India Today journalist Rajdeep Sardesai today ranted against the Indian middle class and scientific community, labelling them the most communal sections of the society.
Sardesai spewed venom against the middle-class society in the 200th episode of The Lallantop’s show “Neta Nagari Mahotsav”. A student in the audience of the show asked about what could be a solution for curbing the transition from being religious to becoming communal. While anchor Saurabh Dwivedi opined that “rationality” can be the solution, Rajdeep Sardesai intervened to speak a ‘bitter truth’.
While spelling out his “bitter truth”, Rajdeep launched an attack against the middle class, blaming them for the weakening of the political left as they have become highly communal and selfish in the past 30 years.
Rajdeep calls middle class Selfish and Most Communal people.
— Ankur Singh (@iAnkurSingh) August 5, 2023
Rajdeep even calls Scientists communal. Says people who're reading science are communal.
Does @IndiaToday support such Hate on its platforms by @SardesaiRajdeep? pic.twitter.com/k0jeb82OvT
“The truth is that in the middle class of our country, in the past 30 years, someone was asking about the political left, and why it got weakened, it is because the middle class only takes its self-interest into consideration while moving ahead. This middle class has become the most communal in this country. The poor are never communal in this country. The poor Hindu-Muslim need each other more,” Rajdeep harangued.
Sardesai further asserted that it is when the poor gain financial stability and become middle class that start turning their religious identity into the communal one. The ‘journalist’ also claimed that a section of scientists are the most communal minds in the country.
“The communalism is highest among those who make such statements made on social media. They are the school-college-attending middle class. Some of the most communal minds in this country are the scientists,” Sardesai said.
How Rajdeep Sardesai’s comments don’t hold water
Calling the whole middle class ‘selfish’ and ‘communal’ feeds the liberal narrative that Hindus have grown communally charged after the Ram Mandir movement. The truth is that the Hindu middle class, which has traditionally been peaceful and contributed to the country’s prosperity, has begun to reject the continual attack on their religious identity and beliefs.
A VHP religious procession was recently attacked by an Islamist mob in Haryana’s Nuh. Nuh is known for being a Muslim-dominated territory in Haryana, as well as one of the poorest districts in the state. According to Niti Ayog data, 40% of the Nuh population is multidimensionally poor. Notably, three broad factors influence multidimensional poverty: health, education, and living standards. These three categories include nutrition, child and adolescent mortality, years of schooling, sanitation, housing, assets, and so on.
While Rajdeep Sardesai asserts that the “Gareeb (poor) is never communal,” a frenzied Islamist mob attacked Hindus. A Hindu youth Abhishek Chauhan was shot dead, his throat slit and face crushed with stone by the mob. The mob which killed Abhishek and attacked several others did not comprise of some rich youths, the mob comprised local people. Communalism is not fueled by a person’s or community’s financial standing rather it is fueled by the hatred that a community fosters for the people of other religious communities.
Rajdeep Sardesai’s disdain for the middle class is understandable since a stable and value-driven middle class does not blindly follow and propagate the ‘revolutionary’ ideals of the liberal ideology. The hardworking, tax-paying and patriotic middle class whom Rajdeep calls as selfish has the most to lose and has suffered the most over the years. While the woke and liberals see traditions and values as a hurdle in becoming what they think is ‘progressive’, the middle class prefers to find meaning in its traditions, culture and family values. The aspiration to live a peaceful life is often misjudged as selfishness.
Rajdeep Sardesai is not the first and certainly not the only one to hate middle-class Indians. In 2020, liberal propagandist Rohini Singh had exhibited her hatred of the middle class calling them “immoral” as they did not essentially extend support to the farmer’s protest and the anti-CAA protests.
Middle class India is the most immoral. Always has been.
— Rohini Singh (@rohini_sgh) December 18, 2020
Interestingly, if the Bhartiya Janata party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) manages to return to power in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, the middle class, essentially the Hindu middle class, will likely continue to draw the ire of left-liberals.
