Ajitabh Das @huffington goes for the low-hanging fruit

This is in response to an addressal by Ajitabh Das towards Arundhati regarding her alleged hypocrisy.

Since Arundhati has not dabbled in politics, spectators and rabid political lackeys use this excuse of non-participation as an excuse to undermine her criticisms of present Indian governance. The author states in his rant;

"On one hand, you keep pointing fingers at all the organised institutions (nation-state, democracy, free-market economics and religion) that govern society, but on the other, you never have an alternate path to offer." 

By his own admission, the author thus brings about a new criteria for anyone to critique any event, or matter of public concern. Basically what he says is that you have no right to critique a movie unless you make an even better one. Non-participation in an event, or activity organised by corrupt individuals basically nulls your right to criticise their actions. This is all just convenient rules created to stifle any sort of dissent that may arise against powerful organisations and institutions.

Rabid zealots of jingoism christen dissidents of Indian governance with labels such as 'pseudo-intellectualism' and 'brown sepoy'.

Here is a piece of advice, Ajitabh Das, whenever you need to bring to the front the hypocrisy in a person's thought process, do it with cross-examining the person's statements and actions in a valid manner instead of resorting to name-calling like school-children. In the end, you just make it apparant just how essential individuals like Arundathi Roy are in a society where politics is shrouded in a black mist of jingoism and manufactured patriotism, ready to strike down any sort of dissent against inept governance.

The Wrath of Urumban

There had been rumours that our wonderful Kerala Police was mulling taking action against Arundhati Roy for articulately debating Gandhi might be a national hero who was constructed entirely for the purpose of propaganda, and that there might be more deserving heroes whose names should be used for christening universities, or roads in India.

Something else that's interesting to read are the derogatory and inarticulate comments that have been posted in response to this speech.

The patriotic bots are plenty, and they're as loud as they're brash, although it is satisfying to watch them trip over themselves in their attempt to conjure incoherent statements filled with platitudes & venom simultaneously, seeded by a misplaced, and ultimately manufactured nationalism.