location history is a weapon, Gandhi’s passport stamps have become a liability.

The friction here isn't just ideological. It’s about the optics of "elsewhere." In the hyper-nationalist framework Dubey operates in, domesticity is loyalty. If you aren't here, you're against us. He’s leaning hard into the idea that Gandhi’s foreign trips are secret meetings held in backrooms in London or Washington, away from the prying eyes of the Indian electorate—but conveniently within the crosshairs of the BJP’s surveillance-style rhetoric.

Let’s look at the mechanics of the insult. The "Tukde-Tukde" label is a piece of political software that’s been running on a loop since 2016. It’s buggy, it’s divisive, and it’s remarkably hard to uninstall. By calling Gandhi the "ringleader," Dubey is attempting a version 2.0 upgrade. He’s trying to consolidate all the disparate criticisms of the Congress leader—his critiques of the government on foreign soil, his meetings with international academics—into a single, digestible villain arc.

It’s a classic distraction technique. While the rest of us are arguing about whether Gandhi’s business-class ticket to Europe constitutes a threat to national sovereignty, we aren’t talking about the price of onions or the fact that our cities turn into lakes every time it rains for more than twenty minutes. The price tag of this specific brand of outrage is astronomical. Think of the thousands of hours of parliamentary time and the millions of rupees in taxpayer money evaporated while grown men argue about who likes the country more.

Dubey knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s an engagement farmer. In the attention economy of New Delhi, a nuanced debate on foreign policy gets you zero retweets. Calling the Leader of the Opposition a "ringleader" of a separatist cult? That’s gold. It’s the kind of content that feeds the algorithm for a full news cycle. It keeps the base caffeinated and the opposition on the defensive.

The irony is that this entire fight happens in a vacuum of actual data. Dubey doesn’t provide a dossier. He doesn’t offer a paper trail of these supposed anti-India conspiracies. He offers vibes. Dark, conspiratorial vibes. He points to the "abroad" as a shadowy place where bad things happen to good democracies. It’s a bizarrely isolationist stance for a country that prides itself on its global tech footprint and its massive diaspora.

Gandhi, for his part, walks into these traps with a regularity that is almost impressive. He speaks at universities, he meets with think tanks, and he gives the BJP’s content creators exactly the footage they need to craft the next "anti-national" montage. It’s a symbiotic relationship. Dubey needs a villain; Gandhi provides the b-roll.

So, here we are again. Another day, another allegation of treason served up with a side of grandstanding. The rhetoric is getting sharper, but the actual substance is thinner than a budget smartphone’s screen protector. We’ve reached a point where a politician’s travel itinerary is treated like a threat to the nuclear codes.

It’s exhausting. It’s predictable. And in a country where the digital divide is still a gaping maw, it’s a reminder that those at the top are playing a very different game than the rest of us. They’re fighting for the soul of the nation on platforms owned by billionaires in Silicon Valley, using language designed to make sure we never actually agree on what the problems are, let alone the solutions.

Will this change anything? Probably not. The "Tukde-Tukde" tag will keep trending until the next outrage-cycle-as-a-service kicks in. Dubey will keep firing off accusations, and Gandhi will keep boarding planes. The noise is the point.

Does anyone actually believe a few speeches in London are going to dismantle a nuclear-armed state, or is the "ringleader" tag just the most efficient way to keep us from looking at our own bank accounts?