The public discourse in India has gone down so drastically that even an innocuous joke can now invite a police complaint. And no I am not talking about the self-righteous, self-proclaimed, so-called woke, liberal 'artists' shouting murder, murder at every juncture. But at the same time, the so-called right-wingers going nuts over a shade of heroine's clothes (or lack thereof!) is stupifying. Just the way insulting for the sake of it should be condemned, taking insult literally at everything should also be ridiculed. The larger point here is Indians, including awful leftists and cranky right-wingers, need to chill, relax and take a deep breath. Keeping controversies alive is a hobby for some and for some, it's a money-making enterprise. I can assure you no satisfaction or no money will ever find its way to the agitators.
Now before some numbnut self-styled liberal giggle at above, I positively believe we, as a country, have reached this point solely because of leftists and mindless west aping 'woke'. See, the righteous anger of right-wingers is somewhat understandable. They should not be so angry. But they are! These entrants to the 'club', labeled and lampooned as such by the so-called 'secular', 'liberal' mafia in India, feel cornered since their beliefs, their deities, and their views are regularly marginalized as a fringe. As Gandhi ji once said (or maybe he did not, I don't know!), the moment you are called fringe, you should know you have arrived. Instead of feeling confident and backing it up with more material, the so-called right-wingers lash out at everything and everyone. Sometimes, not responding or not agonizing over is the best response to an insult. An art lost to right-wingers. However, these new entrants to the insulted club have nothing on the old-school, backbenchers of the class - the woke liberals and the leftist mafia.
These self-styled 'liberals' are truly the blue-blooded insult takers, the pioneers, the Firsts. They invented this profession and took it to dizzying heights. To be sure, their agendas are different. Lumping all of these creatures together will be a mistake. For the woke liberals, their agenda is a weird mixture of individual choices (basically only choices, no responsibilities. And only 'my choice' and no one else) and NGO-funded activities. These NGOs have become new-age WMDs. They work for church-funded anti-national agenda (see, church opposing Kumbakonam nuclear plant), they work for western power-funded objectives (opposing any sort of developmental project), and they work for the billionaire-funded initiative. They do not have any scruples about the objective. As long as money is flowing, they will go to any extent to destabilize the situation. And one of the key activities they do is rile up the 'liberals' at the slightest notion of a disagreement. The discussion ceases to exist and what is left is the muck of name-calling and shouting hoarse. Not all 'woke' are agents of NGOs. This group does have the truly stupid ideologues who do not have the faintest idea of reality. They think history is unidirectional with cascading effects on the present. History is a precursor of the present but it is multidimensional and multifaceted with actors impacting it from all directions. The moment you lose nuance on how it connects with the present is the moment you become a self-styled activist attempting to right the wrongs of the past. And unfortunately, the number of such crazies is increasing rather rapidly lately.
The other part of these professional agitators (or as Modi ji rightly called - 'andolanjivis') are the original leftist and communist ideologues who have morphed into a multi-faced demon. They are still very much communists at heart but they have gone underground. They understand that the commie ideology is currently dead and there are no takers of it in India. But that does not deter them. These shape-shifters will latch on to any issue to constantly bombard their subversive messages. Whether it is a developmental project or a religious celebration, they howel at every juncture. Freedom of speech, a right that was banned in all communist states in the past, is a favorite bush they would like to beat around all the time. If you disagree with them, you are a right-wing, Hindu chauvinist, casteist, anti-Muslim fundamentalist. These adjectives can be a Ph.D. dissertation! If you ignore them, you are killing democracy. If you call out their lies and deceit then you are a facist. In any case, heads you lose and tails they win. Whether its nullification of Article 370, CAA or Indian Army's Agniveer scheme, each step towards betterment is opposed by these creatures. These elements are increasingly getting in bed with shady foreign organizations, biased and raciest news agencies (NYT and BBC!) to toe the interests of either European countries or China or worse, Pakistan.
Creating controversy, riling up enough dust to obsecure the actual issue, creating enough anti-narrative lies to bury the nuansce is a modus operendi repeated ad-nausem in last 20 years. It's not that India did not face such vested interest before but this time the emerging narrative of India is truly not good for host of actors mentioned above. Though current government dispostion does not back down from the initiative and determined to push their a positive narrative, these leftis ideologues, woke liberals and religious fundamentals masquerading as secular are unfazed, deep pocked and equally determined.
In grand scheme of things, I genuinely believe, these knuckleheads will be a mere footnote. But they certainly have killed humor and open dialogue in our public discourse. It will be sometime before we can laugh at everyone and at everything!
