That the fraternity of civil servants, the National Commission of Women’s chief as well as politicians have stood in solidarity with Vikram Misri, India’s foreign secretary, after he was subjected to slander by a vicious army of online trolls is welcome. The Association of Indian Diplomats, for instance, has reminded the nation of Mr Misri’s impeccable record and performance as a civil servant; the NCW chief has criticised the attacks against the foreign secretary and his family: Mr Misri’s daughter’s personal details were leaked by trolls and she was attacked for her legal work among other engagements; political leaders from the Congress, the Samajwadi Party and the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen have spoken up as well. What is shocking though is the silence of the government on this urgent matter. The prime minister, known to skirt muddy issues, has not said a word in condemnation; the Union ministry of information and broadcasting, which had been fleet-footed while revealing Pakistan’s weaponisation of disinformation, has remained quiet too. This despite the fact that in announcing the ceasefire — the reason Mr Misri was targeted by war-mongering trolls — the foreign secretary was simply doing his job: that of informing the executive’s decision to the nation in the course of a briefing. Such distinctions and civility are, of course, lost on those engaged in trolling. Unwilling to take on the prime minister for this judicious decision, they settled on a civil servant who was doing his job in an exemplary manner. And the Narendra Modi government thought nothing of abandoning a senior bureaucrat in this maelstrom.

Mr Misri has not been the only one targeted in this manner since the horror at Pahalgam. Even someone like Himanshi Narwal, who had lost her husband in the carnage in Pahalgam, was not spared by the savage tribe of trolls after she asked Muslims and Kashmiris to be spared of vitriol after the terror attack. This is suggestive of two dangers. First, the spectre of trolling, whose ascendance has corresponded with the right-wing’s political rise, is now a Frankensteinian monster: it defies its own creator. Second, the ingress of technology into modern life seems to have weakened society’s moral core: India bears evidence of this rot. The trolls’ transgressions have been many. The tribe must be vanquished. The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Information Technology Act have modest provisions to tackle the problem of trolling. The Digital Personal Data Protection Rules should not be found wanting in this regard.