It no mystery that the self-proclaimed “liberals” are perhaps the most non-liberal bunch who bay for blood every time someone dares to disagree with their worldview. This perspective has been endorsed several times by how murders of BJP workers have either been celebrated, given a context to, or slid under the carpet like nothing ever happened. This notion was endorsed yet again when ‘journalist’ Pritish Nandy celebrated MNS goons thrashing citizens. He hailed Raj Thackeray for “giving it back to bhakts”.

Someone knows how to give it back to the bhakts. Don’t mess with MNS leader Raj Thackeray. https://t.co/0U39wTkV7e — Pritish Nandy (@PritishNandy) April 18, 2019

Pritish Nandy quoted a video where MNS workers can be seen thrashing a Mumbai resident. The resident had criticised Raj Thackeray on Facebook after a rally by the MNS chief, and also had said that Raj Thackeray is anti-national. The person only made some comments on Facebook criticising a public leader and didn’t say anything that is against the law, like threating violence. But his comments against Raj Thackeray angered his supporters so much that they reached his home and started physically hurting him. It is seen that the person was offering his apology for his comments, but the mob was still attacking him.

Pritish Nandy quotes the video to praise Raj Thackeray by saying ‘Someone knows how to give it back to the bhakts. Don’t mess with leader Raj Thackeray”.

It is pertinent to note here that the person being thrashed had only opined on his personal Facebook page and had not threatened anyone with physical violence. Yet, “intellectuals” like Pritish Nandy thought that the written opinion of a citizen should be responded to with kicks and blows by political goons.

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This deep malaise that has gripped the self-proclaimed ‘liberal’ is rather telling. They cry hoarse about human right violations when a journalist or anyone from their ecosystem is abused by some anonymous account on social media, whose identity cannot even be determined. They blame it on “Modi supporters” with no proof whatsoever and claim that in Modi’s India, freedom of speech is always under threat. But, the moment an apparent Modi supporter is thrashed black and blue for their opinion, they celebrate and hail the goon as a messiah. They say that physically beating a person up for the opinion is “teaching bhakts a lesson”.

This very incident of MNS goons threatening and beating a person up merely for his opinion on Facebook was also downplayed by NDTV journalist Sreenivasan Jain. Pretending to condemn this violence by MNS workers, Jain remarked, “Thuggery cannot be the answer to thuggery”. Considering that the Modi supporter only expressed his opinion on Facebook, equating physical violence to sharing an opinion and calling the latter as thuggery too is a classic case of downplaying violence and dehumanising the victim of violence simply because his political views are not agreeable to him.

It was once said that an editor had celebrated the death of RSS chief with a ‘daaru party’. For long it has been rumoured that the so-called liberals regular indulged in celebrations when Hindu activists were killed, such open endorsement to violence gives credence to such rumour.

Rajdeep Sardesai had brazenly given a ‘political context’ to the brutal murder of Prashant Poojari by communists. The Bajrang Dal activist was hacked mercilessly with his only crime being his political ideology. Rajdeep Sardesai shamelessly wrote an article headlined, “Political context to Prashant Poojari’s murder, cannot compare with Dadri beef lynching” thereby dehumanising Prashant Poojari and almost giving intellectual cover to the murderers of the Hindu activist. The malaise runs so deep that Rajdeep Sardesai even gave a context to Dawood Ibrahim’s terrorism.

Barkha Dutt, on the other hand, mirrored the Nazis when she contextualised the Kashmiri Pandit genocide and exodus when she asserted that there was anger among the Muslim population because the Hindus were wealthier and had access to better economic opportunities.

Perhaps the most despicable example of the wine-sipping elite revelling in the torture heaped upon Hindus is what happened to Sadhvi Pragya, the torture she underwent and the “liberal” silence about her plight. Recently, when Sadhvi Pragya joined BJP and was given a ticket to contest from Bhopal, the very “liberals” who had stayed silent throughout her false imprisonment and Congress’ attempts to further the “Hindu terror” bogey, heaped insults on the Sadhvi simply because the colour of her attire was saffron.

The hatred for Hindus and anyone who disagrees with the “liberal” worldview deserves to be insulted, thrashed and dehumanised. That is the message that “liberals” like Pritish Nandy and Sreenivasan Jain aim to give and do so rather successfully.