Ramchandra Guha, one of the leading intellectuals in a system established by Congress governments and one of the biggest admirers of Jawaharlal Nehru, today expressed disappointment and disgust at the decision to award Bharat Ratna to Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya.
The NDA government had earlier in the day announced giving Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award of India, to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Madan Mohan Malviya, an educationist who founded BHU (Benaras Hindu University).
While the decision was welcomed across the board, a few like Ramchandra Guha used the opportunity to display their disgust because they thought it smacked of parochialism.
https://twitter.com/Ram_Guha/status/547703136714899459
For those who don’t know, Mr Guha is one of the well-known admirers of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. In fact, he is often called the first apologist of Independent India.
Mr Guha is deemed an apologist for Pandit Nehru because he, as a historian, whitewashed all the negative and weak characters of the first Prime Minister of India.
Books, often termed as history books, written by Mr Guha never talk about Nehru’s controversial aspects like him believing in astrology, him being opposed to his daughter’s marriage on grounds of religion, and him being a confused administrator.
Due to such whitewashing of Pandit Nehru’s persona, Mr Guha is widely regarded as a Nehru apologist rather than a Nehru admirer.
However, his disgust at another Pandit – Madan Mohan Malviya – took everyone by surprise.
One would have expected a Congress endorsed intellectual to give some respect o Pandit Malviya, who was once the President of the Congress party, but Mr Guha tried everything to diminish the statue of Pandit Malviya through a series of tweets.
Mr Guha, who also doubles up as cricket expert when not praising Nehru, had on earlier occasions disapproved comparing contemporary greats, calling it an exercise in futility. He opposed comparisons of historical figures like Nehru and Patel or cricketers like Tendulkar and Ganguly.
But he forgot his own rule today. Overwhelmed by the disgust he felt at Pandit Malviya, he ended up comparing Madan Mohan Malviya with all his contemporaries to cut down his size and stature.
This hypocrisy was well caught with a popular Twitter user:
https://twitter.com/bhak_sala/status/547710098202570752
While one can merely guess what caused Mr Guha to feel so disgusted, many believe that it was prevalent Hinduphobia among the Congress endorsed intellectuals that made him do so.
Madan Mohan Malviya always underscored his Hindu roots and expressed pride in the Hindu culture – a behaviour that always most certainly fills “secular” and “liberal” people with disgust and hatred.
As OpIndia.com had pointed out earlier, this is how secular-liberal Hindus react when they see a religious-cultural Hindu.