Goa, Nov. 4 -- VICTOR FERRAO

Sigmund Freud's idea of the return of the re pressed holds that mem ories, desires and traumatic impulses driven out of aware ness do not simply disap pear. They gather force in the unconscious and eventually break back into conscious ness, often in distorted or explosive forms. What is sup pressed waits, builds pressure and returns. Carried into politics, the idea helps explain how pro longed enforced silence, structural exclusion and au thoritarian control can end in a sudden surge of public dissent. Some analysts of con temporary India read the re cent protests in exactly this way. They argue that years of narrowing civic space under Prime Minister Narendra Modi have prepared the ground for a dramatic retu...