Today I was watching suggested video of India Today Conclave where I saw the speech of Pratap Bhanu Mehta. A lot of you might be knowing he quite often writes in The Indian Express and is considered to be a public intellectual. The things he says in his speech and the question session Discussion show something about our democracy. The person (Rahul) who is questioning him is never seen as asking such tough questions from our prime minister. This really shows where the problem lies with our democracy. There were few comments in the video which questioned his intellectualism.
This question of intellectualism by other people who do not understand the meaning of intellectualism is intriguing. In 2016 when a person Akhlaq Ahmed was lynched a lot of people came in public and returned their awards to register their protest. From that time this debate is always going on about intellectuals and liberals and the irony is that the common masses and politicians do mud slinging on these intellectuals without realising their importance for society. In recent month Mehta was removed from the director board of Nehru Memorial and guess who replaced him- Arnab Goswami of Republic Tv now you can think who real intellectuals of our country are. The bitter truth is that intellectuals are the person who are always in the eye of storm irrespective of political parties or any authoritarian person in the power.
There is a very good Reith lecture by Edward Said (Sorry that is in audio format, but trust me these Reith lectures despite being in Audio format are treasure trove) which discusses about the importance of intellectuals for a society.In that lecture series Edward Said says that intellectuals have to speak truth to power. After listening to this lecture you can really judge mr. Mehta on the parameters of intellectual- if he needs to be called s intellectual or not.
Apart from Mehta there are other columnists who quite often write in Indian express, one of them is Suhash Palshikar. He also often writes about topics of democracy and political parties. From these articles and discussion and the lecture I really feel intellectuals question something fundamental or which we do not see or notice in the Tv debate and the bad part is that they are termed as arm chair professor or people living in Acs which definetely is not a good thing for our democracy and society as whole. This is shown by history as well, the best example being Cultural Revolution of China,where intellectuals were send to work in field because it was believed that they were unaware about the reality at the ground level and we know what happened to china after Cultural Revolution.
This question of intellectualism by other people who do not understand the meaning of intellectualism is intriguing. In 2016 when a person Akhlaq Ahmed was lynched a lot of people came in public and returned their awards to register their protest. From that time this debate is always going on about intellectuals and liberals and the irony is that the common masses and politicians do mud slinging on these intellectuals without realising their importance for society. In recent month Mehta was removed from the director board of Nehru Memorial and guess who replaced him- Arnab Goswami of Republic Tv now you can think who real intellectuals of our country are. The bitter truth is that intellectuals are the person who are always in the eye of storm irrespective of political parties or any authoritarian person in the power.
There is a very good Reith lecture by Edward Said (Sorry that is in audio format, but trust me these Reith lectures despite being in Audio format are treasure trove) which discusses about the importance of intellectuals for a society.In that lecture series Edward Said says that intellectuals have to speak truth to power. After listening to this lecture you can really judge mr. Mehta on the parameters of intellectual- if he needs to be called s intellectual or not.
Apart from Mehta there are other columnists who quite often write in Indian express, one of them is Suhash Palshikar. He also often writes about topics of democracy and political parties. From these articles and discussion and the lecture I really feel intellectuals question something fundamental or which we do not see or notice in the Tv debate and the bad part is that they are termed as arm chair professor or people living in Acs which definetely is not a good thing for our democracy and society as whole. This is shown by history as well, the best example being Cultural Revolution of China,where intellectuals were send to work in field because it was believed that they were unaware about the reality at the ground level and we know what happened to china after Cultural Revolution.
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