How liberal are liberals?

For a while now, the term ‘liberal’ has been bandied about. The arrival of a right-wing government at the Centre has made some feel the necessity to wear their liberalism on their sleeves to differentiate themselves from those who are labelled blind in their loyalty to a man and the ideology that he professes.

Can liberalism claim to be the sister of objectivity or is it a case of never the twain shall meet?

Recently, a well-known social media flagbearer of Prime Minister Narendra Modi “corrected” the grammar in Rahul Gandhi’s tweet. She thought she knew best but Rahul was correct in his usage. Immediately, the woman was trolled and asked to refer to Wren and Martin, the Bible of English grammar. Whilst the woman did not exhibit common sense in what she did, the fact is that the way the “liberal” supporters of Rahul poked fun and trolled her, was anything but liberal.

Speaking grammatically correct English is not something that is the privilege of all. India has its own diversity in languages that needs to be celebrated. Whilst I was also guilty of enjoying the discomfiture of the woman, a habitual offender, being forced to delete the said tweet, it also occurred to me that there is a whole aspirational India, which might not necessarily have had the advantage to learn and speak grammatically correct English.

It is also possible that many among the non-English speaking lot may have voted Modi to power, outside of the communal agenda, simply because they saw in him a reflection of themselves— an outlier, who struggled and rose up the hard way. It is up to the liberals to factor in this group and their aspirations, when they deal with them, rather than poke fun perhaps.

Before what the liberals would like to call the silent Emergency of the last seven years, there was a real one imposed by Mrs Indira Gandhi, in which she did all in her power to muzzle institutions and the press, in much the same way as the present dispensation has been doing. But try speaking of Mrs. Gandhi’s imposition of Emergency and you will find voices opposing, with mention of J P Narayanan having exceeded his brief, in asking government servants to revolt, leaving Mrs. Gandhi with little choice. The fact remains that the Emergency was a blot on the history of this country and a slap to a citizen’s constitutional and democratic rights. If you are defensive about this, can you not be accused of being less liberal and sound suspiciously similar to those who defend the brute actions of the present government?

The defence of Rahul on social media sometimes seems to border on the sycophantic. Agreed that he is a decent gentleman, well-read and prescient, in that he has called out this government, time and again, on their many bungles and been proved right when they have finally been forced to implement his suggestions. Many, BJP-supporters included, perhaps also know now that he has been demonised by the BJP’s IT Cell. But it is equally hard for me to understand this blind support to Rahul, as it is to understand similar support to Modi. Is there a point where the Right and the Centre converge to sound equally illiberal when they lift up one or the other to dizzying heights, from which you can only drop down, if Newton is to be believed philosophically?

A well-known historian and a self-professed liberal often speaks of the need to be objective when writing on history and yet the same gentleman attacks present-day scions of India’s famous political dynasty, in a manner that seems to go well beyond the objective.

And then of course, you have liberals, who are fine with all things liberal, except feminism, which is just all about asking not to be differentiated against. Then again some who might say, I am okay with minority rights, as long as my child does not marry one, or a Pakistani, or worse still, proclaim that he is gay.

The famous Communications Professor, Bella Mody, once told me that there is nothing called objectivity, not even in the media. For a student of Communications, this sounded preposterous and unbelievable. But the more I think about it now, the more I feel she was right. A natural bias seems to colour all our thinking. To be a true liberal is real hard work.