India, May 5 -- Every morning, as the sun peeps over our confused democracy, a silent war begins. Not at our borders, not in Parliament, but in the palm of your hand - yes, that unassuming rectangle known as your smartphone. While I sip my coffee and reach for my newspapers, elsewhere, warriors have already launched their first attack of the day.

Welcome, dear reader, to the battlefield of the WhatsApp War.

Here, generals don't wear stars on their shoulders but have profile pictures of lions, hands, lotuses, or some spiritual guru with a suspiciously smug expression. They don't march in formation, but they do march forward - or rather, they forward, with relentless zeal. Their fingers, calloused not from farming or factory work but from...