In India, we have a 5000 year old deep seated reverence for knowledge. This is actually quite different from the American tradition of “anti-intellectualism”, where mocking intellectual “eggheads” is very common. Given our tradition, a revolt by writers and academics against Modi sarkar should have really dug deep into the national conscience. In the last few months, I have sensed that the shifts in Indian society are coming to the fore. It’s simply not happening…the Lutyens cabal of “intellectuals” simply isn’t getting the kind of traction they expected among the general public. The Akademi might have revolted against Modi, but the public has revolted against the Akademi.
Yes, it’s sticking. The charge of selective outrage is sticking. If anything, this AwardWapsi drama has caused these unknown “great writers” to come into the news for the first time. And people are realizing the level of these undeserving jokers who got awards from the patronage network for their bootlicking. For the first time, liberals are having to respond to charges of selective outrage. Previously Hindu victims would be ignored with a condescending smile. Now Rajdeep has to come out and explicitly tell us why Prashant Poojary does not matter. As I said before, this is a fantastic development. Let them explain in detail why Hindus lives don’t matter. It’s good for the Hindu right.
Earlier this month, there was an article The Wire “debunking” the charge of selective outrage:
http://thewire.in/2015/10/09/the-right-wing-and-the-myth-of-selective-outrage-12819/
The name of the article is “The Right Wing and the myth of selective outrage“. And yesterday, Troll put out a similar article “debunking” the claims of bias:
http://www.scroll.in/article/764718/a-few-questions-for-modis-whataboutery-fans
This is excellent. This means that the charges are sticking and the liberals know it. They know they stayed silent all these years while the Congress plundered the country, imposed Emergency, snatched our freedoms, oversaw countless riots in which thousands died. And people are now asking questions about the sudden awakening of the liberal conscience. It’s not just “Bhakts” or right wingers, it’s people in general. And the liberals are having to respond. This is actually a major cultural victory in itself. The liberal narrative is NOT going by unchallenged! Not any longer.
Now let us see what weak sauce this idiot has for us to make excuses for liberals being so soft on the Congress. The author, one Urvish Kothari, begins thus:
“In India, there has always been a question mark on the motivations and quality of what passes for public debate on matters of public interest. But never before has this debate been as corrosive as it is in today’s poisonous environment created by the venomous ideology and brutal brazenness of the Modi government.”
Yes, we know. The problem is that the “debate” has become two sided, with the other side now having a chance to open its mouth. When you are used to sitting on a high throne and barking orders to a crowd kneeling in front of you, people standing up and asking questions feels like “brutal brazenness”. Next thing you know, they will say start saying that disagreeing with the liberals falls under freedom of expression… the horror!
“Truth be told, there is not a single crime or impropriety in the political history of independent India whose initiation could be blamed on the Bharatiya Janata Party alone. Not one. All the scourges we deplore so much today were unleashed during the various rules of the Congress, especially during Indira Gandhi’s time – casteism, communalism (under the veil of secularism), the Emergency, the bubble of garibi hatao, corruption, scams, personality cult, the curse of dynastic politic, and ultimately the Sikh genocide.”
Thanks for the candid confession! By starting these words with “Truth be told”, you are giving off the attitude of “we did it, so what?” Well, when you know it’s the truth, why weren’t you proclaiming this from the rooftops in the last six decades? Why utter the truth finally now as a disclaimer before commencing your BJP bashing? Nevertheless, I am glad that the liberal elite has been cornered enough to be telling the truth, even as a disclaimer.
“To propagate, however, that the intellectuals of that time had maintained a studious silence and turned a nelson’s eye to the establishment’s excesses is wholly disingenuous. Yes, the intensity or the magnitude of the protests might not have been the same as today.”
More confessions! I actually like this guy 🙂 Now let’s taste the weak sauce he has to offer in terms of excuses:
“The eminent Gujarati author Manubhai “Darshak” Pancholi had warned about the excesses of the Congress in his celebrated novel Socrates and public speeches even before the Emergency was declared….It was during the same Congress regime’s term that poet, scholar and writer Umashankar Joshi emerged as a stalwart of Gujarat’s public discourse and a fierce opponent of the anti-democratic forces…Besides them, myriad other intellectuals stood up to be counted during the Navnirman agitation against corruption in the 1970s as well as during Jayaprakash Narayan’s Bihar movement.”
That’s it? That’s all you got? That there were a handful of people who protested even back then? Of course there will always be a handful of intellectuals who criticized the Congress at some point or the other over 6 decades! But, where was the mass uprising of the Sahitya Akademi back then? How come the magnitude of protest over some random, unrelated crimes in last 16 months is larger than major events such as the Emergency, the 1984 riots, Bhagalpur riots, Kashmiri Pandit exodus?
“The curtain on the Indira Gandhi era fell with her assassination in 1984. It would do well to remind ourselves that even during that time, the intellectuals were not tight-lipped – not even when Rajiv Gandhi uttered his grossly insensitive statement “When a big tree falls, the earth shakes” in the wake of the Sikh pogrom. Organisations such as the People’s Union for Civil Liberties submitted a meticulous report on the massacre.”
Wow…this is the definition of desperately scraping the bottom of the barrel! You are talking of one of India’s biggest riots and all you could find is that not everyone was “tight-lipped” and some organization prepared a report somewhere. THAT’s your defense? Has any Emergency been imposed in the last sixteen months? Has there been any genocide of any community like in 1984? Have 1000 innocent people been slaughtered in two days as in Bhagalpur? Have lakhs of people been ordered to leave their state as the government looked the other way? Here you have intellectuals getting verbal diarrhea over a stone thrown into a church… You take to newspapers and TV channels everyday to criticize Modi loudly for everything from his foreign trips to why he was a victim of a child marriage. And then you talk of “undeclared emergency”
The author continues:
“Given that the Congress was the original sinner in almost every aspect of governance, the BJP had the luxury of indulging in as much aggressive whataboutism as was organisationally possible before it came to power.”
Yes….the Congress atrocities certainly made the BJP’s path to power easy. I will give you that. Why complain? Why not ask the Congress why they committed those sins instead of blaming the BJP for being able to capitalize on them?
“However, despite being perfectly in step with the Congress, the BJP overachieved its objectives. A party which originated from street rhetoric and a toxic mindset against Gandhi, Muslims and Christians outdid itself on brazenness. For instance, the Congress did not exactly take out a yatra on the back of the 1984 genocide. Narendra Modi, however, had no qualms doing so after the Gujarat riots.”
Finally, the crying liberal heart is unable to withhold its pain! The BJP originated from “street rhetoric”? I am glad the BJP originated from “street rhetoric” and not the power corridors of Lutyens Delhi where Jawaharlal Nehru eagerly agreed to divide the country and lose 3 million lives so that he could become Prime Minister as soon as possible. And you talk about brazenness? Do you remember the brazenness with which Nehru passed a Constitutional Amendment to remove free speech because the RSS mouthpiece Organizer had dared to criticize him? The declaration of the Emergency was not brazen enough for you? The kicking out of SC judges by Indira Gandhi so that fundamental rights could be suspended was not brazen enough for you? Changing the law to quash the SC decision on Shah Bano was not brazen enough for you? Only Narendra Modi seems brazen… ha!
We know where the shoe really pinches. You are angry that the BJP “overachieved it’s objectives”. It should have stayed on the street, no? At best it should have got a few votes and then made a deal with the Dynasty. Exactly what all the other parties have done:
SP, BSP, RJD, JDU, RLD, CPIM, CPI, NCP, TMC…
But your problem is that the BJP “overachieved”. Instead of striking a peace with the Gandhis, it decided to uproot their dominance. And they succeeded.
Oh…and don’t tell us we have a toxic mindset against Gandhi, Christians and Muslims. In fact, we learned “whataboutism” from the Christians. Remember that Jesus said “let he who has never sinned throw the first stone”…. Jesus himself, the son of God, gave us the principle of whataboutism. Happy now 🙂 ?
dynastycrooks 