Reviled, harassed, abused: Narendra Modi’s most trenchant critic speaks out

When I talked to the journalist Rana Ayyub in her Mumbai home last Wednesday she was calmer than she was when I had spoken to her three days earlier. But that is not saying much. Last Sunday her words were jumbled, her voice on edge. She said she had not slept. That she could not eat or keep food down. That she had had thoughts of self-harm.

“I was on a plane yesterday and I said to my brother, ‘Can you feel me sitting next to me?’ And he said, ‘Have you completely lost it?’ And I said, ‘No, I’m just not sure I’m sitting next to you. I feel like I’m in a dream.’ And afterwards, I spoke to my psychiatrist and she said, ‘You’re dissociating. You’ve had a traumatic experience –that’s your brain shutting down.’”

In fact, this is a highly rational response to what Ayyub is going through. In a crowded field, she may well be the most hated journalist on Earth.

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