Came across this comment by Sharad Bailur:
“I like Sanjeev Sabhlok. I have one major grouse against him. It is the same grouse that I have against my friend Ram Agarwal. As citizens of other countries, owing their first loyalties to those countries, living in those countries, neither Sabhlok nor Agarwal have any business to tell us how we should live in India. If they are so concerned, they should come here, become Indian citizens and only then do so. Or else sitting thousands of miles away we refuse to listen to how we should manage our future. That said, I agree with what Sabhlok has to say about the present dispensation in India.”
I find this a rather troubling position.
There was this man Neeraj Gulati from AAP whom I met recently and who claimed that Indians have nothing to learn from the likes of James Tooley (who did most of his research in India!) because he is a “gora”. The colour of your skin PRECLUDES you from researching and commenting on India.
Now we have this man Sharad Bailur whom I sporadically recall as being a liberal of some sort, who now claims that I have NO BUSINESS telling “us” (these are the Indians, presumably I’m not) how to live. And he is busy second guessing my “loyalties”.
Such “concerns” can be demolished in two minutes. I’ll do so now. I’ll generalise and call these both “PIs” – short for “Patriotic Indians”.
Pretend Patriots: Let noble thoughts come to us from all sides
The PIs need to remember the injunction in the Vedas: “Let noble thoughts come from everywhere“. The KEY to India’s prosperity in the past was its WELCOMING of foreign ideas and the best ideas from wherever they come. Whenever Indians shut their minds just because someone is a “foreigner”, they are sunk, they are lost. They become a Third World gutter country. Immediately.
I have written extensively about this “bhadralok” or stupidly arrogant tendency among “modern” Indians in my book Breaking Free of Nehru – in fact that tendency was the cause of India’s massive decline.
Do not use computers, do not study physics or science or medicine because it is Western
I told one of these PIs (Neeraj Gulati) that all his knowledge (he is an engineer) has come PURELY from the West. Everything he is today is ENTIRELY due to the knowledge he has acquired from the West. NOT a single modern invention has come from India. India has contributed ZILCH in science. So be humble, Indians – for you have been shown to be the hoax that you are – a lot of hot air with nothing to show. You borrow EVERYTHING from the West – So bow to the West! When you grow up and start counting in the world, people will look to you for ideas. Not before that.
You don’t know your own country’s economics and political thought
I’m not teaching any thing new. Some Indians very were good at economics 2500 years ago – Indians like Kautilya. And all our kingdoms were capitalist, not socialist – as I wrote here. The fact that you don’t know your OWN economic ideas is not my problem. I’m merely saying the same thing that your own culture invented. You need to learn your own country’s economic theories. You happily accept a German’s (Marx’s) stupid ideas but don’t know your own country’s wisdom in the field of economics and political thought.
You have not resigned from the most “prestigious” job in India without anything in hand
I don’t know many people who have resigned from the IAS because they are determined to reform India’s governance. JP of Lok Satta did that first. I did that later, but had an significantly different view of the world than he has. JP had a lot of money of his own. I had ZILCH. I left without ANYTHING. No job at hand, no savings, nothing. Just wanted to kick this ridiculous “prestigious” IAS – which has been harming India since 1947. Show me when you have ever stood for principle, before having a “grouse” about me.
You have not organised three attempts to create a liberal party before renouncing Indian citizenship
Between 1999 and 2005 I organised three attempts to create a liberal party in India that included involving “eminent” liberals of India. Except for a couple of them, all turned out to be boot-lickers of BJP/Congress. And today – particularly after Sharad Joshi’s death – there is none among the “intellectual” liberals who is doing ANYTHING to fight for liberty politically. An note that JP doesn’t count. He is a bootlicker of ultra-socialist corrupt and in my view criminal, Modi.
If you have QUIT your job, started working as a NOBODY because you stand for principles, then spent whatever time and money (and health) you had to try to create a liberal party for India, then speak up. Or forever hold your peace.
You sit in India and DO NOTHING for India but there are people like Anil Sharma who live abroad because of whom I’m still involved
I’ll write about Anil Sharma in my Times of India blog in a few days, to show you how hopeless all “intellectual” liberal Indians like you are. This man Anil Sharma sits in distant London but has not only managed to rope me back into Indian political work but has managed to help establish Swarna Bharat Party (from Bhadohi) and we might even win a seat in Parliament if we keep working (with our non-existent, not even shoestring, budget). You remind me of arrogant “liberals” like Barun Mitra about whom I’ve written here. Kindly spare me your wisdom.
You – “Patriotic Indian” – have DONE NOTHING for liberty in India, you have contributed ZERO rupees and time to India’s future, and you are fussed that I have now been forced to live abroad – because NONE of the people like you ever bothered to join me to fight the socialists – while I was in India. You continue to vote one socialist after other to power and yet you have the GALL to have a “grouse” against me? LOOK WITHIN, “Patriotic Indian”.
And all this ignores the fact that I have permanent residency rights in India, my immediate family is in India, and I am OFFICIALLY a member of India’s ONLY liberal party. If I don’t have a right to provide my views to India, who has?
I could go on and on but I’ll stop. I have better things to do with my time.
