Hyderabad, Aug. 1 -- Late on Friday night, July 31, the Prime Minister chose to be merciful, or to perform mercy, which is not the same thing. In an Instagram video, Narendra Modi said he and even his late mother had been abused at Jantar Mantar during the protests over NEET irregularities. He called those responsible "mischievous children" and said dragging them through courts would solve nothing and that it was time to embrace the young. "I want to forgive them," he said, and asked the country to forgive them too.

The strongman's video would be moving, were it not for one detail the nearly three-minute video carefully leaves out. The man asking the nation to forgive is the one man in the country with the power to actually do it. But he...