China's nationalistic State media outlets usually turn to hawkish Chinese strategists when they want to deploy verbal missiles targeting India, but they have now found an unlikely source for blistering op-eds: an Indian national living in China.

"India has very serious issues at home," wrote Gaurav Tyagi in his latest commentary, published on Sunday in no less than the English-website of the People's Daily, the official mouthpiece of China's Communist Party (CPC), saying that "violence, killings and rapes" were "common across the country".

"It's highly regretful that inspite of 70 years of independence from the British colonial rule, India has the largest number of malnourished kids in the world, biggest number of people, who don't have access to toilets. Go on any train journey in India, open the window early in the morning and watch this spectacle of people defecating openly in 'Incredible India'."

He didn't stop there, suggesting India should be renamed "Backwardistan". "If every community in India is so backward, why don't [they] rename the country as 'Backwardistaan'? (the land of the backwards) at least it would provide a lot of Western aid to India. This can be utilized for the forward march of India and its billions of communities. Vast number of which claim themselves as royal/martial race etc. in private conversations but have no shame/guilt in demanding reservations as backward communities."

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Tyagi added that "India is nowhere close to China inspite of both countries being neighbors. The majority of girls in India cannot marry a life-partner of their choice. They dare not venture out by themselves in many parts of the country. Women cant enjoy an evening with friends over a few drinks without being falsely labeled as whores and facing molestation/rape threats.??

As of Monday, the piece, titled "Letter to the Editor: Indian media should focus on synergy rather than confrontation with China", was still prominently displayed as the second lead on the website's home page.

This isn't Tyagi's first piece: an op-ed he wrote in October stirred heated debate both online and among the Indian community in China, which slammed India's economic prospects and asked Chinese companies to invest not in India but in western China.

Not much is known about Tyagi. Sunday's article described him as an Indian national settled in China, while last year's piece said he was "an Indian-born freelance writer living in Baiyin" in western Gansu province. The Indian Embassy and Consulates say they have no record or information about him, and he is not registered with the Indian mission as many Indian nationals are.

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Efforts to reach Tyagi failed. In response to queries, the Global Times said Tyagi declined to speak with the Indian media because he was "concerned" about his family in India.

In an October article, Tyagi said Chinese companies shouldn't invest in India but in Gansu, where he lives, while "Indian authorities bark about the trade deficit".

On Sunday, Tyagi slammed the Indian media for "behaving in a highly provocative manner regarding China. The successful test-firing of India's long range ballistic missile, purchase of Rafale fighter jets from France and selling of weapons to Vietnam should have been reported objectively. There is no need for the media in India to be so subjective by coining phrases like they "cover entire China'' & "to counter the Chinese threat.'"

Rather ironically, the Global Times, where Tyagi earlier published, is a hawkish tabloid published by the People's Daily, often in its columns has in the past often put down India's capabilities, boasted of China's military and economic superiority and warned of teaching India a lesson.

Tyagi wrote that "Caste/communities unite and block roads, railway tracks for days on end, indulge inarson, violence, killings and rapes in the name of demanding govt job reservations. This phenomenon is common across the whole country."

Perhaps without a sense of irony, he ended his diatribe lamenting the Indian media's "war-mongering and hawkish attitude" to China.

Less surprising than the author's argument, which has expectedly found favour among China's State media outlets, was the prominence accorded to it by the People's Daily, which was, ultimately, perhaps more revealing than the articles themselves.

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