Quite often—no, delete that—very often, a good psychologist, especially the expensive kind who has a couch and not just a chair, goes deep into a patient’s past. “Tell me about your childhood,” they murmur soothingly, while you clutch a tissue and recall how someone snatched your lollipop in class three. There’s crying, some nose-blowing, and maybe even an “Aha!” moment. And once the patient realises that the trauma is from yesterday’s cricket match and not today’s board meeting, there’s healing. Clarity. A decision to finally let go of that lollipop incident and pick up life again.

Now imagine a psychologist who doesn’t want you healed. Who keeps you stewing in your old pain. Who interrupts your “I’m feeling better now” moment with, “But remember that time in 1498…?” What would you call such a person? Cruel? Cunning? Clever? Devious?

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the present Indian politician.

Because if there’s one profession that has mastered the art of psychological sabotage, it’s him or her. Especially today, where a certain political group has made it their life’s mission to not move the nation forward—but to keep rewinding us like an old cassette tape of pain, played again and again.

The Mughals, they whisper ominously, did this to you. The British exploited you. The Portuguese converted you. And you sit there, fork mid-air, wondering whether your chicken biryani is a national insult.

It’s a strategy so devilishly simple, you’ve got to admire the mischief. Why focus on healthcare when you can rename the hospital road outside? Why invest in education when you can revise history textbooks? Why fill potholes when you can fill people’s minds with 500-year-old grudges?

The past does matter. Not to be imprisoned by it.

And this constant harping on history? It’s beginning to look less like patriotism and more like pathology.

Imagine if the USA, after breaking away from Britain, decided to rename every “George” and “Charles” road, banned English breakfasts, and made cricket illegal.

No Beatles. No Bond. No Beckham.

And yet today, America and Britain are the best of friends. Trade partners. Cultural siblings. Two nations that found closure—and moved on.

But not us.

We’re stuck in a psychological time warp, where revenge for an emperor who died centuries ago trumps clean water, lasting bridges, or affordable onions.

And the sad part is, it’s working.

The more sick and angry we are, the more votes they get.

But here’s the thing. No good psychologist can cure a patient who refuses to stop scratching their old wounds.

So maybe it’s time we the people became the wiser ones.

Time we stepped out of the therapist’s waiting room, told the doctor-politician, “Thank you, but I’d like to live in the present now,” and get on with building a future.

Because if we don’t, we will be looked at as ‘damaged goods’, while the rest of the world runs past on the road we just renamed…!

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