India's intellectuals are anti-India, says Australian sociologist who is all praise for PM Modi

New Delhi, Nov 08: While hailing Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Australian sociologist Dr Salvatore Babones has criticised the country's 'intellectual' class for being 'anti-India' and said that PM Modi's personality is an affront to the 'intellectual class'.

"The personality of Modi is an affront to India's intellectual class. It has brought them to a new fever pitch of anger over the loss of their place in society," he said. Not surprisingly, his comments met with strong reactions from a section of journalist in India.

'Journalist' Madhavan Narayanan slammed the sociologist for his remarks. "Who is Salvatore Babones? Why is he important? Why should his opinion or perspective matter over mine or yours?," he tweeted. Even Rajdeep Sardesai, who had a conversation with Babones at the India Today Conclave, refused to endorse his views. "His argument on flawed democracy rankings deserves attention BUT A) GOI not equal to India b) many intellectuals were also critical of UPA govt. Watch iview that's gone viral," he said on Twitter.

Undeterred with the criticisms, Babones has now said that India's intellectual class is "anti-India". "I stand by what I have said. India's intellectual class in its public persona is anti-India. In their hearts, I am sure, they are very proud patriots. But when they go out in the public arena to talk about India, they are certainly not highlighting India's accomplishments," he said, according to OpIndia.

"More importantly, when they criticize India as well as they should, they are, as a class, not doing so fairly and objectively. Instead, I see tonnes of evidence of intellectuals selectively attempting to present the worst possible picture of India in their international commentary. That is a problem for all Indians, even for India's intellectuals," he added.

He then accused the Indian intellectual class of giving an impression to the Western world that India is a fascist country. "..India is not a fascist nation but the Indian intellectuals are making the world believe that it is. Indian politics is not closely followed by the western world. Why would not the world believe it," he stated.

The Australian sociologist pointed out that the world is not interested to know the negative narrative about India. "What they are more interested to see is India's authoritative narrative. Indian activists who speak the language of the west should be honest. That's their role," he said.

Praising Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he claimed that he was happy to be called the "bhakt of the world's most extraordinarily successful democracy."

He attended India Today Conclave in Mumbai on Saturday where he claimed that India was wrongly being projected as a fascist state by the global media.

"India has problems. And activists, journalists, and intellectuals absolutely have a role to call out the problems. But the problem is that they allow internationally to color the overall evaluation of this system," he said. He reiterated that India is not a fascist country and that it is being wrongly portrayed as a fascist state by the global media.