One thing I've noticed about Indian social media is that people don't seem to see crimes anymore. They see opportunities.
The moment a case starts making headlines, the first question isn't "What happened?" or "Was this preventable?" It's almost always, "Which narrative does this help?"
Take the Raja Raghuvanshi murder. Before the investigation had even unfolded properly, people had already turned it into proof that women are secretly more dangerous than men.
Take Atul Subhash's suicide. Instead of asking how someone reached that point, or whether there are genuine problems in the legal system that need fixing, a huge part of the conversation became "See? Men are the real victims."
The same thing happens whenever a woman is brutally murdered. Suddenly the entire discussion becomes evidence that every man is a potential killer.
It's amazing how quickly an individual crime stops being about individuals.
I honestly don't understand the logic.
If one man murders his wife, how exactly does that tell us anything about the character of millions of other men who have never committed a violent crime?
If one woman conspires to kill her husband, why does that suddenly become evidence against half the country's female population?
At what point did we decide this was a sensible way to think?
What's even stranger is that the same people who say "don't stereotype communities" will happily stereotype an entire gender after reading one headline.
Nobody would accept this kind of reasoning anywhere else.
If a doctor commits fraud, nobody concludes doctors are frauds.
If a teacher abuses a student, nobody says teaching attracts abusers.
If an engineer commits murder, nobody invents theories about engineers being inherently violent.
But somehow when it's a man or a woman, all standards of reasoning disappear.
The discussion immediately shifts from an individual's choices to collective guilt.
Social media encourages this because outrage spreads faster than nuance.
Waiting for evidence doesn't get engagement.
Reading a chargesheet doesn't get engagement.
Saying "let's wait and see what actually happened" certainly doesn't get engagement.
But "this proves men are..." or "this proves women are..."? That's guaranteed to explode.
The worst part is that the victim almost becomes secondary. Their life, their family and the actual circumstances of the case fade into the background while complete strangers use them as ammunition for arguments they were already having.
That's what bothers me the most.
Not that people disagree. Disagreement is normal.
It's that many people seem more emotionally invested in winning the gender argument than understanding the crime itself.
None of this means patterns shouldn't be discussed. If data shows certain crimes disproportionately affect women, that's worth discussing seriously. If there are genuine issues around false accusations, misuse of laws, domestic abuse against men or failures in family courts, those deserve serious discussion too.
But using one sensational case to make sweeping claims about an entire gender isn't analysis. It's confirmation bias.
You're not following the evidence wherever it leads.
You're finding a headline that supports the opinion you already had.
That's intellectually lazy.
A murderer isn't acting on behalf of men.
A manipulator isn't acting on behalf of women.
Most crimes aren't committed because someone woke up thinking, "Today I'll represent my gender."
They're committed because an individual made a horrific decision, sometimes driven by greed, obsession, revenge, control, mental illness, or something else entirely.
Reducing all of that to another episode of "men vs women" doesn't make anyone smarter.
It just makes the conversation dumber.
That is one of the most famous and dramatic survival stories in chess history. The encounter occurred in 1918 in Odessa, during the chaotic early days of the Bolshevik Revolution and the Red Terror.
Because the Bolsheviks considered Ossip Bernstein an "enemy of the people" due to his work as a legal advisor for prominent bankers, he was rounded up, branded a counter-revolutionary, and scheduled to be shot.
Bernstein was already lined up with other prisoners facing the firing squad when a senior officer reviewed the names on the prisoner list. The commanding officer happened to be an avid chess fan and recognized Bernstein's name from the international tournament circuit. To verify his identity, the officer offered a life-or-death wager: they would play a game. If Bernstein won, he would be freed; if he lost or drew, the execution would proceed immediately.
Despite the extreme psychological pressure, Bernstein easily defeated the officer. True to his word, the officer set him free. Bernstein then fled on a British ship and safely settled in Paris.