The Intelligence and the Left Probably Coin Because of This Need to Question All Accepted Norms

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Why is the intelligencia so prominent in bengal and why, historically, have individuals been so left wing? Wellso tell me. I think it's because inte gencia grows up questioning structures of power and conformity and social nons and therefore you end up being positioned on the left of any establishment that you're questioning. That said, one of the things that i think i didn't speak about when i spoke about the intelligencia is that we are felled by dogma. One of my quarrels with the indian intelligencia, or sections of it, is its failure to recognize and respect the sentimentalism around institutes of the state, the military, the flag, our veterans

Growing up, Barkha Dutt was totally rootless. She spoke English, not her parent’s Punjabi. She devoured Enid Blyton and studied English literature during college, but read few Indian novelists. She didn’t even know her caste. This has opened her up to criticism as being a progressive elite who is out of touch with her heritage, and challenged her to be especially thoughtful in the way she examines the many overlapping values in Indian society. A successful broadcast journalist and columnist, she currently runs the YouTube-based news channel MoJo Story and recently published a new book, Humans of COVID: To Hell and Back.

Barkha joined Tyler to discuss how Westerners can gain a more complete picture of India, the misogyny still embedded in Indian society, why family law should be agnostic of religious belief, the causes of declining fertility in India, why relations between Hindus and Muslims seem to be worsening, how caste has persisted so strongly in India, the success of India’s subsidized institutes of higher education, the best city for Indian food, the power of Amar Chitra Katha’s comics, the influence of her English liberal arts education, the future of Anglo-American liberalism in India, the best ways to use Twitter, and more.

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Recorded May 5th, 2022 Other ways to connect

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