Pakistan and JNU: India’s bauddhiks never had it so good in their war on bhakts

Leave the alleged bhakts alone for a bit. They have taken enough of a beating. Let’s take a look at the ones who are giving them the beating. They are the bauddhiks — or intellectuals. So it’s ‘bauddhiks versus bhakts’. All bauddhiks are not of the same ilk, although all of them are united in their crusade against bhakts. There are bauddhiks and bauddhiks and bauddhiks. Some swear by the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. Some fashion themselves as liberal citizens. And there are some pretty good ones: Ordinary mortals with a love for secularism and with doubts about the government’s commitment to it. Though bauddhiks come in different hues, those coloured red stick out prominently like monarchs looking over minions. The red ones are the bauddhiks among bauddhiks — or intellectuals among intellectuals. They are the Great Left Indian Bauddhiks (GLIB). [caption id=“attachment_2703458” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] You would imagine that, according to bauddhiks, a bhakt is a Hindutva extremist. You’ve got it all wrong! The GLIB definition of a bhakt includes in its sweep all Indians who are not bauddhiks. That’s when things begin to get messy. And the GLIB brigade never had as marvellous a time in the past as they are having now. They are kicking themselves with utter delight and exploding with wild laughter. That’s because the current India-Pakistan tension has presented them with unique opportunities to spit out their GLIB theories about everything that is awfully wrong with bhakts in particular and India in general. They are almost grateful to Pakistan’s military boss Raheel Sharif; they must be mentally saluting him. If he didn’t despatch his jihadist goons to attack Uri, the “surgical strikes” and whatever followed them wouldn’t have happened. And it wouldn’t have helped bauddhiks prove to us that they are made of superior stuff. And it wouldn’t have led to the following GLIB questions.

“Were they really surgical strikes?” “Weren’t such strikes done earlier during the Congress regime?” “What good can such things do anyway? Will that stop terrorists from attacking India?” “Shouldn’t Narendra Modi put an end to the Kashmir problem first?” “Has Modi really isolated Pakistan?” “Wait a minute! Isn’t it India that has been isolated by the threesome of Pakistan, Russia and China?”

Bauddhiks are always bursting with questions. They seldom run out of questions. When they do, one of their own ilk, like Najeeb Ahmad, drops out of sight in JNU. That sparks more questions beginning with: Why aren’t all the bhakts behind bars if they make men with lily-white innocence like Ahmad disappear? Yet the GLIB brigade accuses Modi of stopping them from asking questions. You can see that they have the freedom to question why they can’t ask questions. That’s another matter. And when some bhakts say really nutty things like RSS ideology was the driving force behind surgical strikes or that artistes from Pakistan should be bashed up and kicked out of India or that Chinese products must be avoided like the dengue, the bauddhiks are publicly furious but secretly delighted. That blesses them with fresh opportunities to debunk the bhakts and re-establish their cerebral one-upmanship. And between sips of coffee or scotch, they go on vomiting out their superior wisdom laced with morbid humour in bursts of 140 characters on Twitter. So, like the Niagara Falls, the torrent of questions is unstoppable. But bauddhiks have no answer when you ask them how come they had never had so many questions in the past before or during the earlier UPA governments. Like, for instance, when the media dropped many stories or killed exposés under some pressure or own editorial judgment, or when India made many preposterous moves against Pakistan, or when people were massacred in West Bengal by Marxist thugs. And, of course, there are never any questions when Maoists butcher villagers, though there are plenty when the police gun down Maoists. Now you know. Bauddhiks cherry-pick each question to embarrass only one man, and their fascinating quest for truth is targeted against that one single man. You find that their enmity is not with terror, or Pakistan that exports terror, or with China that backs Pakistan, or with Russia that backs China, but their quarrel is with that one, single man. You find that what they hate are words like America, Israel, India, Hindu and bourgeois; and what they admire are China, Russia, themselves, and anyone who makes jokes about nationalism and anyone who shouts for Kashmir’s freedom. You find that, though some of their questions do make some sense, you feel a bit queasy because they are wrapped in GLIB ideas. You find that they make it look as if Modi came to power by a military coup and not because India voted for him. You find that they believe every Indian who had voted for Modi is a bhakt, which is false, and they refuse to accept that between bauddhiks and Hindutva extremists are a vast number of Indians who backed Modi. You find that bauddhiks, who infest the Indian newspapers and social media in a big way, corrupt young minds by telling them that “Hate Modi” is the first commandment in “true” journalism. You find that the bauddhiks have taken upon themselves a noble task of being the media watchdogs, but that their critiques are limited to a few English channels where bhakt voices are louder. And then finally you find that bauddhiks are as nutty as some bhakts. The author tweets @sprasadindia