"An inferiority complex ridden Indian male who is sexually frustrated, ashamed of his background and has poor ability in English…" said Chetan Bhagat, elucidating the characteristics of a "Bhakt" in his blog "anatomy of an internet troll", dated July 11, 2015. He mocks and ridicules right wing subscribers and seems to hint that a girlfriend is the solution to this fanaticism.
However, after receiving much flak, the best-selling author and columnist released another blog within months, speaking in favour of the "Bhakts" and dishing the liberals. In this blog, which was posted on November 2, Bhagat says that the "Bhakts" get their name only because the so-called liberals have labeled them so. He opines that liberals never really have solutions, not even to the danger posed to secularism, but that they only are a bunch of "privileged" people who sip tea and engage in pseudo-intellectual discussions.
In spite of such polarised views in the two camps, Bhagat still manages to tease and appease both. He starts the blog off by saying "In discussions of Indian politics on social media, two distinct camps make the most noise".
Many wonder which camp he belongs to because Twitter noise and CB are almost synonymous with each other.
In both the blogs, Bhagat tries to simplify everything, as if explaining classroom politics to a friend.
"Remember the boy in class who had been to Disneyland, while you were waiting for your next birthday to go to Appu Ghar?" Bhagat writes referring to the liberals as the luckier ones.
Such simplification gives rise to generalizations that cannot be accounted for.
Twitter is abuzz as usual with questions being raised whether Bhagat wrote the second blog only to win back the ones whom he upset with the earlier blog. We wonder what explanation he has to give in his next blog to win back the ones he hurt with this one.
Read: Anatomy of an internet troll: How social media birthed a strange new phenomenon in India, the bhakts
Read: Anatomy of a ‘liberal’: Indian liberals do not offer solutions, they use the term as a class marker