Mandated reading at Ashoka University /1

Inglorious Bestards movie rat speech -

Evoke disgust for a living being and people will easily harm it. /2

What's with this targeted demonization of Brahmins, cutting poonals and slaughtering calves in public? Doesn't it disgust people? Of course it does disgust and put off a vast majority of people from the Desi 'liberals'. But, there is a purpose to it /3

This is to be found in the lessons of 'Management of Savagery' by the theorist Abu-Bakr al-Naji. He says the foundation of a State should be in the first stage of 'vexation and exhaustion'. In this stage, the opposing forces (in al-Naji's case, America, in the case of desis /4

, Indian state) The more outrageous the affront, the more the provocation on the Hindu parts of the Indian state. The idea is to keep the intellectual vanguard busy in responding stretching itself. Eventually, exhaustion results in the hate being spewed as the 'new normal' /5

Also, Hindus are long accustomed to the idea of hurting Brahmins and cows as particularly abhorrent. Thus, the more harmless and helpless the target of the violence seems - a calf or a 80-yr-old man - the more shocking it is. It signals the conviction on the part of the /6

perpetrator towards their goal. What the Nazis called the 'Will' to follow through on their words. This declaration of Will in turn attracts more to the hard core. With increasing numbers of the hard core, the moderate majority is silenced /7

and the window of what is acceptable is moved further to the perpetrator's advantage /END