It is stinking elitism when retired Indian Supreme Court justice Markandey Katju says “90% of Indians are idiots” or when Indian professor Ashok Swain tweets ‘don’t blame Modi, the BJP, or nationalist Indian media; blame Indian voters whose stupidity is being exploited by Modi’. That kind of misanthropy is very familiar to activists around the world who ignore it & work tirelessly to educate, organize, mobilize against war & genocide. There have been thousands of Indians protesting for Kashmir. What there hasn’t been is a coordinated national anti-colonial movement & that is most likely a result of the weaknesses & divisions among progressive forces who historically do the work of movement building. That’s a crisis not just in India but around the world.
It serves no purpose whatsoever & is in fact politically deleterious to resort to elitism & misanthropy & write off 1.3 billion Indians as idiots or stupid. What have Katju & Swain ever done to overcome the crisis of political leadership in India & help to build an anti-colonial movement? The world is changed by those who believe in the human race against all evidence to the contrary & who work tirelessly to draw the uncommitted to the cause of justice.