While everyone is discussing Vir Das and his kickass, from-the-heart poem, Two Indias (kudos to you, Vir…nice name, btw…did you name yourself?), does it strike you that the same poem could not have been recited by Munawar Faruqui? THAT is what makes it even more important for the Vir Das’ of India to make it a point to say it.
All those right-thinking Indians who are, regardless of their religious beliefs, identified as Hindus (whether by name or family or birth or association or whichever way the right-wingers seem to define that word today as per their constantly shifting goalposts) have a duty to say things that we are allowed to say without the threat of being cancelled or jailed or killed, not just so that the non-Hindus amongst us know they are not alone, but for an even higher purpose: to keep alive the very idea of India.
P.S: Vir didn’t go far enough though. I’d have preferred if he did. Nevertheless, a great monologue. For the life of me, though, I cannot see why people think it belittles India, and if it does, whether it does so because parts of it are false, or because we are ashamed of the truth.
