As of today about 44 Indian “intellectuals” have returned their Sahitya Akademi awards. The media which had just got off an outrage cycle on the Dadri murder found a great follow in when Former BJP thinker Sudheendhra Kulkarni was splashed with ink during a book release function in Mumbai.

What followed was a massive media campaign to amplify the attack as an attack on ‘Free Speech’ , ‘No space for intellectuals’, ‘Rising intolerance’. One Sahitya Akademi Returner the Gujarati literary doyen Anil Joshi while returning the award said ”

Joshi said that Monday’s attack on Sudheendra Kulkarni was regretful. “The ink that we use for writing books is being used to attack writers.

This is a very short post that contrasts this ink splash attack with another one during Sonia Gandhi’s heyday.

On Feb 20 2009, Subramanian Swamy was subjected to the following attack I have documented on my blog at that time

Attack inside the high court premises

Punches land on Swamy’s back

Eggs hurled at him – one struck him on the back of the head

One egg was directly smashed on his forehead

Another rotten egg found its target and broke on his face splashing contents

IN FULL VIEW OF 2 JUDGES

Bad words and casteist slogans were hurled ( ___ dog oliga ) see the linked blog post

<< later the gang burnt a police station etc>> we wont go there

Now this was a 60 year old man, who had come to court to fight Chidambaram Natarajar case. This is what a real attack looks like. What did he do ? He wiped the eggs off his face – then eventually went on to win the case.

NONE of the current intellectuals raised their voice at that time. Shashi Tharoor was very much a rising star of the ruling Congress party then as he is now. There was no call for Sonia to say something. All those who are returning the Sakitya Academy awards today had the award then too. It never moved from their mantles in their drawing rooms. Our media probably even found the whole thing, an egg dripping Swamy hilarious.

In contrast, Sudheendhra baited trouble by conducting the show in Mumbai a victim of terror attacks like no other city. From all accounts it seems like there was no assault involved. He just got down from his car and calmly got his face painted with ink.

What about murder of rationalists ? We will get to that later. Just let the contrasting attacks on Swamy and Kulkarni and the deluge of hypocrisy sink in !