1. Do you want to come across as a secular, broad minded, progressive and Adarsh liberal individual in India?
2. Are you a journalist and would like to work for left-leaning news channels like India Today or NDTV? Or do you want to work for newspapers like The Hindu or Indian Express?
3. Do you want to someday be known as an intellectual in the mainstream media and elite circles in India?
4. Do you want to come across as a sympathizer of the supposedly oppressed classes like Dalits and Muslims without actually having to do any real work for them?
If your answer to any of the above questions is ‘Yes’, then there are a few principles that you need to understand and abide by. Prominent personalities like Rajdeep Sardesai, Barkha Dutt, Sagarika Ghose, Nidhi Razdan, Shobha De, Rana Ayyub, Ashok Vajpeyi, Brinda Grover, Arundhati Roy, Teesta Setalwad, Shruti Seth, Kavita Krishnan, Amartya Sen and many more are virtually making a living because of their staunch adherence to the below principles.
Secular
Anyone who is anti-Hinduism and pro-all other religions (especially Islam) is secular. At every possible opportunity, you must learn the art of speaking out against Hinduism and projecting it as a regressive religion. You must learn to criticize every Hindu festival from Diwali (causes air and noise pollution), Ganesh Chaturthi (water pollution and public inconvenience), Karva Chauth (you can call it regressive and anti-women), Rakshabandhan (it projects ladies as weaklings and their brothers as protectors), but you mustn’t speak a word about Bakrid. You must raise a voice against ghar wapsi, but must ignore conversion tactics employed by Christian missionaries. You must raise your voice against women not being allowed to enter Sabarimala, Shani Shingnapur temple etc but mustn’t speak about Haji Ali. You must celebrate Muslim tyrants like Aurangzeb and Tipu Sultan, who have committed crimes against the Hindus. You can accuse anyone who speaks out against these rulers of being communal. Needless to say, you must oppose any proposal for a Uniform Civil Code and say that minorities must be given special privileges that the majority does not deserve to have.
Adarsh Liberal
To be a Adarsh liberal, you need to back any individual who talks against the BJP/RSS even if the individual makes anti-national comments, is a pro-separatist, is a pro-naxalite or has a problem with our national flag and national anthem. When there are provocative statements being made by the co-Adarsh liberal s, you can easily justify it by covering it up as ‘Freedom of expression’. But when there are reactions to it by your enemies, you can call them various names like blind bhakts, sanghi trolls, internet Hindus etc. If you are good at organizing events, you can go ahead and organize beef festivals or pro-Afzal cultural events. Ghazal concerts by Ghulam Ali or any book launch by a Pakistani must be treated as a golden opportunity to prove your Adarsh liberal credentials. There will be voices raised against such events by emotional fools and you can speak up against those illeberal voices. Whenever a terrorist is being hung, you must express your disagreement with the principle of capital punishment and sign petitions for keeping them alive. Every now and them, you can crib about how MF Hussain was unceremoniously thrown out of the country by right-wingers. Never mind he made crude paintings of Hindu goddesses. That’s his freedom of expression.
Intolerance
This is very simple. Whenever there is even an unproven crime against a Muslim or a Dalit (actually you don’t even need a crime, suicides are enough as we recently witnessed in Hyderabad), you must make it out to be engineered by Modi and RSS and then you can go on and on about how the instances of intolerance are on the rise. Never mind if such instances happen in non BJP-ruled states, but Modi is still responsible. You will get plenty of support from a lot of Sahitya Academy award winners, Bollywood superstars, historians, leftist politicians and also some foolish motor mouths from the BJP like Yogi Adityanath, Sadhvi Niranjan and some of the Shiv Sena thugs. Yes, it is a fact that people from RSS or VHP like Sujith and Prashant Poojary would also be murdered, but you can choose to conveniently ignore them. It doesn’t matter that whenever there are natural calamities, RSS volunteers are the first to extend their help. The bottom line is, they are intolerant right wing extremists and nothing can change that.
Intellectual
To be an intellectual who is loved by the leftists, it is not enough if you have done well in any of the following fields like literature, science or economics. If you have won any award in the past (doesn’t matter if 90% people in the country do not know you’ve won such an award), you must return it at an opportune time (you can claim it back later though) and blame Modi and RSS for your decision to return the award. Any stray incident that happens in any part of the country is reason enough to return an award. If you have not won any award, the other alternative is to write something or make provocative statements against Modi or Hinduism. There will surely be reactions to your writing or statements. The mainstream media will then help you in playing victim card and say that there is intolerance against intellectuals. That way, you would also end up in being an intellectual.
Vendetta
Whenever there are court cases against any politician who is not from the BJP or when there are raids by the CBI on a non-BJP politician/secretary, you can shout political vendetta. The fact that these politicians indulged in big-time corruption and swindled crores and crores of money doesn’t matter. Even if the cases were filed by someone who wasn’t associated with the BJP, it is still political vendetta. It is okay if the parliament is stalled and important legislations are stuck. Modi and the RSS are hell-bent on targeting parties that have a different ideology.
Fascist
Till date, the world has produced only two fascists. One is Adolf Hitler and the other is Narendra Modi. Emergency was imposed by Indira Gandhi, but she was not a fascist. It is this fascist Modi government that killed Akhlaq and Rohith Vemula. It is this fascist government that is responsible for not entertaining free speech in the JNU and other universities in the country. It is this fascist government that is responsible for any killing or suicide in any part of the country.