A chat show host who has spent decades trying and failing to become India’s version of Oprah Winfrey recently denounced Meghan Markle minutes after the latter’s record-breaking interview aired in the UK. She wrote off all her responses and said she didn’t believe a word of what the former princess had to say about racism, her mental health, or relationships with the British royal family. Naturally, these opinions were not based on facts, because they would only get in the way. Markle was not, to my knowledge, a close friend of the television personality. Yet, pronouncements were made with authority, and outraged tweets responded to with condescension.

Thousands of other Indians jumped in on the action, analysing the monarchy, sharing their views on Markle, her husband and child, and doing this in the unselfconscious manner that defines how millions of us engage with the world on social media. If there is something happening to someone, somewhere on Earth, we feel a strange obligation to comment on it irrespective of whether it affects us or not.