When Narendra Modi won the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, it was a shock to India's self-professed liberal brigade. Here was the proponent of Hindutva out to ethnically cleanse India, the Fascist who will drench the country in blood.
These liberals punch above their weight in the media where they have enjoyed a brutal majority, and used that to benefit from the many perks offered by the pseudo-secular Congress and Left politicians. Modi's victory also meant those benefits will be cut off. The chatteratti went wild. They scoffed at the popular verdict, for all the swearing they did by democracy. They wanted the government to fall, or to pull it down.
But Modi is no novice to this game. Slowly but surely he made short work of this shouting brigade. And the people who elected Modi, the people who hated the Congress-Left brand of pseudo-secularism, the voiceless majority who stood helplessly as government after government allowed conversions and armed intimidation of Hindus, too hit back. They now had the Internet, they had the numbers to matter on social media. The old goat editors were voiceless here, their flawed doctrines were torn up immediately by the people's sharp logic.
The media-intellectual insurrection against Modi ineveitably winded down.
Cut to Kerala. A large chunk of these indignant secularists and liberals were from Kerala, where they trumpeted the survival of the Congress and the Left even as the BJP swept most of the country. They started their own troll armies, bringing disparaging terms for Hindutva supporters and their leaders into common lexicon swiftly.
But then, the LDF came to power and Pinarayi Vijayan became the chief minister. And he adopted Modi's style of governance. The reds and pseudo-liberals were aghast. They muttered under their breath, tried to find fault with everything Vijayan did or did not do, and tried to give mileage to VS Achuthanandan, the old fox who has always been Vijayan's rival in the party.
But Vijayan was able to swiftly silence such noises and sideline Achuthanandan.
Then came the evictions in Munnar, and Vijayan openly sided with the Christian clergy and stopped the evictions. His minister, MM Mani, disparaged the young collector who spearheaded the drive and used his own rustic phrases at political opponents stirring up trouble, among them a women's collective of estate workers.
Some of the leftist trolls couldn't take it any longer. They went after Vijayan. But were swiftly counter-attacked by their peers who supported Vijayan.
One question was asked: why go after the government so viciously? Why not give it time to do its job?
Well, why was that question not asked when Modi was subjected to such vicious attacks and trolled?
So different yardsticks for different people, right?
That really shows up what our left-liberals and pseudo-seculars are up to.
