While it is convenient to assume that this voter is primarily urban, what we are seeing across Uttar Pradesh is a voter who is keen to get a move on and feel like they are being held back by traditional notions of propriety.

Convinced that the only way to fix a broken system is to completely destroy it and rebuild it from the ground up, they are attracted to radical rhetoric. And they refuse to believe someone isn’t at fault – a previous generation, a different social group, the rich, the poor, the educated, the uneducated – everyone is fair game in this search for someone to blame.

A sub-section presents impressively cogent arguments on forums like Reddit, Bharat Rakshak and Quora, arguing that years of apathy by Congress governments in particular has led to this situation. This argument has many takers and some substance.