Sushant Jha
Delhi : A friend has raised a good question on social media: When RSS-BJP minded authors write a book and a launch is scheduled ; mostly politicians are made the chief guest! Intellectuals are sidelined. Even contributors or editors of the books are not invited on the dais. Sometimes it is a compulsion if the politician or minister is your department head but otherwise it should not be the norm. While so called secular launches are well organised. They rarely invite Netas or even if they do, that Neta has some relation with the subject.
These days writing a book on the subject close to the RSS-BJP ideology is a passport to reach out to the powers that matter—maybe you get some appointment or assignment in the future. Every third worker at the BJP headquarters is a mobile author these days!
One reason maybe the dearth of the intellectual firepower and availability of scholars in the nationalistic camp but available intellectuals are also not being reached out. Maybe, BJP authors are new in the game and don’t want to loose their time with the intellectuals who don’t have financially established empire, trusts or foundations. Better, they directly reach out to Netas. On the other hand, Seculars have good networks of rich trusts, foundations and awards. They don’t need Netas. Their intellectuals are almost a parallel power centers.
Anyway, the current nationalistic regime would do good to promote an intellectual battery that can stand and counter the liberal secular narrative. That will also discourage their start up authors to not to do Ganesh Parikrama of the politicians.