Right-Wing Intellectuals & Intellectualism

A majority of intellectuals happen to be Leftists. And the Right refers to this majority as 'intellectuals' – not as 'Leftist intellectuals'. This seems to be a reasonable and acceptable approximation. But it is actually a dangerous mistake. Why? Because every time we refer to Leftist intellectuals as just 'intellectuals', we are saying that intellectualism and the Left are one and the same. We are surrendering the intellectual space to the Left. We are running away from the intellectual battle-field. Many right-wingers are fine with this. They say: "Leftists are thinkers; we are workers. They are arm-chair/ivory-tower people; we are real/practical people. They can keep their thought/thinking. We will do social work and build a strong society. We will do political work, win elections and rule the country. Thus we will build a strong India".

This kind of thinking is ignorance at its worst. What is a nation? What makes a great nation? What is a society? What makes a strong society? These are fundamental questions. And to know their answers, all we have to do is look at the 5000-year-old history of India. When we do that, we see that for 4000 years India was the greatest civilisation in the world. India's empires were the richest and most powerful empires in the world. How were these political and economic achievements possible? They were possible because they were built on the foundation of thought/thinking: philosophy, mathematics and science. Our kings, emperors, warriors, soldiers, traders, merchants, artisans, craftsmen, farmers and farm-workers built our rich and powerful empires – no doubt. But our philosophers, mathematicians and scientists laid the foundation for it.

What does all this mean for us today in the 21st century? The right-wing/nationalist project is to make India a superpower – technologically, economically and militarily. And to achieve this, it is not enough to simply 'build a strong society, win elections and rule the country'. Because a country can become strong technologically, economically and militarily only if it has a solid foundation of thought/thinking. So to make India a superpower, we must begin with the domain of thought/thinking. We must stop surrendering this domain to the Left. We must take it back and make it our own. And for that, the first step is to stop referring to Leftist intellectuals as just 'intellectuals' – and call them by their correct name: 'Leftist intellectuals' (or better still, just 'Leftists'). Then we must take the second step: developing right-wing/nationalist intellectuals.