Riots are like nucleus events in India’s politics. A lot of it is conducted as if in a lead-up to them, and a lot of it flows from those periodic cataclysms, as a consequence. Politicians are naturally interested in their ebb and flow, like investors tracking stockmarket indices. A curious ambivalence marked that day, February 24, at the grandiose but unusually deserted BJP headquarters in Delhi. The few mid-level leaders present were glued to the television, watching the Modi-Trump bonhomie fill the air at Ahmedabad’s Motera stadium. Then the channel broke for ‘other headlines’. Chiefly, the violence in northeast Delhi. At the centre of all the news then: a small-time Delhi party leader called Kapil Mishra.