Chetan Bhagat’s stinging column on Bhakts in Times of India, where he labeled them sexually frustrated Hindus who can’t speak good English, drew a sharp response from none other than AAP leader, The Ashutosh. We reproduce his open letter to Chetan Bhagat here:

Dear Chetan Bhagat,

In your column “Anatomy of an internet troll”, you did some stereo typing, especially the one about English speaking which I have taken very personally. So righting this opened letter:

You were my favourite writer all these years, precisely because you wrote in easy English, English which would communicate rather than confuse. But, after this article, no more Chetan Bhagat books for me.

You mentioned the following qualities:

1) Mail

2) Weak communication skills, particularly in English

3) Not good at talking to women

4) Ashamed of being a Hindi speaking Hindu

According to you, people with 1 and 2 also automatically are 3 and 4 and are Modi Bhakts. Let me tell you that I am 1 and 2 but not 3 and 4.

My name was Ashutosh Gupta but me drop my last name Gupta during the Mandal days to dissociate myself with my caste identity in public life. If you have the courage, drop your last name Bhagat before calling other people Bhakt. And while you were courteous in crediting Sagarika Ghose for the term Internet Hindus, you do not extend the same kind of courtesy to men. You did not credit Rajdeep Sardesai for the term Bhakt.

I may be mail and poor in English, but I have a large number of fans who are women. And I am not ashamed of being Hindi speaking. That’s the reason I proudly was the prime time anchor for the leading Hindi news channel Aaj Tak for several years. Remember. Hindi is the language of the Aam Aadmi of this country. My leader Kejriwalji speaks in Hindi.

This reminds me of a quote by H. Jackson Brown Jr. “Never make fun of someone who speaks broken English. It means they know another language.”

And remember, the purpose of language is not to obfuscate but to communicate. And communicate I better than people like Tarun Tejpal and Shashi Tharoor. That is why I so many followers on Twitter.

Did it ever occur to you and your fellow elites that the reason so many people, not only Indians but also Europeans have problems with English language is not bee cause of the people but bee cause of the language itself? English is an orthographically deep language which means b, be and bee are pronounced in the same way. In Hindi, we will simply write it as बी.

Peel is spelled P-E-E-L, Steel as S-T-E-E-L and people have a problem if I write KEEL.

NO and KNOW are pronounced identically but you people have a problem if I right KNO. In Hindi, we simply write नो.

Hindi and other Indian languages and also several European languages like Finnish are orthographically shallow and there is strong correspondence between speech and writing. So, next time before making fun of someone’s English, look at the problems with English language first.

My poor English does not make me a BJP supporter. I am and will always be a strong AAP supporter. How much did Modi pay you to miss guide the AAP supporters?

Here is some advice to you. You advised trolls to learn English and practice it. But you wrote this advice in English due to which people whom you want to learn English will not be able to read it in English and will not learn English. So, please smarten up and practice writing for the audience in Hindi or other Indian languages to reach wider audience. Or you can even try to learning to write for your audience in foreign languages like French, German or Finnish. Research has showed that learning a new language slows the onset of dementia and Alzheimer’s and makes a person more humble. Once you do, trust me, you will have better things to do than mock people for poor English skills. And who knows, you may get lucky soon.

Regards,

Ashutosh