Viswanathan K's Thoughts

What’s common about Arundhati Ray, VS Naipaul and MF Husain? Apart from the obvious “Creative people, Indian by origin” answer? They’re all admired by a section of India that feels an obligation to like and/or respect anyone who’s won recognition from the West. Don’t get it? Let me explain. Do you think most of the English speaking, liberal/secular gang would support a “murder is justified” stand? Or a male chauvinist? Or a guy who mocks others’ religion? Almost always they’d not, except when the person expressing those views was recognized by the West. Take Arundhati Roy: she’s always ready to rationalize murders by the “poor” and “persecuted”. And yet, does she write in Bengali or Oriya, the languages of Maoists? Oh no, she’ll spew her venom in English. Really, Arundhati, you think the people you claim to speak for understand English? But I guess if you wrote in Bengali or Oriya, you’d never get a Booker or whatever prize you won. A prize given by the evil West! The people you love t...

Take how all of this Baba Ramdev “issue” started. With Anna Hazare’s fast against corruption and his insistence on framing new laws. Technically, an unelected set of people shouldn’t have the right to “force” the creation of any law. The operative word in that last sentence, of course, is “technically”. Because, technically, the elected crooks…er, representatives of the poor people (note it’s always about the poor, never people like you and me)…are supposed to be framing those very laws. And they’re supposed to give the law enforcers the clout to enforce those laws. But since the elected representatives don’t do their job, somebody else had to step up. Next, look at this Baba Ramdev’s aims. At least, Hazare and his group aimed at realistic targets. Demands many of us could relate to. Not so with Ramdev. This guy decides he wants to aim for everything under the sun: retrieve money from Switzerland, hang the corrupt, and oh yes, even unrelated demands like making Hindi the medium of educ...