One signs of a self confident country, is that it's "intellectual" class is confident enough to comment on the rest of the world from its own perspective, and do so in even when it is not directly involved in any way 1/n
We are currently living in a time of major global shifts - a developing US-China Cold war, US race riots, Brexit etc. However, Indian columnists, writers etc will almost never take these up except as peripheral to some domestic issue 2/n
Where are the Indian writers pontificating on US race relations / police atrocities, HK constitutional position? They all talk about it in dinner parties but do not have confidence to join the debate. Moreover, they usually just parrot views of US or British intellectuals 3/n
This failure perpetuates a form of colonial Orientalism where we get dissected by the West but we can never dissect them. Instead, Indian publications bend backwards to publish obscure academics from the West to write on Indian issues, but never Indians to write on the West 4/n
Must add, that the one honourable exception to this is Wion TV channel. It reports on UK and US in the way BBC and CNN respectively report on India - i.e. with grave concern for the natives. 5/n
The asymmetry struck me when, just after I joined the govt, a foreign state-owned channel called me at 10pm to tell me to turn up for an interview on Indian economy next morning at 9am. The tone suggested that it was a favour being done by choosing me 6/n
I refused - and asked what would be the likely response if Doordarshan had similarly called up my equivalent in their home country. People treat us the way we allow them to treat us. 8/n
