One cannot but agree with Gurcharan Das when he argues that “Arrogant liberals are doing a big disservice to liberalism.” (Sunday Times of India, June 12, 2016).
As Das says, “arrogance of the secular liberal is not only morally wrong, it is bad electoral strategy. If the Congress or the Left parties want to convertbtge voter to a liberal ideology, they will not succeed by the sort of contemptuous and dismissive talk…” I believe that Das is completely right on this point. Much of the Hindu majority who ended up siding with Hindutva because of the arrogance of the liberal left. Somewhere along the line liberalism came to be identified with the left. We forget that the left is an equally bigoted ideology as is right-wing Hindutva. Both ideologies exist on the extremes – the left on one and right on the other.
If India has to survive, the liberal ideology has to survive. At present the survival of the liberal ideology looks difficult. The greatest challenge it faces is not from the right wing Hindutva, but from unaccommodating liberals themselves.
Liberal India will not suvive if India’s liberals refuse to defend the right of all thoughts and ideological perspectives to survive.
Sunny Peter 