Thread by @ARanganathan72

"These Communists in Tamilnadu are in a terrible bind," quips @MRVChennai. "They hate Lord Shiva because he is associated with Hinduism, but revere Lord Murugan, the son of Lord Shiva, because he is associated with the Tamil language. So Shiva is communal but his son is secular."

Riveting session on Nationalism and Liberalism at the @PondyLitFest.

Liberalism is all about Individual not Group rights, which is what the Left is all about. They are anything but Liberal, says @PandaJay.

Nationalism has always been Hindu in character, thunders @MRVChennai.

"If Nationalism is all about love for Mother India," asks @harshmadhusudan, "then are NRIs Nationalists?"

"You can carry an ethnocentric identity & still be the citizen of a country other than India. It all depends on your faith, if it is connected to India" answers @jsaideepak.

"Hinduism, Hindutva - this is semantics. Choosing one over the other is not an option when you have been branded a Kafir. "Hey don't go after me, I am not religious; I just follow a way of life" - You think by saying this you'll be spared? Don't be fooled," thunders @neelakantha.

"Get real. You are facing an existential, civilisational threat," says @neelakantha, "Your 'Way of Life' didn't matter to Ghaznavi, Aurangzeb; it doesn't matter to Baghdadi, to Geelani. As @Koenraad_Elst says: You are honing your arguments, they are sharpening their swords."

It is incorrect to say that Indians have traditionally not attributed credit to the ancient discoverers. Records exist, especially in the field of Metallurgy; we just have to study them, says @sanjeevsanyal in this wonderful @PondyLitFest session, Saving the Science of India.

Three years ago, on this day, we cried enough is enough, says @TheSatishDua, the man incharge of planning and orchestrating the surgical strike.

When the @PondyLitFest audience greets him to a thunderous applause, Gen Dua says: the soldiers deserve it, not me.

What a legend.

The communists butchered 10,000 Dalit Hindu men, women, and children in Marichabi; and very few know about this. There is a universal denial, and I am hated for telling this story, says @deepscribble in this heart-rending @PondyLitFest session, Narratives of Sorrow and Survival.