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Twitter to delete Trump’s account? Some in Indian media thought so

OpIndia Staff
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Twitter to delete Trump’s account? Some in Indian media thought so

Donald Trump, the President-elect of the United State of America has used Twitter to air his views that are often politically incorrect and ‘controversial’. Critics have also accused him of sharing wrong information or claims on Twitter just like Arvind Kejriwal does in India.

Taking advantage of this fact, a fake news website trying to pretend that it was CNN – which incidentally was called ‘fake news’ by Donald Trump yesterday – reported that Twitter has decided to delete Trump’s account.

The fake CNN website claimed that Twitter will delete Donald Trump’s account sometime within the next 48 hours because of “Trump’s racist and divisive rhetoric.”

There were enough hints on the fake CNN website that it was fake. Firstly, the layout and style of the website were not even remotely similar to those of the original CNN. Secondly, the fake CNN stood for Carla’s Nice Nunnery, while the original CNN stands for Cable News Network. And thirdly, the domain address was cnn.com.de which is a German domain extension while CNN is an American media company.

Not only that, the report quoted someone named Paul Horner and identified him as spokesperson of Twitter. That was another hint left by the website because Paul Horner is name of a person who runs popular fake news websites and was in the news after Trump’s victory.

Despite such helpful hints that suggested that the website was intended to be fake or at best satirical, some in the Indian media thought it was a legitimate CNN website and the news about Twitter deleting Trump’s account was authentic.

Among those fooled was leading Hindi news channel ABP News – which ironically runs a program called ‘Viral Sach’ that claims to expose fake news circulated on the social media. ABP published the news and tweeted about the same. However, the media company soon realized that it was a fake news when alert users pointed it out:



As a result, ABP News deleted their tweet and also removed the article from their website. Funnily, rather tragically, the report on the ABP’s website linked back to the fake CNN website and thus alert readers could spot that ABP had goofed up big time.

fake news on ABP News
The now deleted article that was published by ABP News

Another media outfit that got fooled by this fake CNN website was Cobrapost – which calls itself a “non profit investigative news portal”. It’s the same website that aired Snoopgate tapes making allegations against BJP leaders Amit Shah and Narendra Modi.

It went a step ahead and declared that Twitter has already deleted Donald Trump’s account:

Cobrapost spreading fake news
Fake news report on Cobrapost – link

The report on Cobrapost’s website was not removed till the time this report was published on OpIndia.

So one media organisation that ascertains truth about rumours being spread on social media and another that claims to indulge in high quality investigative journalism – neither of them could investigate and find the truth about a website that gave enough hints that it was fake or satirical.

After BSF jawan’s video, more stories about police personnel’s problems come out

Hemant Bijapurkar
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After BSF jawan’s video, more stories about police personnel’s problems come out

Just a few days after the BSF jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav shared his plight on Facebook, other claims have started to come out about the lack of proper facilities and possible discrimination meted out to Central Armed Police Forces personnel.

Earlier this week, video clips complaining about poor food quality had been put up on Tej Bahadur Yadav’s Facebook profile. In the videos, Tej Bahadur said that the government was sending all the necessary supplies but senior officials were siphoning off the funds.

The videos went viral on the social media, after which Home Minister Rajnath Singh ordered an inquiry into the incident. However, BSF claimed that Tej Bahadur was alcoholic and was court marshaled back in 2010 for pointing a gun at an officer. This causes further social media outrage as people felt that this was a cover-up by senior officials at the BSF.

Latest reports suggest that BSF has taken notice of the complaint and has come out with new guidelines regarding food being issued to jawans. Not only that, the Prime Minister’s Office too has sought a report on the whole incident from the Home Ministry.

This whole saga has now put focus on facilities being given to Central Armed Police Forces personnel. A video uploaded on 6th November showing a CRPF constable lamenting about lack of facilities provided to them has now gone viral:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzYw1doJUXM]

In the video,  the constable is seen and heard talking about lack of welfare and leaves even after doing all kinds of duties from providing security to individuals, institutions, postings in insurgency areas, election securities among others. The constable laments that they don’t enjoy all the facilities available to the Defence Forces and appeals to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to treat them at par.

It should be noted that Central Armed Police Forces i.e. Border Security Force (BSF), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), and Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) are police forces and come under the Home Ministry as against the Armed Forces that come under the Defence Ministry.

According to this report, the CRPF jawans too are in the same boat as the BSF when it comes to food provided. The CRPF jawans while battling left wing terrorism in Maoist infested areas sometimes have to be content with just daal-chaawal and aaloo for days altogether. The chief cause for this is regular attacks on their vehicles carrying food supplies and risks in airlifting food to them. In many cases they have to be dependent on local suppliers and villagers and as an added life risk, Maoist sympathizers have been known to poison water sources. Peace postings too are reportedly far and few.

Apart from all this, there have been reports about the hazardous work conditions being faced by Indian Policewomen, such as lack of toilets especially for those who toil outdoors under the sun. The report claims that there have been instances of woman officials choosing not to drink water in order to avoid the ordeal of hunting for a toilet.

Hopefully with these videos going viral, all these issues are looked into by the Home Ministry and respective state governments, because well-being of the police forces is central to our internal security.

Leftist students force JNU to cancel invite to a speaker due to ‘BJP connection’

OpIndia Staff
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Leftist students force JNU to cancel invite to a speaker due to ‘BJP connection’

Leftists are known to be the most intolerant of dissent. While various communist groups and regimes in the world have been responsible for millions of deaths, leftist activists have been responsible for creating an atmosphere of intolerance and fear at educational institutions, especially in India.

This ugly face of the left was seen at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi again when students belonging to various left outfits forced the university administration to drop the name of a participant because he had ‘a BJP connection’.

Arvind Gupta, who led Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s and BJP’s digital campaign in 2014, was invited as a speaker for the second phase of “Digital Financial Literacy Campaign” that the university has undertaken. He was slated to speak on Wednesday morning.

Mr. Gupta was invited in capacity of founder-member of “Digital India Foundation”, which is a non-profit trust and think-tank ‘aiming to foster digital inclusion and adoption, and the use of the Internet and related technologies for the developmental process’. He has mentored many start-ups and has been a guest speaker earlier at various business schools and CXO events.

However, for the leftist students of JNU, only his association with the BJP mattered.

They started protesting against this invitation. To hide their intolerance, the leftists students claimed that Arvind Gupta had orchestrated online attacks on political opponents as part of BJP’s digital campaign.

This claim is based on a discredited book authored by a person, who acts as an abusive troll on Twitter. Apart from abusing, the author of the book has also been accused of lying and inventing facts, including an entirely made up interview of former Defence Minister George Fernandes.

This is an old age tactics of the left where they crush dissent using alibis. They malign the image of someone whom they are afraid to debate with, and then try to shut out all debates and discussions. Further, due to the violent ways that leftist student groups are known to indulge in, their demands are often met by authorities. JNU too buckled under this gundaism, and the invitation to Arvind Gupta was cancelled.

“No official reason was given to me. They (JNU administration) said that they have to cancel it due to unforeseen circumstances,” Arvind Gupta told OpIndia when we got in touch with him.

He further said that he was disappointed as the issue of digital payments and digital inclusion was close to his heart and he had planned to speak on the same.

“By no stretch of imagination I would have thought about any politics in this matter. For me, it was an opportunity to talk on an issue that I am passionate about. I was not going as a BJP person to the event,” Mr. Gupta said.

It is interesting to note that this “unforeseen circumstances” explanation given to Arvind Gupta is similar to what event organisers had given to Tarek Fateh, when his ‘anti-Pakistan’ event was cancelled at Kolkata, allegedly under pressure from Islamists.

This is not the first time left-wing JNU students have shown intolerance and banned people from the campus. In December 2015, they tried to ban Baba Ramdev’s entry on the campus. Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri too had to face protests when he tried to showcase his movie Buddha In A Traffic Jam at JNU.

So much for free speech, tolerance, and education.

Congress leader alleges that Church opposed his candidature, quits politics

OpIndia Staff
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Congress leader alleges that Church opposed his candidature, quits politics

In yet another incident that shows how much influence religious bodies wield over ‘secular’ parties in India, a Congress leader from Goa has been forced to retire from active politics after the Church allegedly refused to back his candidature.

Aleixo Sequeira, who has been a power minister earlier in the state government, revealed that senior leaders of the Congress party told him that the Church in Goa was opposed to his candidature. He said this in a press conference, as per a report published by The Times of India.

Calling the Church’s decision shocking and surprising, the veteran Congress leader announced that he would be quitting active politics as party leadership had denied him a ticket. He promised to extend support to the candidate chosen by the party.

This incident comes after the Supreme Court had banned canvassing for votes in the name of religion, caste or language.

Going by this incident, the Congress party appears to be selecting candidates based on what the Church says. Is this not a violation of the Supreme Court order?

Or is there a loophole because there is no overt appeal by either the party or the candidate or even the Church to vote on the basis of religion? This appears more like an appeal to “not vote” by a religious body. Church basically asked for a veto, not a vote.

OpIndia spoke to Supreme Court lawyer Ishkaran Bhandari to find out if parties or religious bodies could get away with such veto appeals instead of vote appeals. He agreed that this could be used as a loophole.

“The SC order (banning votes on caste and religion) was already difficult to implement as our constitution itself mentions caste and religion at various places, but this is a loophole that can be exploited by political parties and religious bodies to work around the order,” he said.

“Suppose there is a direct fight between two candidates X and Y in a constituency, though multiple candidates are in fray as is the normal case in India. A religious body wants their followers to vote for X. But they can’t issue a direct appeal to vote for X as that can put X in trouble due to the SC order. Therefore, they will issue an appeal to not vote for Y. Now it is going to be very difficult to prove that a negative appeal against Y helps only X, because technically there are other candidates in the fray too,” he explained.

So looks like ‘secular’ parties can continue to practice communal politics even after the SC order.

Supreme Court throws out application accusing Narendra Modi of taking bribes

Hemant Bijapurkar
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Supreme Court throws out application accusing Narendra Modi of taking bribes

The interim application, which alleged that Narendra Modi, as Chief Minister of Gujarat, had taken bribes from Sahara and Birla, was dismissed by the Supreme Court yesterday. The application was filed by an NGO called Common Cause.

In its judgement, the Supreme Court stated that the documents of evidence, which were provided by NGO’s counsel Prashant Bhushan, were inadmissible as they were not credible or reliable. The court noticed in its order that:

There has to be some cogent material which is prima facie reliable …in case we do not insist for the same and order investigation, process of law can be misused and no democracy can function if investigation is set in motion against high Constitutional functionaries without cogent material

This is in line with the earlier comments of the court when it had said that the ‘proofs’ provided by Prashant Bhushan were sub-par and the entire world can be roped in if such evidences were considered credible or reliable. Court had then given more time to petitioners to bring in credible evidences.

This whole controversy was started by the Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who last year on November 16th, alleged that during his tenure as Gujarat CM, Narendra Modi had received bribes from the Aditya Birla Group to the tune of 25 crore rupees. He was speaking in the assembly and thus had the privilege of not being sued for the claim.

As part of a ‘solid’ proof for the same, Arvind Kejriwal and his party circulated an alleged ledger entry found by the IT department during their raid at a former Aditya Birla Group employee in 2013.

Proof against PM Modi circulated by AAP
Supreme Court declared that such proofs were unreliable

This was followed up with the mainstream media running the story as ‘allegation by Kejriwal’. The Caravan magazine took it a step further by putting up a story that Modi had also taken kickbacks from Sahara to the tune of 55 crores. However, in the same story, they also mentioned that this could be a conspiracy by a disgruntled employee to blackmail top management of the company.

These documents were then made part of an interim application by the NGO Common Cause, which approached the Supreme Court asking for investigations in November itself. However, the court asked them to come back with more credible documents.

In December, the Supreme Court gave yet another chance to the NGO and Prashant Bhushan to come up with more reliable documents while repeating that such documents – presented by Kejriwal and printed by Caravan magazine – were not credible.

In the meantime, Rahul Gandhi repeated the same claims and called it an ‘earthquake moment’, but the real earthquake was brought by the apex court when it finally dismissed the application.

Rahul Gandhi saw symbol of Congress in pictures of gods, Twitter saw a meme

OpIndia Staff
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Rahul Gandhi saw symbol of Congress in pictures of gods, Twitter saw a meme

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi is back from his foreign holiday, and he gave two speeches today – both at a Congress event called ‘Jan Vedana Sammelan’. In both the speeches, he criticised Narendra Modi government for various things and claimed that Congress will ‘save the soul of the country’.

But what caught attention of the Twitterati was his comment where he claimed to see the symbol of Congress (hand or palm) in the images of gods. He further said that Congress symbol, as well as hands of the gods, symbolised ‘Daro Mat’ (don’t be scared):


//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
This extra ordinary observation was appreciated by Twitter users, who all these decades though that the raised hands of gods in those pictures symbolised aashirvaad (blessings) for the devotees.

Armed with this new way of looking at things, Twitter users found much more examples of “Daro Mat”. Here are a few:

If only the characters in the movie knew that it meant ‘don’t be scared’:


Some international flavour, after all Rahul Gandhi discovered it after returning from abroad:


More international flavour:


Rahul Gandhi talked about religions, but left the biggest religion of India – Cricket:


Oops:


More oops:


That’s reassuring:


Something for Rahul Gandhi:


A message for the party workers:


Another message for Congress:


Thank you Rahul Gandhi, yet again.

Why Rahul Gandhi will continue to copy Arvind Kejriwal’s antics

Rahul Roushan
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Why Rahul Gandhi will continue to copy Arvind Kejriwal’s antics

Back in December 2013, when AAP made an impressive debut in electoral politics and went on to form a 49 days long government in Delhi with the outside support of Congress, Rahul Gandhi had said that he will learn from the success of AAP.

And it appears that he was dead serious, even though people take his statements in jest. In the last couple of years, Rahul Gandhi has been doing everything AAP has done, or rather Kejriwal has done.

It made sense. AAP had taken away Congress’ vote bank and Arvind Kejriwal had become the poster boy of the same ecosystem that Congress had fed and nurtured all these years. The ecosystem had found a new messiah and saviour, leaving the poor Rahul Gandhi high and dry.

Rahul Gandhi must have thought ‘usme aisa kya hai jo mujh mein nahi hai’ a la that character in Shah Rukh Khans’ movie Chak De India. Then he would have recalled another SRK movie – Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi – where the hero transforms himself to do what his bae loves.

If one studies Rahul Gandhi’s moves and statements in the last couple of years, it’s Kejriwal written all over it. Haule haule, but he is perfecting his Kejriwalifaction.

If Kejriwal claims that “Modi is not allowing me to work”, Rahul claims “Modi is not allowing me to speak”. If Kejriwal says Modi is working for Ambani-Adani, Rahul says Modi working only for rich industrialists. Kejriwal attacks Paytm, Rahul says “Paytm means Pay to Modi”. Kejriwal says Modi took bribes, Rahul says Modi took bribes.

If Kejriwal spreads rumours and doesn’t even explain when caught, Rahul Gandhi has been busy spreading rumour that 5-6% of cash will “magically disappear” and go to rich people every time you do a cashless transaction, and he doesn’t bother to explain how that magic would happen.

Today, after coming back from his new year holiday destination that no one knows about, Rahul Gandhi took this process of Kejriwalification further when at a Congress event he made Kejriwalesque claims that can’t be backed with data (he claimed that automobile sales had dropped by 60%, while real figure is 18%) and when he claimed that the media was under constraints and thus not critical enough of Narendra Modi government.

Speaking at ‘Jan Vedna Sammelan’ of the Congress in Delhi today, Rahul Gandhi further said that ‘for the first time the Prime Minister of India is being ridiculed the world over’. This is exactly what Arvind Kejriwal had said a couple of weeks back when Rahul Gandhi was holidaying abroad.

The only thing that has stopped Rahul Gandhi from becoming a perfect clone of Arvind Kejriwal is that he is yet to abuse Narendra Modi by calling him a ‘coward and psychopath’ or to drag Narendra Modi’s mother and wife in his jibes. These two jobs are currently being done by his trolls.

But will Rahul Gandhi benefit from this Kejriwalification? And where will he stop at?

I think he will benefit, but not because he has become a clone of Kejriwal but because Kejriwal has become a farce in comparison – a clowny clone of his own self that we saw during and before the Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement.

However, let me add the obvious disclaimer that currently it’s my personal opinion (that Kejriwal has become a farce). But if AAP fails to win Goa and Punjab, especially Punjab, it will be more widely accepted that Kejriwal’s charisma is on the wane.

Punjab elections have already been turned into a virtual referendum on Kejriwal’s popularity when Manish Sisodia appealed to the voters to vote as if Arvind Kejriwal was to become the Chief Minister of Punjab. Punjab is yet another Delhi like battle and winning it will be crucial for AAP.

Punjab election results will decide if that part of the ecosystem (fed and nurtured by Congress), which had fallen in love with Kejriwal, will come back to Congress or not. If AAP fails to win (it was slated to sweep the elections as per opinion polls of last year), the ecosystem will realise that perhaps they should go back to the tried and tested Congress. That’s where Rahul Gandhi could benefit.

Punjab election results will also decide if Kejriwalification of Rahul Gandhi will continue or not. If Congress wins, Rahul will have all the reasons to believe that Kejriwalification helped him, and thus the process will continue. If AAP wins, Rahul Gandhi will yet again resolve to learn even more from AAP and that might actually accelerate his Kejriwalification.

But what is unpredictable is the direction in which Rahul Gandhi will move if BJP-SAD combine retains Punjab. Most probably even that will not stop the Kejriwalification of Rahul Gandhi, because for that to happen, someone in the Congress needs to tell Rahul Gandhi the truth.

But we know that whether Rahul Gandhi is in Swades or Pardes, he will only hear Yes Boss and no one will ask him to stop being a Duplicate.

Two headlines that expose the editorial bias of Indian Express

OpIndia Staff
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Two headlines that expose the editorial bias of Indian Express

After midnight of Tuesday, Indian Express on Twitter sent out two tweets within a span of 11 minutes. Here are those two in order they appeared on users’ timeline:



The articles can also be seen on the “elections” page of The Indian Express, published in quick succession:

Bias of Indian Express
How Indian Express treats BJP and Congress for the same activity

For the uninitiated, the Supreme Court of India on 2nd January 2017 had barred political parties from canvassing votes on the basis of caste or religion. Consequently, the Election Commission had said that they will implement the orders of the apex court.

Now here are two political parties – Congress and the BJP – holding special rallies for Dalits in Uttar Pradesh to canvass votes in the upcoming assembly elections that will be held in February and March.

Both the parties are trying to woo voters on caste lines, targeting the same caste group, for the same assembly elections. If this is in contravention of the Supreme Court order, both the parties are guilty.

However, The Indian Express thought it necessary to mention about the SC order only while reporting about the BJP rallies. The Congress rally was reported as a matter of fact, with no editorial comments in the headline. In fact, with a helpful mention of Rohith Vemula.

What should the reader conclude? That when Congress targets a specific caste group, it’s deemed ethical and legal by the Indian Express but when BJP does the same, they feel the saffron party is violating orders of the highest court of India?

Does it not betray the editorial bias of The Indian Express?

It is a shameful fall for a newspaper that had once stood in the forefront when fighting Emergency imposed by the Congress. Late Ramnath Goenka will not be amused by these double standards adopted by the newspaper he founded.

In the recent years, Indian Express has often been accused of being biased towards the Congress party. While Anna’s movement was at peak, the newspaper, then under the editorial leadership of Shekhar Gupta, had published a series of articles attacking members of Team Anna. As a result, Arvind Kejriwal recently attacked Shekhar Gupta as ‘dalaal’ of Congress.

This double standard in reporting was first spotted by Twitter user Neha Srivastava. Although the tweets still exist and so do the articles listed in the archive page (as in the image above), when one clicks on the report about Congress, one is redirected to an altogether different article.

Did they just realise that their bias was way too brazen and removed the article on Congress?

ABP News spins Sisodia’s statement to declare Kejriwal as Punjab CM candidate

OpIndia Staff
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ABP News spins Sisodia’s statement to declare Kejriwal as Punjab CM candidate

ABP News, one of the leading 24-hours Hindi news channels of India, created a sensation earlier today when they claimed that the Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will be the Chief Ministerial candidate of the Aam Aadmi Party in the upcoming Punjab assembly elections.

ABP News claimed that this announcement was made by senior AAP leader and Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi, Manish Sisodia:



The alleged announcement was in direct conflict with the declaration of Arvind Kejriwal, who had vowed to serve Delhi for full five years if he won Delhi assembly elections in 2015, which was swept by AAP in an unprecedented manner.

“Paanch saal Kejriwal” i.e. ‘Kejriwal for full term of five years’ was the popular slogan AAP had used during Delhi elections, so this announcement was totally opposite to what the party had promised.

Not only that, only last week Kejriwal had announced that AAP will not project anyone as the CM candidate in Punjab.

So was it another U-turn by Kejriwal or was it a case of media twisting statements?

If one listens to what Manish Sisodia says, it appears a case of media twisting his statement.

First listen yourself what he exactly said (in Hindi) while addressing a public rally in Mohali earlier today:

Basically Sisodia is asking the voters to vote “as if” Arvind Kejriwal will be the Chief Minister of Punjab. The statement is nowhere near to declaring Arvind Kejriwal as the official candidate for the post of Chief Minister of Punjab.

“Vote as if you are going to make Arvind Kejriwal the Chief Minister of state” is what Manish Sisodia said, which is very different from “Arvind Kejriwal will be the CM candidate in Punjab” that was reported by the ABP News.

This is similar to Narendra Modi explaining that the amount of black money abroad was so huge that if distributed among the poor people of India, everyone will get 15 lakhs rupees as their share. He explained “as if” the black money was being distributed (see the video of that speech by clicking here).

However, the leaders of AAP have always twisted this statement of Narendra Modi to claim that Modi had promised to pay every Indian citizen 15 lakh rupees in their bank accounts. Now it appears that the karma is catching up with AAP with ABP News twisting Manish Sisodia’s statement.

However, one crucial difference is that while BJP has always maintained that PM Modi’s statement was only to explain the magnitude of black money, Manish Sisodia didn’t categorically deny Arvind Kejriwal being the Chief Minister of Punjab when ABP News asked for a clarification.

Sisodia said that the CM will be decided by the MLAs later, which has allowed the news channel to continue to claim that there was a possibility that Arvind Kejriwal could become the Chief Minister of Punjab if AAP wins the elections.

However, that doesn’t mean that Arvind Kejriwal has been declared as the CM candidate by AAP, which ABP News claimed.

The leftists labelled me ‘Sanghi’ and why I’m fine with it

Kushal Mehra
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The leftists labelled me ‘Sanghi’ and why I’m fine with it

There was a time in our childhood where words carried a meaning. Words conveyed some beliefs, some feelings, some identity. If you labelled someone, that person would be bothered by that label; they would try to explain why they are not that person.

But then things started “progressing”(sarcasm alert). The left kept getting stronger and vocal, and they began dropping labels until the point it became farce.

Take my story as an example. A few months ago, I was one of the many people who had filed a complaint against Vishal Dadlani for insulting the Jain Guru Tarun Sagar Ji Maharaj. Post that, I got calls from various media houses. Every time a media house would call me I would begin my conversation by stating the following points:

  1. I am Nireshvarvaadi (for folks who find this word too complicated you can call me an atheist. Although I don’t call myself an atheist).
  2. I would then state the reason I filed a complaint against Vishal Dadlani, even though I believed in free speech (this tweet of mine sums up my reason).

But there was something very disturbing in those conversations I had with these media outlets. Every time I was called, the media outlet on the phone expected a particular type of response from my side. In fact, in one case a fellow told me “but aap to BJP supporter ho naah”.

I was shocked at the response. It was as if the person had convinced himself even before conversing with me that if I support XYZ political outfit, I have to be of a particular personality type.  But then as the conversation went on, that person must have found my thoughts to be deeply distressing.

Guess why? I was far too liberal for him. I was a “Sanghi” who is ok with homosexuality. I was a “Sanghi” who wants absolute freedom of speech. I was a “Sanghi” who believed in individual liberty that a left-leaning journalist couldn’t digest in their entire life.

The left has tried this tactic for ages now. If you cannot debate a person on facts and logic, you simply label the living daylights out of them. Take my case as an example. I have never attended an RSS Shakha. Heck, I am not even a member of the RSS. But because I disagree with the left and vote for the BJP I am called a “Sanghi”.

But, if being a Sanghi means that you support same-sex marriage, you are for absolute freedom of speech, you want a small government that doesn’t interfere in your day to day life than I am a proud Sanghi. If supporting anything that is backed by evidence makes one a Sanghi than I am a proud Sanghi.

Now words don’t carry any meaning. The left is responsible for the dilution of terms to the extent that no one takes these labels seriously anymore. Not that the label Sanghi is bad or good, but this has been a standard approach of the left. If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, you baffle them with bullshit.

And then you associate the label with something horrifying, and you try to sully the image of the opposing side. But what the left is saying via all of this is that anyone who disagrees with them is a Racist, Sexist, Xenophobe, Islamophobe, Homophobe, Fascist, etc. If you poke and prod them and try to get a justification for such an accusation, all they will say is “they just are”. Anyone who is not a leftist is one or all of these fantastic labels by default.

And the tragedy of all of this is that the leftists just don’t get it. They have entirely convinced themselves about their moral superiority. They have taken the mantle of being the moral judges of this world without anyone handing it out to them. And this is the reason why they are losing the world over. Whether it was Brexit or it is the victory of Donald Trump. The left just doesn’t get it. If you keep labelling people to avoid debates all you do is piss them off to the point that they vote for the other side and start accepting those labels as badges of honour.

This backlash is inevitable and has begun happening all over the world. If you are going to call someone names for merely supporting a political leader, you make that person even more determined to support that leader. If the left wants to win again, consider shutting up for a while.

Not everyone who disagrees with you is “Hitler”. But the leftists will go on calling Narendra Modi that name. The more you call Narendra Modi Hitler, the easier it gets for him to convince the people that he is not Hitler. Because always remember, people are not stupid. They see things for themselves. But the left wants to babysit the entire nation. Comparing Narendra Modi to Hitler won’t affect him at all, if anything, it’s helping him tremendously.

Silencing varying opinions is the way things are done in Pakistan, China and North Korea. Do we want to become like that? Or do we want to become a vibrant democracy where people have healthy debates with each other? The left intends to become the final judge of what is defined as knowledge. To them discovering the truth is not a journey which one has to take and then eventually they find it. The left has become power hungry. In this quest for power, they are trying to control all forms of knowledge dissemination and trying to redefine our entire cultural fabric.

There is a new type of liberalism in town. It is in the shape of leftist illiberalism. I am purposely calling this illiberalism because I don’t want to destroy the word liberalism like the left has destroyed many words.

Always remember, when the left says it believes in tolerance, it is promoting intolerance (by sleeping with Islamists). When they say people should be open-minded, they are promoting closed-mindedness (by labelling others and shutting out debate). When they say we have to compassionate, they mean let us become hate-filled bigots (progressiveness becomes hate for everything traditional and native).

They still enjoy this power and hold on narrative, but their labels don’t bother me anymore.

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