India, July 20 -- No movement against tyranny can succeed without solidarity among the dissidents. To quote Malcolm X's terse observation: "Unity turns resistance into power." One recalls the Solidarity movement in communist Poland in the 1980s, where unity among workers and their sympathisers across the political spectrum ultimately brought down the communist government and unleashed a wave of democratic movements across Eastern Europe. It was the catalyst that brought down the mighty Soviet Union.

Conversely, we have the more recent tragic story of Alexei Navalny, the most powerful dissenting voice and critic of Vladimir Putin's rogue outfit. Beginning as a grassroots anti-corruption campaigner in early 2000, he emerged as a potent op...