Thread: Both the left liberal and non-left in India are largely unintellectual- but in very different ways. The left liberals are largely intellectually derivative - copy pasting ideas from the west as low grade translators. BUT that gives a huge advantage (1/n)
Which is access to a body of knowledge. So from philosophy to rhetoric to even policy detail, there is an advantage of scale, of tapping into that work. And since left liberalism is anyway axiomatic derivation and context independent, the same can be used as is. (2/n)
At best one has to do low grade translation. So race = caste operation gives you a 100 rhetorical devices, policies etc. to do. Sometimes not even that. It isn’t just left that too, even other versions of liberalism are context independent (3/n)
So even neoliberal economic policies, classical liberal notions of “secularism” etc. will be cheerfully imported sans context, as Universal Truth. So the job of the liberal so-called “intellectual” is really easy - copy paste or regurgitate (4/n)
The right or non left in India has made its primary concern “Unity”. And because political unity is an end in itself, it is apathetic to discourse. In fact intellectual debate may even be seen as a threat that may wreck unity. (5/n)
There IS actually a huge body of profound and knowledge to tap into - which is Indian Knowledge Systems. But that has to be developed and used as tools to address contemporary questions (6/n)
But that requires a true ecosystem where those knowledgeable in IKS are connected to and infused in academia, media, cultural institutions and importantly the policy ecosystem. Now there is no “connect the dots”- no network, just disconnected nodes. (7/n)
New knowledge creation happens when there is such a vibrant ecosystem. When there is exchange of ideas, and ideas build on each other, recombine and cross fertilise. We have the seeds with IKS, but no gardening as of now (8/n)
And that is required because all right wing thinking is deeply contextual. It isn’t just axiomatic derivation from first principles. It is deeply anchored on context, our culture, our institutions, our norms, authority structures etc. (9/n)
So anchoring it in IKS automatically roots it in our context, though we have to address contemporary concerns. That needs the assiduous building of an ecosystem - anything other than that, and hand waving calls for “unity” leads to a vacuum (10/n)
In a vacuum - the most organised ecosystems of ideas prevail. It isn’t a surprise that the NCERT wokes issue happened. In a vacuum *someone* has to prevail, if you don’t organise, someone else will piggyback (11/n)
To summarise - the liberal issue in India is No intellectuals, but well organised ecosystem (copy pasters plugged into the west). The right wing one is Intellectuals, but no ecosystem (free radicals who the people in power are uninterested in cultivating) (12/n)
Tbf, I have seen a couple of encouraging signs of trying to cultivate such an ecosystem. But there is a very long way to go. And the persistence of a vacuum filled with nonsensical ideas makes this an urgent issue. The right shouldn’t lose a culture war by sleepwalking (13/13)

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More from @akshayalladi

20 Nov
PVNR was partially “reforms by stealth” and it was also during a crisis. ABV reformed openly. But both lost, not *because* of reforms, but they neither helped nor hurt.

UPA was not “reforms by stealth”, rather zero reforms but massive stealth - stealing public money that is.
Neither is all governance=economic policy, nor is all economic policy = “reforms”. Industrial policy, fiscal policy, infra are not “reforms”, but important, even more critical than “reforms”. And governance goes beyond economic policy as well- defence, education, social issues
Many unlocks are also at the state level for reforms, and not all things that change economic outcomes are strictly *economic* reforms. Take law and order and policing, and local judiciary - all will improve economic outcomes. Local business regulations. Then of course…..
Read 5 tweets
15 Oct
Thread: “Religion” (actually Dharma, mistranslated) does permeate many aspects of Indian life (it is not just an undercurrent). But actually India or Hinduism isn’t the exception here. Not just Indic faiths, even Islam permeates the lives of its adherents. (1/n)
“Religion”, culture are inextricably linked. That there could be a separation of public and private spheres, and that religion is a matter of “private belief” not necessarily public observance and culture is ONLY Christian theology, and unintelligible to other societies. (2/n)
Scholars such as Jakob de Roover have traced that not just to the separation between the regnum (the realm of the king) and the sacerdotium (the rule of God and the Church), but also to the body- soul and hence belief -practice distinctions in Christianity. (3/n)
Read 10 tweets
21 Sep
Thread: Last evening, our house owner, whom we had over for dinner, was narrating an anecdote about our villa complex’s watchman from UP. He had gone back home only to find that his brother had sold one of their ancestral lands to someone. The sale was technically “legal” (1/n)
The watchman then appealed to the Panchayat. Not just the Panchayat elders, but even the buyer of the land, on hearing of the fact that the seller had not consulted his own brother before selling their ancestral land, saw that as a violation of “Dharam” (2/n)
The buyer returned the land and got back his money. Everyone involved was convinced that was the right thing to do. We were then musing- how much does our *law* reflect our own customary practices and shared moral intuitions? (3/n)
Read 6 tweets
30 Aug
Thread: Happy #Janmashtami everyone. Sharing 7 bhajans/ Carnatic songs about Lord Krishna composed (both music and lyrics) by my mother - Smt. Meera Alladi; 5 in Hindi, and 2 Tamil. The first "Govinda, Tere Bina" in Janasammohini ragam, Hindi (1/8)
The second is "Shyam Tere Naam", Jog Ragam, Hindi (2/8)
The third is "Vasudeva Venu Madhava", Bhageshree ragam, Hindi (3/8)
Read 8 tweets
28 Aug
Musing: If you model sections of the academia and media - what is called the “intellectual ecosystem”, not as a free market, but as a closed oligopoly, actually not even that because there is no market test, then one can see why bad ideas perpetuate. (1/n)
In the “real world” that many of us inhabit, large companies that are not innovative, get disrupted by more agile startups or attackers. That’s not as easy in the “intellectual ecosystem” because there is no currency such as actual consumer purchases, that acts as a test (2/n)
Anyway, as an outsider who is a consumer so to speak of intellectual outputs, I watch out for the heterodox ideas, because those are the “startups”- the ideas that actually merit greater consumption, as they bring fresh novel insight, but get killed in their infancy..::: (3/n)
Read 6 tweets
27 Aug
Some policy analysts confidently saying India should take in lots of refugees from Afghanistan. See what happened in Kabul. People who operate in the real world know that many decisions have to be taken with incomplete information, and that malign actors want to harm us.
“bUt tHe OrDiNaRy AfGhAn lOvEs iNdIa”- yes they do, and this is a tragedy. Tell me how you have the deep perception to know, *without prior information*, who is an ordinary Afghan versus an ISI trained terrorist to wreak havoc in India?
The only people we can help are the Hindus, Sikhs and the known friends of India- that is those whom we have adequate background checks or information on, or have actively collaborated with us. Lamentations that the ordinary Afghan will start disliking us are silly
Read 4 tweets

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