6 min readMar 15, 2026 06:40 PM IST
First published on: Mar 15, 2026 at 06:49 AM IST
If you grew up as I did in that bleak, wretchedly poor India when Rahul Gandhi’s granny was prime minister, you learned to become suspicious of lefties and fake liberals. You learned to discern the unashamed hypocrisy that lurked behind the fine sentiments they spouted about human rights and political repression. A month after I got my first reporter’s job in India in The Statesman newspaper, Indira Gandhi declared a state of Emergency and imposed press censorship that was brutally executed. It was truly a dark and dreadful chapter in our history, but she had the full support of the Communist Party of India. And the Soviet Union.
By then I was already questioning the anti-Americanism that defined the Indian leftist’s ideology and wondering why they never noticed the terrible crimes committed by their heroes in China and the Soviet Union. Mao and Stalin remain heroes of the Indian left to this day. I also noticed that when it came to sending their children to college, these lefties usually chose universities in the western countries they supposedly despised and it was to hospitals in these countries that they went when they got sick. As years went by, I developed a deep disdain for lefties of all genres. When they began to openly support radical Islam this disdain deepened. I also discovered that whenever this coalition took up a public position on anything, I could be certain that my place would be on the other side.
This happened last week when loud leftist voices were heard in public forums in Delhi and Mumbai condemning the United States and Israel for their ‘aggression’ in Iran. From the start of this war two weeks ago Muslim protests have erupted to mourn the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and now this lament is being fortified with voices from the ‘secular’ left. People who have never opposed the vile ways of the Taliban next door or the evil deeds of the Ayatollahs have been shrill in condemning Israel for what happened in Gaza. What puzzles me is why it is so hard for all forms of brutality and political repression to be condemned?
Along with the noise that we hear from Indian leftists and jihadis, voices have started to be heard from officials who served governments in those ‘secular’ decades when the Dynasty ruled and people like me (privileged and highborn) made up the entire ruling class. These officials have been openly critical of the Modi government’s ‘silence’ on the war. They have attacked Narendra Modi personally for making India ‘irrelevant’ because of this silence. They make it clear that they would have liked the Prime Minister to openly condemn the attack on Iran.
Personally, I believe the Indian government has walked a very tricky road with surprising agility. We should not be taking sides because the only side that matters is India’s side and it is not in our interest to antagonise the United States and Israel because that would then put us in the team of our old foe China. Surely, this could never be in India’s interest. We do not need teammates like Russia and North Korea. We should firmly continue our policy of neutrality so that both sides agree to speak to us, and Iran trusts us enough to permit Indian oil tankers to use the Straits of Hormuz, albeit with Iranian permission.
In a childhood spent moving from one army town to another I discovered that most of the soldiers I met regarded war as the worst option. I do not believe that wars solve any problems, and this war seems not to be heading towards a clear victory for either side. Its main achievement thus far is to push the price of oil so high up that economies in our part of the world are already hurting. The long lines we saw last week of people desperate to stock up on cooking gas cylinders indicate that panic is now beginning to spread.
President Trump has already declared that the war has been ‘won’ so let us hope that he ends it as soon as he possibly can. Some commentators are suggesting that Modi could play a useful role as peacemaker which means his ‘silence’ has helped and not harmed India.
Beyond victory and defeat in this war lies a problem that will remain unsolved. This is the jihadist ideology that turned Iran into the biggest promotor of terrorist violence internationally and the second worst violator of women’s rights within its borders. First prize goes to the Taliban unquestionably. And last week marked 1,636 days since Afghan women were deprived of education, the right to work, the right to live their own lives and virtually the right to live at all. Their husbands are now legally allowed to beat them but without breaking their bones. This is happening in our immediate neighborhood.
When will leftist writers, politicians and human rights activists speak up against this primitive dehumanisation of women? Let me answer my own question. Never. Their tears and their rage only seem to surface when they can find a way to blame the United States for everything that is wrong with the world. This is exactly the sort of senseless anti-Americanism that I grew up with.
In this very troubled time if we have anything to be grateful for it is that the Congress Party is not in power.
Along with the noise that we hear from Indian leftists and jihadis, voices have started to be heard from officials who served governments in those ‘secular’ decades when the Dynasty ruled and people like me (privileged and highborn) made up the entire ruling class. 
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