Dear Sagarika Ji,
I read your views in the Times of India dated 20th July, 2016 article titled “Are Liberals soft on terror?” You have touched some really amazing ideas of how better ideas can defeat bad ideas. But I had to go through 11 paragraphs of anti-central rhetoric to actually find one idea that actually addresses the problem you are claiming to address.
Your ideas are what is by and large wrong with the “liberal” class of this nation. All you tried to do is bash “nationalists” and question the approach towards treatment of “separatists”. When did “liberal” start meaning “anti-establishment”? Ma’am, I am an engineer. Nothing turns me on more than facts and logics. Abstract sensationalism doesn’t excite me anymore.
Sagarika Ji You, who claim to belong to the so called “liberal” class of this nation, like all other not-self-certified liberals believe that the only way forward is taking a modern and pragmatic approach towards all the aspects that affect our life.
Even you will agree that the west has been significantly successful in materializing this approach into a better way of living life. Have you ever tried to wonder why has it been so? Why is that Iran, before the 1979 revolution was the epitome of “liberty” and “freedom”? Well, the west started dating “science” and “reason”, while the Middle East and the east are still flirting with religion. The renaissance came calling into the Christian world as early as the 14th century.
Christianity and Islam both call for consolidation Sagarika Ji, preaching and “spreading the idea” rhetoric. The Europeans were going through that phase and that era is still regarded as the “dark ages”. That is what the Middle East is still going through. I was at a literature festival earlier this year, and at a session on “next Islamic revolution in the region”, an elected member of the Iranian govt., said, “We at Iran are disillusioned at the idea of Islam being the solution to all the problems. Because we have had Islam for thousands of years, yet we still have problems.”
Trying to look at the bigger picture is what an actual “liberal” does. You might question the handling of separatists or separatist sympathizers but, you have not utilized the platform you have to spread ideas that may bring harmony. All you did was romanticize the idea of taking on the central establishment as if it were to make you immortal in the pages of history. As I have explained what can actually tackle Radical Islam is an actual renaissance in the religion and the religion.
Sagarika Ji, Yes there were liberals, who were killed by ISIS in Dhaka. But there are also not-self-certified liberals like me who criticize Adityanath, Sadhvi prachi, Nirmal Baba etc. Yet the difference between me and you is that I, while travelling in a City bus at 8 in the morning to go to my coaching classes can criticize Adityanath and Afzal; Maya Kodnani and Kanhaiya Kumar; Aseemanand and Burhan Wani; all in the same breath. But you, while sipping coffee at your plush apartment in some posh locality of Delhi or Mumbai find it really difficult to criticize the “latters”.
Sagarika Ji, You have relentlessly argued that the approach is wrong. But, not once, have you actually explained an alternative way. I have read numerous articles by numerous people in that space, you used to carry forward your perpetual rhetoric today. Most of them, if not all, have utilized the last few paragraphs to present a solution to the problem they have addressed. Merely, crying foul over anything and everything is what a 6 year old child does, when denied a toffee. Politics and administration is a lot different from philosophy, where you can get away by merely discussion.
This is not a “SATSANG” or a “Zakir Naik’s session” Sagarika Ji, where you can go about romanticizing your “agendas” without substantiating them with facts, rather than helping with a solution.”
Sincerely
Me,
And Sagarika Ji, I don’t want your certification to be called a liberal
In response to Sagarika’s article on Are liberals soft on terror? No, the liberl stands for zero tolerance for terror, as well as for hate