Columns: Right Angle: Causes of Intellectuals

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The past fortnight, we have been reliably informed, has begun the fearsome process of "the closing of the Indian mind". Not because, as some may imagine, the "commanding heights" have been lowered by the deregulation of general insurance and the consignment of FERA to the archives. But because a rising star of the BJP-led Government told two members of the Prasar Bharati board that their services were eminently dispensable. Nothing unusual about the move, except that the two belonged to a pampered and endangered species, better known in journalese as intellectuals.

It's important to not get the wrong end of the stick. Although the Concise Oxford Dictionary (cod) defines intellectuals as "possessing a high level of understanding or intelligence; cultured", not everyone can aspire to that exalted status. The day Romila Thapar and Rajendra Yadav were retired from Prasar Bharati, the Government set up a review committee comprising Infosys' N.R. Narayana Murthy, Discovery Channel's Kiran Karnik and marketing consultant Shunu Sen. All three presumably fit the cod's version of intellectual. Yet, the editorial classes of India didn't go to town over the Government's laudable discovery of these intellectuals. They were merely the "professionals" while Thapar and Yadav were the intellectuals. In the hierarchy of association, the latter was several notches above the former.

Now, if for some inexplicable reason, the Government was to prematurely disband the review committee, there would be some tut-tutting among India's productive classes but few would be audacious enough to view it as evidence of creeping fascism. Murthy's colleagues, happy at the astounding market capitalisation of Infosys, wouldn't bat an eyelid and Sen would get back to the more lucrative task of advising companies on product positioning without a second thought. So what makes the services of a lady with impeccable Left pedigree specialising in ancient history and a novelist whose erudition has bypassed cosmopolitan tastes so indispensable to the mental being of India?

The answer lies in their positioning. In India, intellectualism is a closed shop regulated by ideology and tempered by activism. You cannot be an intellectual unless you are Left. In India, a Right intellectual is an oxymoron. You cannot be an intellectual unless you steadfastly cling to positions that have been universally discarded and yet assume an air of moral superiority. You cannot be an intellectual unless you regularly sign predictable petitions on subjects as diverse as CTBT and communalism but keep your peace when Marxist goons behead a teacher before his class in Kerala's Kannur district. You are an intellectual if you practice the art of selective indignation, believe you have the monopoly of the truth and are convinced that those who disagree are either fools or fascists. You are an intellectual if your tastes are aesthetic and your adversaries kitsch. You are an intellectual if you believe society must subsidise the courage of your obsolescence. If only to save India from itself.

For 50 years the intellectuals looked down with supreme condescension at the rest. Now the boot is on the other foot. Voices long suppressed are finding expression. The mind of India isn't closing, just changing gear.

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