The vast majority of our Anglophone elite is so deracinated and disconnected from Indians outside their South Delhi, South Bombay, and Civil Lines gated communities, that they Orientalise and Other the rest of India, the way they've seen Western scholars and journalists do. https://twitter.com/teasri/status/1114518044703850497

Most of these intellectuals, despite their token Marxism, have abandoned any form of resistance to neo-colonialism or neo-imperialism, to act as a new "comprador bourgeoisie", repeating and amplifying Occidental and Eurocentric biases and agenda with their views and writings.

They don't find the heinous poverty or inequality or injustice around them as offensive as they do that their monopoly during the License Raj, over cars, bungalows, private Anglophone education, and political proximity are being challenged by vernacular subalterns.

The fact that the Indian middle class and working class have Asian values rather than Western bourgeois liberal values, means that they are automaticaly seen as lacking the social capital our Anglophone class monopolised for decades.

So now that their social capital no longer buys them entrance to the corridors of power at home, they slavishly prostrate themselves to prove to Western centrist elites that they are worthy of joining their club, with the right accents and the right views.

So instead of working to dismantle the structures designed to maintain the status quo where post-colonial countries are poor, unequal, and chaotic, they betray both their beloved Marxism and other Indians in order to ally with those who designed and benefit from these structures.

Steinbeck said that the American poor "see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."

I say the Indian rich see themselves not as a comprador bourgeoisie, but as future US/UK citizens, temporarily inconvenienced by Indian passports.

I should know, having been socialised in exactly this environment in school and university, having studied Marxist theory and historiography myself, and this having had the chance to observe up close the hypocrisy around me.

This hypocrisy, be it from the Arundhatis who believe that the nation-state model of intrabellum Europe, which created chauvinistic ethno-linguistic fascist states that led us into war, is a better model for Kashmir than being part of a "fascist" multicultural, democratic India,

Or the Pankaj who achieved the Indian leftist dream of marrying into Conservative British aristocracy while repeating neo-colonial tropes in the anti-leftist, Viner-era neoliberal Guardian,

or even those among my peers who entered JNU as Marxists but came out as Western liberals with an Indian veneer, who can't see that any Indian leader, even Modi, is more leftist than a Hillary, Trudeau, Macron or Merkel, lies at the heart of the Indian Left's moral bankruptcy.

Those who rant in the media about lynchings and cow vigilantes are the same ones who, when one night in my posh gated colony in Delhi, the chowkidar caught a thief in the act of stealing a stereo from a Hyundai Verna, gathered hockey sticks to beat him up until the police came.

PSA: Postcolonial societies are not a canvas for Western liberals to project what they are uncomfortable about in their own societies but unable or unwilling to change.

Our civilisation, culture, and polity do not exist for your benefit, to give you a sense of validation.

The Dalit experience is not analogous to that of African Americans, Indian Muslims are not analogous to the Roma, Brahmins are not analogous to WASPs, the BJP is not analogous to the Republicans, nor the Congress to the Democrats, nor Modi to Netanyahu, nor Rahul to Trudeau.

We have our own historical contexts, and are bound together by a shared colonial trauma.

The Western paradigm of liberal-conservative or left-right is not something to superficially apply on postcolonial societies like India just because a journalist or scholar wants to ...

... inform their audience who the "good guys" and the "bad guys" are, because that's all they need to make sense of the world. Nuance be damned.

Just so you know, all Indian parties are to some extent economically left-wing, all of them are to some extent socially conservative.

Our parties differentiate themselves through their strategies to address colonial trauma - some are focused on cultural revivalism, some on self-respect for indigenous philosophies, some promote parochial, regional, or subaltern interests, and some on enriching their founders.

This impression that the "liberal-conservative" divide in postcolonial societies is somehow analogous to Western politics is either projection by Western media and academics or ...

... a reflection of the deracination and mental colonisation of the Anglicised postcolonial elite, who act as the West's interlocutors to a set of indigenous cultures and languages they perceive as inferior.

It's not taxi drivers whose jobs are at risk from self-driving cars in India, it's English-media journalists who will be rendered unemployed, as their only window into the political or cultural views of India is conversations with the driver who picked them up from the airport.

If it were the case that these people genuinely cared about the left or liberal cause, and genuinely felt that they can't relate to Indian culture enough to be a part of politics in India, fair enough. Go to the UK, join a party, fight an election. Move to NY, write for the NYT.

If they did that, we would have respect for them, as we do for Dadabhai Naoroji.

But the reality is, they won't do that. They can't do that.

They are only useful to Western liberals as compradors and fixers who help them navigate Indian politics, history, or culture.

They can only get a column in the Graun, BBC, or WaPo if it's to shame other Indians and rob them of agency.

Their awards for their journalism in India are merely pats on the head for being pliant. If they were actually respected, they would be entrusted with UK/US politics.

As soon as they stop toing the line or try to engage with politics in the West the way they report on India, they are brutally cut down to size. They don't get to host debates on CNN or the BBC. Because just like in their South Delhi homes, servants don't get to eat at the table.

Nobody takes them seriously outside of their established Uncle Tom role, simply because they have no self-respect.

That is why all they can do is pontificate from a studio or newspaper column, write clickbait for the elite, or get into fistfights with subaltern Indians abroad.

So, for everyone who was eagerly awaiting the full, detailed version of this thread, as a long-form article, here it is!

Out now in @SwarajyaMag! https://swarajyamag.com/ideas/the-hypocrisy-of-the-indian-elite-and-the-reactionary-brutality-behind-their-liberal-veneer

And if you enjoyed this thread or article, allow me to present my Magnum Opus on the elections, busting every myth and false narrative.

I hope I've said everything that needed to be said.

If there's one article you read this election season, it's this. https://swarajyamag.com/politics/what-the-media-gets-wrong-about-india-a-guide-to-the-2019-elections

So pleased to have seen the exuberant response to my Swarajya articles.

Our election is still in its early days, and there's plenty more where that came from, so stay tuned to this thread.

And thanks for the lovely comparisons with VS Naipaul, George Fernandes & Chandan Mitra!

Yet despite the praise, please don't compare me with our favourite walking thesaurus, who despite his debonair accent and grandiloquent way with words, never had the spine to criticise The Family, and epitomises the elites I write about.

I prefer comparisons with vertebrates.

The third thread and long-form article of my series on the 2019 Indian elections is now out!

So, if you have enjoyed my musings so far on the changing nature of Indian society, I have used the same tools to analyse another high-profile media issue here. https://twitter.com/ruchirsharma_1/status/1122115081435865088

The latest in my series on the Indian elections and media narratives around them.

Indian voters already possess the antidote to the venom spewed by @TheEconomist, @TIME, @nytimes, and their comprador bourgeoisie interlocutors.

It's called democracy. https://twitter.com/ruchirsharma_1/status/1132187697529929728?s=19