The Indian Express has recently become the go to destination for every intellectual hypocrite who finds him/herself unable to cope with the fact that a man from a humble background made it to the top. And that he and his followers (at least his online followers) generally cock a snook at the class of self-styled intellectuals who have been fattened on the loaves and fishes of power by successive secular regimes.
The latest to join the whining party is Prof. Janaki Nair of the history department at JNU (no points for guessing that).
In her rage, Prof. Nair goes on to excoriate the current Indian society and our government for harbouring mistrust towards the “intellectuals”.
Incidentally, Prof. Nair herself wrote an article some months ago in Scroll demanding that eager school kids not be allowed into her delicate ivory tower at JNU. Here’s an extract :
Yes, allowing eager school kids to come into her campus with their fresh young minds has degraded her to the status of an animal. In a country where literally tens of millions of kids never get a shot at a quality education, it can be a “vice” for an elite, well funded university in the capital to let children in for just ONE day during the whole year! It takes a special kind of hypocrite to demand a wall for keeping kids out of the campus intellectual space and then to complain that people have become “anti-intellectual”.
What are the people supposed to do, Prof. Nair? Sing praises of JNU intellectuals while standing at a respectable distance looking at your campus wall? If the common people or even their kids come any closer and you have to set your eyes on them, it will make you feel like a lowly animal.
To echo the words of Prof. Janaki Nair, what kind of “nervous and insecure” intellectual gets so panicked by the presence of school kids?
Narendra Modi began his life as a tea seller on a railway platform. He worked his way up to become Chief Minister of Gujarat and delivered economic growth for 12 long years. But he is not fit to be PM. But, guess who got a recommendation from a faculty at Harvard to become PM?
Yes, Rahul Gandhi is impressive and talented and selflessly committed to the welfare of the Indian people. How does Amartya Sen know all this? Because he met Rahul Gandhi for a day at Trinity College in Cambridge.
Let’s put it all together. Kids of ordinary people are not to be let into campus even for one day because they might bother the delicate genius of intellectuals. But the son of Rajiv and Sonia gets to personally meet a Harvard intellectual and in the space of just one day… he comes back with a letter of recommendation to become Prime Minister of India! Eh, Prof. Nair?
And who can forget how Modi was derided for his humble beginning as a Chaiwallah by an intellectual who went to Wellham Boys’, Doon School, St. Stephens and Trinity College, Cambridge? Can you really complain now about Modi not being a fan of the intellectual class that has sneered at his humble background every step of the way?
The “nervous and insecure” Prof. Janaki Nair doesn’t stop here. The JNU prof moves into really dangerous territory, starting a bout of fearmongering about science and technology!
And they talk of freedom on campus! What kind of nervous and insecure intellectual sees the presence of scientists and technologists as a threat to an educational institution? So far, this eminent intellectual has essentially declared school kids, scientists and technologists as undesirables on campus! The upside down world of what happens inside the walls of JNU finally has an explanation.
Now, if I were an intellectual, I would go on to write a long article about how distrust of scientists has a dangerous and frankly embarrassing history, from Galileo to Darwin and much more.
