Journalist Shekhar Gupta who is best known for publishing a coup story, has managed to expose his own hypocrisy over caste matters. On Wednesday he shared an article from “The Print” of which he is the founder and Editor-in-Chief. This was incidentally written by a so-called “feminist poet” who once wanted PM Modi assassinated:
Dear Indian parents, no, we don’t live in a post-caste world if your child still wears the thread, writes feminist poet Harnidh Kaur @PedestrianPoethttps://t.co/PiO90bk6Vm
— Shekhar Gupta (@ShekharGupta) March 21, 2018
It as a result was indeed amusing to note that Gupta had chosen to imagine a world without castes, when he himself has been accused in the past of whipping caste sentiments by making casteist comments.
It was noticeably witnessed how Gupta was openly stoking caste tensions post RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav’s conviction in the fodder case. Here Gupta was seen alleging that politicians belonging to upper castes don’t get convicted in corruption cases and only the politicians belonging to the lower caste get convicted.
Gupta has shared this hypothesis of his by pointing out that a lower caste Lalu was convicted by the judiciary while an upper caste Jagannath Mishra was acquitted. This was punctured a few days later when the judiciary also convicted Mishra in another fodder matter.
Besides this example there have been various other instances where Gupta has been caught spreading caste based divisiveness under the garb of liberalism. As a result it was indeed ironic to note that the same Gupta who spared virtually no chance to bring in caste into an issue.
This was also highlighted by a twitter user:
A man who views court judgements through caste prism is preaching about “post caste” world. What a joke! pic.twitter.com/oxCr2ijuQY
— Spaminder Bharti (@attomeybharti) March 21, 2018
Coming to the article, the author in question claimed that a “post caste” world was still a distant dream due to Brahmin children wearing the “sacred thread”. Such a direct attack on private Brahmin practices was slammed online:
Very flimsy reasoning. It is one thing to oppose caste atrocity and negatives of caste quite another to believe that a community’s cultural heritage must be thrown out. By this token we must disown everything about our heritage. Baby out with bathwater
— R Jagannathan (@TheJaggi) March 21, 2018
Huh??? This kind of stuff that degenerates traditions and finds every practice offensive, infuriates normal folks and pushes them away from liberal thoughts. You can wear the thread, follow your traditions and still not be ‘casteist’ in your mindset.
— shilpi tewari (@shilpitewari) March 21, 2018
By this logic, anyone who wears their religion’s prescribed clothing or symbols is a communal bigot.
Also, Freedom Of Choice obviously does not exist for one sect.
Lastly, Thooo https://t.co/U3aRc5Cv9z— VladimirRatty Lenin Shirt (@YearOfRat) March 21, 2018
Such an attack on Hindu practices, might also lead people to question whether the ulterior motive of the “post caste” article was to indirectly attack the Hindu traditions under the garb of “so called liberalism”. This theory might get bolstered by the fact that The Print too has been caught in the past spinning innocuous stories into full blown caste controversies.
