Here is a thread I composed and posted to Twitter in September 2018. It went kind-of viral. I am rather fond of it myself because you don't often go viral for something you genuinely care about. And this I really care about. Here goes:
A large section of India's so-called educated middle-class is socially regressive and shows support for demagogues and opposes progressive values. People wonder why this is so.
I however, wonder why this is surprising. It's clear as day. It's all in our education system.
The other day, on a Whatsapp group, a software engineer - a school friend - shared a meme that pretty much said that rising petrol prices are okay because at least the BJP is saving us from Bangladeshis and Rohingyas and suchlike.
Before that, a doctor - another school friend and a trained psychiatrist - said that I had violated his freedom of expression by blocking him on Facebook. I had blocked him because even after multiple warnings, he had been spamming my comment threads with the defence of a rapist.
When I told him that freedom of expression is something that exists between him and the state and not between him and me, he didn't get it. He didn't understand that freedom of expression didn't mean he was free to spew vile bilge on other people's social profiles.
