‘The joke is on us’

THE post began with an apology. The writer Amitava Kumar explained that Facebook had blocked his Substack link in India, so he was sharing his essay as plain text instead. I read that line twice. Then I laughed, because I recognised it. In Pakistan, we know this routine well. The link that won’t open. The site that loads everywhere except here. The workaround that everyone shares and no one in authority admits is needed. Kumar was writing about the young Indians who call themselves cockroaches. Their movement began as satire, a joke party mocking the government over a leaked medical entrance…