One thing I have noted from
The Print publishing house 'Jyoti Malhotra and Shekhar Gupta' has a special hate for Pakistan in their hearts. For some reasons, they are able to bring Pakistan in their every other discussion.
It seems like even if you pretend to be liberal, your selling point roams around Pakistan
Very perceptive of you.
These people are not known for having strong analytical mindset so they don't view and judge events and camps on their own merits. Anyone that supports Pakistan in India (liberal or not) is asking for trouble, even as a "liberal". No Indian journalist will risk having that label.
In case of both Jyoti and Shekhar, I feel that they feel they can get away with a pathological hate for Pakistan, no one stops them or questions it in India. So they continue on their hateful narratives and continue to be branded as Indian "liberals".
Find them a weekday when Tarek Fatah will be speaking in some hotel in Mumbai, they will be there with bells on. Probably will pay 500 Rupees a head too, to hear him dump on Pakistan.
Indians have done this for ages, pass judgments from an Indian viewpoint without being challenged - just for the simple fact that there has been no counter-narrative. from either Bangladesh or Pakistan.
When our Apparel Industry leader Rubana Huq attended a Delhi symposium and told them how "traditional" male-dominant mindsets in India was keeping down female employment levels, they responded with incredulous disbelief. How could India be even worse than Bangladesh and how could a Bangladeshi lecture Indian intellectuals?
These people sometimes think that studying Kafka and Kirkegaard is the penultimate epitome of intellectuality and finding practical solutions to give employment to lakhs of needy women deserve no accolades.
I had my fill of impractical Indian intellectuals that don't feel that having two-thirds of Indians do their business out in the open needs no solution or is "someone else's job".
Like maybe Gora sahib will come back and fix it somehow.
Some so-called "intellectuals" in India refused to believe that Bangladesh' per capita GDP could exceed theirs about six months back, when the news surfaced. Almost insulting in the sense how low they thought Bangladesh' status as a country and neighbor were. Just the Indian Chanakya mentality showing its true colors, in that they always thought their dadagiri would prevail over neighbors, no matter how incompetent they themselves were.
Being 'liberal' in India is just like the US "Good Housekeeping Magazine" seal of approval for cleaning products. It means some have seen your reputation, and they approve of it. IMHO it means nothing.
Being "liberal" in India means having enough "safe" tolerable difference of opinion to be mildly playfully controversial and to be branded as "intellectual" enough to be acceptable to the middle class readership in India to be acceptable in symposia and to hang out at useless talk-shows. It does not mean challenging known Indian norms and mindsets.
Indians don't like to rock the boat that way. They are a "safe" bunch.
