Thread by @gauravsabnis

The overt, overbearing and discriminating crap these sanghis pull in Indian schools would get them prosecuted, sued, penalized into bankruptcy in the United States. that's why they are so incensed at US universities starting to include caste under covered categories.

https://twitter.com/vimoh/status/1489305692934586370

For right wingers, the definition of freedom is centered around the freedom to discriminate.

I'm not making this up. It's a firm belief in the US libertarian/conservative circle, repeated often by the likes of Rand Paul - "I don't discriminate & I won't go to a place that discriminates but govt/courts can't punish someone for discriminating cos that's anti-freedom."

That was something I always argued against even when I was in a staunch libertarian phase. That the Civil rights act was "anti freedom". Cos it gave govt5 institutions the right & the duty to punish someone for discrimination that can be proven in a court. Seemed fine to me. 🤷🏽‍♂️

If I don't discriminate and you don't discriminate and no one discriminates, then anti-discrimination laws will simply never have to be used.

Simple. How do CRA/VRA/EEOC etc infringe on freedom unless you think freedom to discriminate is a fundamental right?

This hijab based refusal of education, new to India, is just the start.

They've already cashed in the old polarizing issues like Kashmir, Babri, triple talaq, beef, inter faith marriages, conversion, etc. Your thought those "wins" would be the end? Not for them.

When the primary fuel for your political movement is aggrieved bigotry disguised as nationalism, you need to keep feeding that engine. So new fronts need to be opened up. Like ARRESTING people over a cricket match loss. Kicking students out over hijab.

More fronts will be opened

Because at the core of any right wing movement is the right to discriminate. It was so in the Civil War, Jim Crow, European fascism, hindutva, Bolsonaro, Brexit, Trumpism, Roganism etc.

This idea that the left is evil for refusing your right to discriminate indiscriminately.

There are twice as many ethnic Indians in the United States as there are in Goa. High time caste was added as a covered category in all anti-discrimination statutes across the country, not just universities.

History has shown that such bigotry fueled majoritarian movements can only be stopped when the people from the majority start speaking up louder and louder against bigotry. And fighting back. Emphatically.

Just like there's antifascism, we need antisanghism to save India.

They only question is, will India's privileged majority wake up before the current constitution is rendered completely irrelevant, as are the courts, because authoritarian majoritarian countries aren't exactly known for their jurisprudence.

Read the North Korean constitution.

You need a Lincoln to stand with a Douglass, an LBJ to stand with an MLK, a Gorbachev to stand with a Sakharov, a de Clerk to stand with a Mandela if you want to end authoritarian movements built on a fuel of continuous paranoia abs bigotry.