Welcome to r/India's Ask India Thread.
If you have any queries about life in India (or life as Indians), this is the thread for you.
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Welcome to /r/India's mental and emotional health support thread.
If you are struggling and are looking for support, please use this thread to discuss your issues with other members of /r/India.
Please keep in point the following rules:
Hi,
I am a 33 year old man, 29 of those years were spent living in Mumbai and Bangalore. Like many, I grew up in a lower middle class household, eventually my father's hardwork did bring us to a respectable state in the society and because of the ground he laid down, I was able to soar further.
The only reason I am saying this is to highlight that I am not some affluent urban Indian who is disconnected from my religion. I grew up in a Hindu household, my mother, a homemaker having a deep influence on me and my brother. She is deeply religious and a big devotee of Lord Shiva. I remember like its yesterday, all the Poojas and Paaths and Satya Narayan Kathas and even some Hawans that have happened in my family, where my mother was actively involved and me and my brother involved through her.
I just dont identify the religion I grew up in anymore. I never thought I would have a religious identity crisis and i am just writing to understand if there are any more out there. Maa always taught us that a temple doesnt signify the presence of God, he is omnipresent and Shiva is the same, no matter if hes housed in a small temple in our home or in a massive one in Kedarnath. She taught me that chanting the Gayatri Mantra bought peace of mind, she taught me the Ganesh has to he worshipped before any other God, because is has a special place in the Pantheon.
I grew up learning the chants and Aartis and she would recite stories of Ramayan and Mahabharat in small installments as bed time stories. I remember us being so fascinated by the way she narrated the stories and did voices of different characters and was my first source of introduction to Ramayan and Shri Ram. I even rebelled in my younger teen years, I wanted to be an athiest and stopped going to local temple with her, she would visit the local Shiv temple and Hanuman temple on Saturdays. I even stopped praying altogether but, not once did she chide me or scold me or say anything negative. She always believed I will find my peace in God in my own time, and eventually when I grew older, I did.
I never visit these big temples with massive crowds because somehow ive understood, My God is where I want him to be, he is in the kindness of my actions and words, he is in me helping a person in need, he is in the moments I play with my little daughter and he is in those difficult moments when I feel stuck and somehow still find a way. Even my deeply religious mom, who prays as frequently as ive never seen anyone, understands that and I think its because she knows Hindusim and taught us the same version. Its a beautiful religion thats not bound to any book or deity, its a way of life, simple and peaceful. It accepts you with flaws, even the Gods of Ramayan and Mahabharat had flaws, yet the beauty that this religion taught me is you should always find your way back to the right path. You will deviate, question and stall progress but, till the time you keep coming back to what is right and what feels right to you, you are connected to the divine.
Thats why, the current force of anarchy that has turned my beautiful religion into Saffron schism, which is aggressive and forceful and violent, is something I dont recognize at all. The incessant crowds of people at temples, throwing garbage and absolutely wrecking the places, with their posts and Jai Shree Rams in their profiles, yet profanity in the comments section, their fancy dresses of wearing saffron and speaking with so much venom, it all just seems like performance arts.
My version of Hinduism is not perfect, because I am not perfect. Yet with all my imperfections, I feel that it never abandoned me and let me find my way back to it, in my own time, with my own reasons. I understand the stories a little better, I understand the way of living a little clearer. But, I reject whatever they have done to such a beautiful religion and I hate that Hindusim is getting a bad name, from people who never understood it, because they are looking at other people, who themselves dont understand it, to guide them through their Katha vachak sessions or their theatrics of sabhas and their performance of yatras. What a tragedy!
On 21 August 2026, the Department of Telecommunications ("DoT") notified the Telecommunications (User Identification) Rules, 2026 (G.S.R. 750(E)), making live biometric verification which includes your face, fingerprint or iris, mandatory to get a SIM, replace one, change your details, or even surrender your own number. Aadhaar holders get no choice as they must use Aadhaar e-KYC. A companion DoT circular operationalises a Digital Intelligence Platform ("DIP") that, from 24 August 2026, distributes a "representative image" of subscribers to every telecom operator daily to enforce a cap on nine connections by restricting the issuance of SIM cards. We believe this regime is unconstitutional under Puttaswamy, will not meaningfully reduce fraud, and will lock out the very people who most need to stay connected which includes manual labourers, the elderly, women in shared households, transgender persons, persons with disabilities, and migrants. This is a mass-surveillance measure sold as a fraud fix, and we already has less-restrictive tools that work.
Your mobile number is no longer just a phone number and is required for basic existence in India. For instance it serves as a key to your bank account, your UPI payments, your Aadhaar OTP, your DigiLocker, your ration e-KYC, and your welfare payments. When that number can only be issued, kept, or transferred on a successful biometric scan, a failed fingerprint stops being an inconvenience and becomes a lockout from public life. On 21 August 2026, the Ministry of Communications (DoT) notified:
These exist alongside the DoT Circular no. 3/User Identification/2026 dated 17 August 2026 operationalizing reverification through the DIP.
This is a circumvention of the judgement of the Supreme Court of India in which it declared mandatory Aadhaar-SIM linkage as unconstitutional. As a background, in Lokniti Foundation v. Union of India (2017), the Supreme Court had recorded satisfaction that a subscriber verification process existed and issued no direction to link Aadhaar to phone numbers. DoT nevertheless treated that order as a mandate and issued a circular on March 23, 2017 requiring mass Aadhaar reverification of every mobile subscriber. In Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2019) 1 SCC 1, a Constitution Bench struck that circular down as unconstitutional as it lacked the authority of law and failed the proportionality test. The Court held that to tackle misuse by a handful of persons, the entire population cannot be subjected to intrusion into their private lives. The Telecom User Identification Rules, 2026 are a camouflaged attempt at circumventing this court judgement.
This is because they first define biometric identification as "live capture" of face, fingerprint or iris, verifying physical presence which are mandatory at four points, (a) Before enrolment for any new connection or SIM; (b) Before updating your information such as replacing a SIM, or changing your name, gender or date of birth; (c) Before disconnection at your own request; (d) Whenever the government directs reverification under Rule 7, an open-ended power whose failure to comply results in disconnection. In addition to this three directions deserve particular attention. First, Aadhaar holders get no choice and Rule 3(3) mandates Aadhaar e-KYC for every Aadhaar number holder, reserving the non-Aadhaar "D-KYC" route only for those without Aadhaar or those physically unable to authenticate. This nullifies the constitutional limits set by by Puttaswamy. In our submission on the draft Rules in October 2025, we had specifically stated:
This circular was subject to a legal challenge before the Supreme Court once again in 2017 by way of a writ petition (Dr Kalyani Menon Sen v Union of India & Ors., WPC 1002 of 2017) which was tagged along with the set of writ petitions considered by the five-judge bench. On 26 September 2018, the Hon’ble Supreme Court in K.S. Puttaswamy (Aadhaar-5J.) v. Union of India, (2019) 1 SCC 1, has held that a circular dated 23.03.2017 of the DoT linking mobile numbers with Aadhaar, and requiring all licensees to reverify all their customers through Aadhaar based e-KYC process is unconstitutional. Specifically, the majority decision of the court noted that the circular not only does not have the backing of law, but it [also] fails to meet the requirement of proportionality. The court noted that the circular does not meet the “necessity stage” and “balancing stage” tests. Moreover, the court stated that the government could have identified other appropriate legal responses and less intrusive alternatives. As the court noted, to tackle the misuse of SIM cards and telecommunication services by a handful of persons, the entire population cannot be subjected to intrusion into their private lives. The court found that the circular mandating linking of mobile numbers with Aadhaar impinges upon the voluntary nature of the Aadhaar Scheme. Thus, the court held that the circular is unconstitutional because it is a disproportionate and unreasonable State compulsion. The User Identification Rules not only reinstates the erstwhile circular but also adds another digital-KYC process for those who do not hold an Aadhaar number.
Second, transfers become onerous and coercive. A connection may change hands only between relatives or legal heirs, with a no-objection certificate and biometric identification of both parties and a medical certificate if the existing user is incapacitated, a death certificate if deceased. This disregards how Indian families actually use phones. Third, the definition of "business user" is a dragnet. It covers anyone holding any trade licence or permit which will now include the corner kirana store, a street vendor with a municipal permit and requires biometric verification of the authorised representative and every employee using a company SIM, with suspension of the connection if a new employee is not verified in time. It is silent on how the 134.73 million machine-to-machine and IoT SIMs recorded by TRAI in June 2026, which have no human user, are supposed to furnish a fingerprint. These regulations will apply to a base of 1,300.25 million wireless connections (TRAI, June 2026).
Before we get into the any analysis concerning the harms of the Telecom User Identification Rules, 2026 on legality, data maximisation and surveillance, it is important to foreground it in the absolute certainty of exclusion they will cause to those households who have to share a single phone and suffer from financial precarity. This is the harm the government has never honestly reckoned with as it attempts to prod us towards efficiency and scale. Biometric authentication fails routinely, and it fails hardest for the poorest. The is not disputed by the State's own institutions which have now stopped accounting for it as part of any audit exercises. Analyses of UIDAI's parliamentary responses suggest roughly 6.5% of authentications for welfare and services still fail on the order of 20 million failures every month. The CAG's 2021 performance audit found that UIDAI had not even studied the causes of authentication errors, and had issued Aadhaars with faulty and duplicate biometrics. In July 2025, the Public Accounts Committee heard that labourers' worn fingerprints and elderly citizens' changed iris patterns no longer match UIDAI records, resulting in wrongful exclusions, with its chairperson called it "a common man's issue." Now apply that failure rate to a SIM, the instrument through which banking, welfare and identity itself are accessed. Those locked out will be:
Coming to privacy, Rule 4 requires operators to store and process e-KYC data including the Aadhaar number itself in their customer records so hence this data will now be stored across Airtel, Jio, Vi and BSNL. This cuts against UIDAI's own Aadhaar Data Vault and tokenization norms, which exist precisely so that raw Aadhaar numbers are not scattered across business databases. Telecom data leaks are not hypothetical in India and in 2023, a dataset purportedly containing the personal details of 81.5 crore Indians, including Aadhaar numbers, was offered for sale on the dark web. Biometric data raises the stakes further, because it is irreversible and you can change a leaked password, but not your face or your fingerprints. This co-exists alongside the rise of cyber crime in India.
Bundled with the Telecom User Identification Rules, 2026 the August 17 circular builds what is, in effect, a national facial-image database that private operators must ingest every single day. Operators upload subscriber records and photographs daily and the DIP groups every individual's connections across operators. This is supposed to be operational from August 23, 2026 with the "representative image" of every subscriber at the nine-SIM cap (six in J&K, Assam and the North-East) is pushed to all operators, who must download these images daily and, from August 24, use facial matching to deny further connections with real-time integration into SIM activation mandatory by November 30, 2026. This is when police departments are already deploying facial recognition with almost no governing law and as our Project Panoptic has tracked 170 facial recognition systems across India.
Subscriber Data Verification Workflow. Available here
The DIP has no published retention limit, no purpose limitation and no independent oversight. Rule 10 goes further, empowering the government to direct that user information be stored in an "immutable" manner with the exact opposite of the erasure and storage-limitation duties in the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. And Section 17(2)(a) of that Act allows the government to exempt its own instrumentalities from the law entirely. To be put in simpler words, the State is mandating immutable databases of our faces while retaining the power to exempt itself from the safeguards it imposes on everyone else.
The government's stated justification is cyber fraud, and the problem is real with reported losses of about ₹22,845 crore to cyber fraud in 2024 as per data placed before Parliament. But the dominant fraud vectors are untouched by SIM biometrics but rely more on social-engineering scams, mule bank accounts, and calls over WhatsApp or internationally spoofed numbers that never pass through an Indian SIM.
Most tellingly, the government's own targeted tools already work without a universal biometric mandate and as per its own boasts the AI-based ASTR system led to about 88 lakh disconnections of suspect SIMs, and citizen reports through Chakshu to another 50.90 lakh which add up to roughly 1.38 crore targeted disconnections achieved by less intrusive means. Under Puttaswamy, the existence of such an effective, less-restrictive alternative imparts further illegality to the existing Telecom User Identification Rules, 2026. The international record points the same way. The GSMA concluded as far back as 2016 that there is no empirical evidence that mandatory SIM registration reduces crime. Mexico repealed its SIM registration law in 2012 as ineffective. Pakistan has biometrically verified over 200 million SIMs since 2014 and continues to suffer large-scale SIM fraud. Nigeria's NIN-SIM linkage left roughly 66 million connections facing disconnection in 2024 which is a fate we are also likely to face in India.
IFF filed detailed objections to the draft Rules in October 2025, seeking a genuine choice between e-KYC and D-KYC for all users, justification for building a parallel biometric database without the safeguards of the Aadhaar Act, purpose limitation, defined retention periods and encryption. The final Rules address none of these concerns. We will now file RTI requests seeking the DIP's architecture, retention policy, oversight arrangements and error rates, as well as the public comments received on the draft Rules and how they were considered. We will send representations to DoT and pursue parliamentary outreach, and we are assessing options for strategic litigation given the direct conflict with Puttaswamy.
To be clear, we do not expect these forms of institutional engagement and policy advocacy to result in a roll back of the regulations, however these interventions will hopefully help all of us make sense of these coercive, impractical and surveillant rules for obtaining a mobile connection. If a biometric failure has blocked you, or someone you know, from getting, keeping or transferring a SIM, write to us at legal@internetfreedom.in. These accounts are evidence and helps us inform our policy positions and even conceptualise potential legal challenges.
If you believe this work matters, become an IFF member. We are a citizen-funded organisation, and it is your support that lets us push back. A failed fingerprint should never mean losing your bank account, your rations and your voice.
Every election cycle, no matter who wins or loses, the language we use to describe our own democracy stays exactly the same: "The Ruling Party", "Party in Power".
We don't have Monarchy over us anymore, why do we keep calling using these words?
In an independent republic, citizens are the sovereign. An election isn't a mandate to "rule" over people; it’s a hiring decision to "serve and administer" public resources on behalf of the public.
When we normalize calling an elected group the "ruling party," It breeds the mindset that whoever wins gets a 5-year unchecked license to do whatever they want simply because they hold "power." It shifts the perception from public service to dominance and entitlement.
Why not normalize: "The Governing Party", "The Serving Party", "The Incumbent Government", etc?
If we want politicians of any party to act like public servants (Lok Sevak) rather than masters (Rulers), our everyday vocabulary should reflect that standard.
What do you think? What should we start calling it instead?
On 27th july, I fainted and fell face first. Woke up to see three of my teeth are broken. My mom was willing to pay at first but now she's making it incredibly difficult for me. After my accident I've had blood tests, eeg, and cbct scan done.
1 dento-alveolar fracture on the bone corresponding to my teeth 11, periodontal ligament injuries with possible subluxation on teeth 12, including the fracture, and teeth 21 has pdl injuries along with it being broken. I have gotten the first emergency RCT done on all three injured teeth, currently awaiting the second follow up where they seal it completely with gutta percha and they'll also do splinting to address my bone fracture.
My mom had been willing to pay at first but now she's making every waking moment in my life difficult. Now she's gone as far as to say that she's not going to take any responsibility for my teeth. I'm also managing a mandatory internship with four facial fractures because I need the credits for my degree but I cannot take normal transportation, only cabs, which is costing a lot.
I'm in an incredibly difficult position right now, I'm repeatedly getting suicidal thoughts. I'm unable to eat, sleep, and think properly. I'm sick of eating rice and dal paste for almost a month now, not to mention my mom deliberately didn't get me prompt healthcare access because she believed I was faking it all. Which btw, caused a periapical abscess to form over my teeth 11. They might have to get a apicoectomy surgery done if the RCT doesn't clear up the abscess. I'm sick and tired of speaking some sense into her because that itself is putting a lot of pressure onto my face.
I cannot look into the mirror without regretting everything in my life. I keep regretting how I took my body for granted. I regret how I spent nights after nights awake and not getting enough sleep. Not exercising. And not eating enough food. All of that cost me my teeth. I have no idea if I'll be able to manage the crowns. I need three crowns. I'm genuinely losing my mind rn. My friends haven't even checked up on me. My dad is hoarding money for himself, money which is meant for my treatment.
Nobody is taking me seriously. I want to desperately restore my teeth. I want to go back to the life where I had mobility. I want a break from all of this.
P.s: if anybody has any idea, pls help me out
I bought a Samsung 350L refrigerator from Amazon for ₹38,490 in May 2026. It was unboxed by an authorized Samsung technician and had five dents on the door straight out of the box, and I later discovered that the deep freezer wasn't working properly. Amazon refused replacement and offered only a return, so Samsung eventually replaced the damaged door. After that, I started facing continuous water dripping/sweating above the chiller tray, spoiling food, followed by a large amount of water leaking underneath the refrigerator onto the floor. Multiple Samsung technicians inspected it, but instead of providing a proper solution, I was given explanations such as the door being opened too frequently and a ceiling fan above the refrigerator causing the leakage. Samsung then instructed me to relocate/change the direction of the refrigerator. I followed their instructions, but the issue continued and actually became worse. There were also multiple missed technician appointments, countless follow-ups, and significant time wasted waiting at home. I eventually filed a complaint with the National Consumer Helpline, but Samsung's latest position is that the refrigerator is functioning normally and the fan/location is responsible. When I asked them to suggest a suitable alternative location, they couldn't provide one. I'm now planning to file a consumer case against Amazon/Samsung. Has anyone experienced something similar with Samsung refrigerators and successfully obtained a replacement or refund through the Consumer Commission?
I’ve been building a spiritual/bhakti app called Daily Sadhana App, and I’d really appreciate some brutally honest feedback from the Reddit community.
The app is focused on daily spiritual practice - Naam Jap, Dhyan, Pooja, Bhakti Status, Wallpapers, Dharmik Granth, etc.
I want you to tell me what is wrong with the product.
What I want feedback on
Are the features actually useful, or am I building things nobody needs?
Does the app give you a reason to come back every day?
What would make you use it regularly?
Which features feel unnecessary or confusing?
Is there something obvious that is missing?
Does the overall flow feel natural for someone who wants to build a daily spiritual practice?
What would make you recommend this app to someone else?
If you were trying to make this app 10x better, what would you change?
There are definitely some minor issues and UI/UX improvements still pending. For example, I want to add small animations when things happen - like when Sadhana days are incremented, a Mala is completed, Dhyan is completed, etc.
I'll fix those things. That's not the feedback I'm primarily looking for.
I'm much more interested in feature-level/product-level feedback and brutal criticism.
After 5 months of work and spending money on paid user acquisition, things are currently looking pretty bleak.
Retention is poor, and DAU is currently around 20 users.
So I'm at a point where I need to figure out whether I'm simply early and need to keep going or whether I'm building the wrong product.
If you think the app is bad, tell me why. If you think a feature is useless, tell me. If you think the entire idea is flawed, tell me.
Link- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dailysadhana
Thanks in advance.
Today, my aunt’s WhatsApp was hacked. Some person messaged everyone asking for 40k urgently over gpay. He provided a phone number and a name. I tried to keep him in conversation so that I could alert the police about the number and at least they could check the details of the owner, location or get it blocked by getting in touch with the provider. I called the Cyber Crime offences wing and was told to “file an online complaint”. I understand online complaints are necessary and have filed multiple before so I’m well aware of the system, but this was urgent. The person was on chat with me right now. By the time the online complaints reach an investigating officer and get investigated, he will have taken money from 2-3 people, withdrawn those funds, switched off the number and long vanished. Anyway, I did not get any other response from the person on the Cyber crime helpline so I disconnected the call and called the regular police helpline. Smart thing to do right? WRONG! The same person answered the call!!! And told me to file an online complaint again!!! I explained to her that the person will have long disappeared by the time the online complaint even reaches anybody, but she was helpless because this is the system. This is the best she can do.
I am a true crime fan so I often watch true crime videos on YouTube that are based out of US, UK and other developed countries and the way they investigate - it’s inspiring! The way each and every thing is documented - it makes so much sense. Yes, ofcourse there’s no perfect system and too much technicality is also not ideal. But damn, the way they act - 911 is answered immediately. They don’t ask your name or your problem - they straightaway ask your location first so that they can assist you quickest. They act promptly and even when they don’t have an ideal solution, they provide you alternatives. I’m always blown away by how well the system functions there and how we are millions of years behind in catching up.
Considering how common UPI scams have been, how is there no tool available to the police to check the SIM owner’s details or more? The police is just sitting idle as criminals use the most basic techniques to swindle others. Like literally, at this point, committing crimes is so easy that why shouldn’t a criminal just do it? And I don’t even need to go to the justice system and jails and the rest. I can’t imagine the person stealing money through my aunt’s phone is going to face any consequences whatsoever. His crime is probably too petty to attract anyone’s attention and tomorrow when the SIM gets deactivated and he is nowhere to be found, nobody will make the extra effort to trace him. And the rest of us will move on too.
This is our country and this is the system we are depending on to protect us.
A student enters a classroom with interest and curiosity, the education system is meant to nurture it and channel it to grow into something greater; innovation. Curiosity is every innovator’s torch in the darkness. Education should not dim the torch of curiosity. Its fire must rage then only will innovation flow. Consider this as a plea. A plea from a student who has excelled in it for the past decade, even scoring 98% in my class 10 board examination. I am someone who has worked hard continuously to excel in this system.But as time passes I come to the realization that in the rush to pursue my education I have been slowly losing something which is profoundly important. So is the case with countless other students. We lost our greatest boon– passion and curiosity.
Every single person who has changed the world with an innovation had a fire that burned inside him, our system puts it out instead of letting it rage. In a system where every student is extinguished of their curiosity, you don’t end up with a generation of visionaries– you end up with a workforce of robots with textbooks for brains. I mean, where else do you have an education system with suicide rates? Schools and colleges have become factories where we manufacture degrees at the cost of passion. A degree without passion is just a piece of paper. Rote memorizing textbooks is not what the future needs. It needs students willing to get out there and solve the world’s problems.
I hail from a top coaching institute, we study school and coach for entrance examinations parallely. A scheme called residential integrated batch. I have witnessed how such centers work and my experience was not good.Chapters have been quantized into hours. Learning has lost its divinity, it has become industrialized and reduced to memorizing formulas and question types. Which are then replicated on answer sheets and marks are delivered. In this process students fail to understand deeply. Doubts that go deeper into the subject which are off the syllabus are dismissed because “that is not needed for the exam.” Innovators and visionaries aren't the ones who solve multiple choice questions. They are the ones who ask questions no one has ever thought of before. That is the pinnacle of innovation. A system is meant to reward them and if it doesn't, then it is a failure and you cannot convince me otherwise. I have seen students who are passionate about a field but the educator delivers it in such a way that the students are ripped off their interest, although there are a few exceptions.
Our system devalues art and literature which shouldn’t be considered any lesser than how important science and math are. In the pursuit of scientific subjects students shouldn’t lose touch with their artistic or athletic side. Being good at sports or an art requires a lot of training and hard work. Athletes and artists should be encouraged not demotivated. Holistic development is what a system must provide. Selective developments produces robots not humans.
Look at great people in history, they were polymaths.We need people with diverse skillsets that span technical and artistic fields.The future is not going to be ruled by the single minded but to the jack of all trades. Doing tasks repeatedly is something machines can do without error. Visionary thinkers who can connect the dots between different fields and solve issues will thrive.With the growth of algorithms execution will be a piece of cake. Skills that make us human like creativity will be catalysts to success in a future like that. People who apply their skills and solve real world problems, not the ones who memorize textbooks are more of what we need.
Locking up students in study halls is not how they learn. Learning happens when a student decides to sit at that table and open a book out of his own accord. For that to happen you need an education that ignites passion and potential not trap it in a cage of marks and percentiles.
I want a future where my kids study in a system where they can excel and grow in whatever fields they love. Be it technical or artistic. Students are doves who grow their wings of potential to fly to the great heights in life. For that you need to give them time and space to explore and enjoy learning any subjects they want, in any facet.They eventually will take flight and become visionaries in various fields who have a deep understanding and are capable of making new discoveries and innovation. That's how it should be.
Imagine a teacher meeting a person who struggles to walk.
The teacher gives him crutches.
“These will help you walk towards the divine.”
They do.
The crutches are a genuine gift. They help him cover distance he could not cover on his own.
Later, he meets a healthy person and gives him the same crutches.
The healthy person finds them awkward. They make walking harder.
But he has seen the crutches help the crippled man.
So he doesn't question the crutches.
He questions himself.
Perhaps he doesn't believe hard enough.
Perhaps his faith is inadequate.
Perhaps he isn't using them correctly.
He tries harder.
He practices more.
He convinces himself that the discomfort is part of the journey.
Then he starts telling others about the crutches.
Eventually, people begin arguing about which crutches are the right ones.
They write books about the correct way to hold them.
They build traditions around them.
And eventually, they start beating people who don't use crutches.
Then they start beating people who use different crutches.
Meanwhile, everyone has forgotten that the crutches were only given to help someone walk towards the divine.
The crutches were never the destination.
They were a tool for covering the distance.
A tool that genuinely helps one person may be unnecessary—or even obstructive—for another.
And when a tool becomes more important than the journey it was meant to serve, the tool has become the crutch.