Whenever a person feels his relevance threatened, his once unchallenged position of reverence questioned, he often resorts to unfounded allegations and assertions way off the mark to regain some semblance of his former prominence.
With the rise of the right-wing all over the world, liberals and progressives have discovered that the masses have finally come to their senses and no longer care about their opinion and treat the narrative they try to build with utter disregard and disdain.
They increasingly feel that they’re losing control of the situation and hence are going even more berserk in their attempts to regain the pedestal they’ve been dethroned from.
One such person is our very own Ramchandra Guha. Famous Modi-basher and a disgruntled liberal, Mr. Guha speaking ahead of the launch of his book, ‘Democrats and Dissenters‘ , assumed the tone of a pompous know-it-all that is the hallmark of a liberal.
Ramchandra Guha says, Indian pluralism is facing one of its “greatest threats” from religious chauvinists who remain committed to undermine it. This is perfectly in line with the liberal narrative of an apocalyptic meltdown every time conservative forces gain power.
Liberals view conservatives as an existential threat and in their eyes, conservatives are the ‘Great Other’ and they’re the reason behind everything that’s wrong with current circumstances and the world would be a much better place if we could simply round up all conservatives in concentration camps.
The liberal bias urges them to paint an apocalyptic picture of circumstances whenever conservatives are in power and in their eyes, the world was a lalala land filled with Oompa Loompas whenever liberals dominated the corridors of power.
For the majority of Indians, nothing much has changed since 2014, except for the fact that there’s a new sort of hope in the air. Hope of a better future, hope of better times and for the first time in a long long time, people actually believe that India can take a decisive step towards a brighter future.
But, of course, the majority of us Indians are simple folk who still retain the use of our common sense. For people like Ramchandra Guha, the world fell apart the day Narendra Modi assumed the position of Prime Minister of India.
If you were to ask liberals, the moment BJP came into power in 2014 was the precise moment when aliens decided to invade us for our resources and the only way to avoid the imminent alien invasion is by re-electing a ‘Secular progressive’ alliance in 2019.
An Indian liberal’s rant against Hindu nationalists is incomplete without the assertion that attempts are being made to turn Secular India into a Hindu Pakistan.
Now, I am not an expert but my common sense and limited intellect tells me a ‘Hindu Pakistan’ is a logical impossibility. Primarily because I cannot envision any significant percentage of Hindus fantasizing about our children blowing themselves up screaming ‘Hari Om’ or ‘Jai Shri Krishna’ which cannot be said for members of a certain peaceful community.
I feel a bit stupid saying this but it’s a sign of our mad times that it actually needs to be said that India cannot turn into a Hindu Pakistan simply because Hinduism and Islam preach radically different values and the ethos of Hinduism wouldn’t take kindly to sacrificing our children at the altar of terrorism.
‘Vasudaiva Kutumbakam’ does not permit us to turn our holy land, India, into a site for death and carnage.
Ramchandra Guha also says, quite ignorantly, that BJP’s nationalism is a mirror image of Pakistani nationalism. The last time I checked, Pakistani nationalism inspired and continues to inspire Pakistanis to commit genocide of their own citizens but BJP has so far shown no inclination whatsoever to commit any sort of genocide.
On the contrary, they haven’t tasted success with even their attempt to rebuild the Ram Temple at Ayodhya and I cannot remember them advocating for an armed rebellion to establish the same.
Equating BJP’s version of Hindu Nationalism with Pakistani Nationalism is intellectual heresy and in an ideal world, people making such insane assertions would be scoffed at but in the liberal world, they put them on a pedastal and call them ’eminent’ historians.
Mr. Ramchandra Guha goes on to say, “Hatred of Pakistan is important to the hindutva view of the world, but that should not be important to an Indian nationalist.”
Actually, not, Mr. Guha. As the name ‘Hindutva’ suggests, it stands for Hindu nationalism and its primary source is our deep love and respect for Hindu philosophy and way of life, not hatred for an external entity, that is the hallmark of Abrahamic nationalism, not Hindutva.
But of course, you’ll observe that not hating Pakistan is a bit difficult since they cannot stop funding cross border terrorism against us and killing our soldiers and civilians. Hating Pakistan is not integral to Hindutva, it’s just that watching a terrorist state murder our countrymen sparks a deep sense of agony and anger in us, which is a natural human emotion.
If we were to ask Ramchandra Guha about a plausible situation to the whole scenario, we can well imagine what his response would be, “Why! Vote UPA to power in 2019 of course!”
The UPA being a ‘Secular Progressive’ party nurtured these shoddy intellectuals to further their own narrative and cement their own influence in the corridors of power.
Liberals love secular parties because they permit them to stay relevant in public discourse and intellectuals pay their homage in return by demonizing the conservatives.
It’s a simple matter of Quid pro Quo. Liberal intellectuals like Ramchandra Guha will never admire the BJP or speak favorably of them because their victory in elections directly translates to declining influence of the intellectuals in public discourse. And it’s a reality we have to accept and deal with accordingly.
