When I speak of hope, I speak from a position of naivete.

I'm not the relative by marriage who spent a year in Kashmir's most infamous detention centre because - at a doctor at a public hospital he treated all the patients that came, as he was legally supposed to do.

I'm not the aunt who was shot at by the goons of one of India's most powerful politicians, whose guard was murdered as she and others hid in fear, who fought a long case for years until the threats became too dangerous.

I'm not the relative by marriage who, returning from tuitions, ran at the sound of a bomb straight into the arms of a paramilitary unit who took him to a graveyard and were beating him to a pulp when a police unit happened on the scene by chance.

I'm not the uncle who left his job at one of India's most prestigious infrastructure companies because during the Bombay pogrom he was told by his supervisor not to come in because he wasn't safe from his fellow workers.

I'm not the cousins called out of their house in Kanpur in the 90s and then arrested for thus "breaking curfew" by the PAC and tortured for a day in the same jurisdiction our uncle had been the Deputy Inspector General of Police not long before.

I am not the long list of people I know who have been wrongfully incarcerated, tortured or murdered.

I have only faced a little harassment, a little violence, a little denial of service, nothing that has impacted my life.

I understand that when I speak of hope this may be offensive to those whose hopes have been shattered.

I apologise. I cannot speak on your behalf.

Still I hope, because that's the only way I know that has a possibility of a better tomorrow.