Woke-Leftist Terrorism in matters of "Politically Correct" Word-Usage
Shrikant Talageri
I think I first became acquainted with the idea of leftist-dictated ideas of politically correct word-usage when I was in high school or college (I do not remember the exact year), when I read a report in a newspaper about Shabana Azmi objecting to being called an "actress", and insisting that all actresses should be addressed as "actors". She claimed it was misogynistic to call an actress an actress rather than an actor. I found this weird logic absolutely incomprehensible: both the word "actor" and the word "actress" basically mean exactly the same thing, the only difference being that the former is the masculine form of the word and the latter is the feminine form. I simply could not understand the logic of this woman claiming that the former word was acceptable but the latter word was not. In fact, in my opinion, deciding automatically that the feminine form of a common word is derogatory while the masculine form is not is itself a very misogynistic way of looking at things. I felt that tomorrow this woman would decide that "man" was acceptable but "woman" was not, and that henceforward she should be referred to as a "man", or that she (and all women) should be henceforward referred to by the acceptable pronouns "he/him/his" rather than the "misogynistic" pronouns "she/her/her(s)".
There was certainly no reason at that time (any more than there is now) to claim that the word "actress" was in itself some kind of derogatory word with unsavory connotations. Such changes of meaning can take place and then become fixed in the vocabulary − for example the Greek word for "actor" is "hypocrite(s)", meaning a person who pretends (on stage) to be someone he is not. In the last few centuries, this Greek word was adopted in most other languages of Europe in a more general meaning as a person who pretends (even in real life) to be someone he is not, and today in English the word has acquired a fixed and unsavory connotation having nothing to do with the neutral meaning of the original Greek word − but the same kind of thing cannot be said to have happened in the case of the feminine word "actress" as opposed to the masculine word "actor". Nevertheless the leftist dictators of political correctness have managed to force their diktats on general usage to a very great extent. So now one can be branded as a "misogynist", or, in the case of many other words, as a "racist", merely for the innocuous use of neutral words which have been invested by the woke-leftist terror-fraternity of crows and vultures with loaded negative meanings and been converted into "politically incorrect" words indicative of an exploitative or regressive or reactionary mindset.
This kind of logic has been extended to all kinds of other fields. Thus people with some kind of physical or mental handicap (the word means "something that makes doing something more difficult; i.e. something which puts one at a disadvantage when doing something") were referred to very simply, correctly and logically as "handicapped", a perfectly neutral and logical phrase simply describing the situation or condition. This was officially replaced (in India through government circulars in 2013) by the term "disabled". Now surely the word "disabled", while meaning almost the same thing, is even stronger and more "demeaning" (if one insists on looking at words through such angles) than the word "handicapped": think of "disabling", or making completely unworkable, a computer program! But it did not stop there: in English usage, after a series of changes, each leading to more and more "politically correct" forms ("challenged" being one of the more prominent stop-gap phrases) as compared to the earlier one, today (unless my knowledge is outdated) the correct word is "differently abled".
Till March of this year (2023) I suffered a severe bout of near-deafness which had lasted for nearly two years (which, incidentally, was finally cured mainly because of a traditional herbal ear-drop formulation, bilva oil manufactured by the ayurvedic company Baidyanath) and had left me totally depressed and tired of life. I could not hear what people were saying to me and tried to avoid human interaction and could not enjoy music (and, in the initial period of many months, I also had a condition called biplacusis, by which all music I listened to sounded off-key or besurā). At that time, I would have been grossly insulted to be told that not being able to hear what people were saying to me, or not hearing music in the right key and tone, was not a "handicap" or a "disability" but a "different kind of ability"! The official version in Indian languages today is even more insulting and expressive of contempt or mockery for the handicap and the handicapped person: the word is "divyāṅg" or "divine-bodied". As per this jargon, the period of two years when I could not hear properly was a period when I had temporarily shed my inferior human ears and acquired superior divine ears − I very much doubt whether the persons who coined this word would have liked their own new-born children to have bodies or minds defined by this kind of divinity in any way!
This disease of calling a spade anything but a spade has spread into all spheres of vocabulary: today a person who is attracted towards his or her own gender is not a "homosexual", which would have been a simple, neutral and logical descriptive word, but being simple, neutral and logical is not "politically correct": to be politically correct one must use loaded words full of illogically applied or long-drawn out convoluted meanings. Thus a "homosexual" person is "queer": this word means "strange, unusual" in a negative sense. Today homosexual people have been politically mesmerized into using this loaded word, which was originally used in a derogatory sense by non-homosexuals, rather than the simple, neutral and logical descriptive word, to refer to themselves. Going one step ahead, another loaded word "gay", actually meaning "happy, merry", has been made the standard word: is there any correlation between being homosexual and being happy, and are heterosexuals then by definition unhappy? Going many steps ahead, a homophobic concept that humanity is divided into two communities, one "community" of male/female heterosexuals and a second "community" (called LGBTQIA+++) including and bundling together every single other category of human beings other than male/female heterosexuals (irrespective of whether their identity is based on mutually irreconcilable "orientation" or "gender" categories), has become the "progressive" and "politically correct" classification of humanity as dictated by woke leftist diktat − somewhat like the Muslim classification of humanity into two communities the momin = Muslim (the believer who goes to everlasting heaven after death) and the kafir = non-Muslim (the non-believer who goes to everlasting hell after death).
In fact, active woke terrorism on the ground of "gender identity" has become so powerful and authoritarian, and so obsessively hate-based and cancel-culture-centered, in the west, that people who refuse to toe the line face massive public hate campaigns directed by these extreme woke "gender identity" fanatics. People can be, and often are, expelled from jobs in Universities or corporate bodies or civic bodies for expressing or holding non-woke beliefs on these matters, and every effort is made to ostracize them from public activities and to make association with them something to be avoided. This not only does not spare heterosexuals (the case of the vicious campaign attacking JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, is a case in point. The storm of hatred and boycott unleashed on her in 2019-2020, after she opposed the dismissal of Maya Forstater, a researcher at a London thinktank, for expressing views on transgenders which were objected to by woke activists, must be read in detail), but even extends to the very homosexuals whose cause the wokes claim to represent. Thus, we have the British organization the "LGB Alliance" which has been the special target of these hate squads:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-disgraceful-crusade-against-the-lgb-alliance/
This "gender identity" fanaticism has become so widespread and powerful in the west that it is all set to destroy the very future of civilized society in the west by completely destabilizing the youth − and what happens in the west today, in this age of "progress" and "development" is what is going to happen in India tomorrow (or perhaps has already started happening!):
https://bharatvoice.in/opinion/ott-gender-identity-politics-targeting-our-children.html
To continue this article with a diversion on this main theme: in my earlier article, "Suicidal Hindu Misconceptions About Woke Leftism", I had written "Wokist dictatorship in the west today has set up politically correct rules governing every public activity, for example racial quotas even in the roles in films and serials!" It was in fact a film that I saw on Netflix recently which again brought this to my mind forcefully and partly motivated me to write this article, because I myself began to wonder for a moment why the film struck me as so unreal: was it because there is a subconscious "racist" streak within me that made me unable to accept the "racial" composition of the cast of the film? Such is the pervasive nature of "Woke" categories.
I recently saw three films on Netflix based on books by Jane Austen: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Persuasion. The first was excellently made, and the other two were less so. But there was a curious sense of unreality about the third film, Persuasion. The book, (published posthumously in 1818), like all of Jane Austen's novels, is set among the English landed gentry of the early nineteenth century, but curiously many of the prominent characters are "black" (Lady Russell, James Benwick, the Musgroves etc.), and the mixed crowds in the film also have a fair share of "black" people (and possibly also Indians though they escaped my notice, but a Mr. Elliot, a prominent character, is an "East Asian", I believe a Malaysian) − although the serial is clever enough to have blue-blooded white persons for the role of hero and heroine, assigning only some side-roles to black people!.
Not only am I not a racist, being genuinely and fully as anti-racist as the most card-carrying leftist claims to be (though their claims are belied by the selective outrage that really or allegedly "racist" or "reactionary" issues arouse among such leftists, depending on who could be targeted as the object of their outrage), but the film does not even pertain to India or Hindus or Hinduism, and should not have affected me in any way. But the fact that this is a part of the spreading disease of fake cultural presentation which is being pushed on an international scale by woke-leftist terrorists got my goat.
I found it strange and weird that people (I have absolutely nothing personal against the particular actors and actresses in these roles in the film, and am perfectly certain they may be as good or as bad in acting as, or maybe even better than, the other actors and actresses in the other roles) who so very obviously did not look as if they belonged to the time, society and place depicted in the film (the early nineteenth century landed gentry of England) were pushed into roles just to fulfill racial quotas dictated by "politically correct" woke ideas: did the film intend to show that early nineteenth century England was as cosmopolitan and well-integrated a multi-racial society, with as much racial tolerance and as little racial prejudice, as many parts of the modern world today − even having black persons as part of the aristocracy of the time, and marrying into conservative English families? What exactly was the purpose? Clearly it was just "political correctness" for the heck of it!
The film was definitely about Jane Austen's book "Persuasion" set in early nineteenth century England among the landed gentry of that time. It claimed to be a film-version of that book, the names of the characters are the same as in the book, the story is basically the same. Their clothes, houses, social lifestyle and activities, social mores and manners, the technological developmental stage of their life, all are as per that period, society and place. No-one is shown zooming around in cars with mobile phones, the women are wearing the dresses appropriate to that time (and not sarees or kimonos, or bikinis and mini-skirts, or even other accepted styles of feminine apparel in the modern west). Why is it that it was felt necessary to choose a cast which would present a fake "multi-racial picture" which did not fit in at all with the ethos of the particular book, or even the ethos of the other depictive aspects of the film?
A young friend asked me: "Do you mean to say that 'black' people should not be allowed to act certain roles?" But, to begin with, it is not the question of "allowing" anyone to do something: it is a question of setting up fake and coercively promoted and enforced ideas of "political correctness" as an end in itself.
Of course people can act in any role they want, but in a seriously made film or serial or drama, one would expect a certain adherence to a realistic depiction of the cultural atmosphere of the period and time. Now, when it comes to other cultural aspects, the leftists don't mind −and in fact would laud − realistic (or "as realistic as possible given our state of knowledge") depictions, but they now set up quotas and politically-correct dogmas about the distribution of roles among members of different "races" and "genders" (the latter as per their own new definitions of the word) irrespective of the time, period and society to which the film belongs.
Note the following cases where one would accept, or even expect, laxity in such matters:
1. Depictions of ancient periods about which we do not have actual records of how the people looked: although scholars may have offered their scholarly opinions on these matters, and people may have their own fond ideas on the same, the fact is that we really do not exactly know beyond certain general criteria.
Thus films (etc.) on Greek or Biblical or Teutonic mythological themes, or Indian Puranic or Epic stories, or even the Buddhist and Mauryan periods or many other later periods, could certainly show great (but reasonable) laxity in depictions of the characters (without going modern international). In my opinion, Rāma or Kṛṣṇa, for example, could be depicted by any Indian-looking actor, whether a typically Kashmiri/Punjabi-looking actor or a typically Nepali/Manipuri-looking actor or a typically Tamil/Telugu-looking character as long as there was no clearly discernible disruptive motive involved in the casting and as long as the attempt was in keeping with the (non-racial) physically-described features of the character: thus Dhṛtarāṣṭra in the Mahabharata is blind, and Bhīma is powerful-bodied, etc. so one would expect not to see a Bhīma who is skinny and weak-looking or blind − and anyone objecting if he were depicted as such would naturally be objecting not out of "prejudice" against blind people or skinny people but against distortion of the well-defined features of the characters. Likewise, if Rāma or Ashoka or Shivaji were depicted as an African or a Chinese or a dwarf or a physically or mentally handicapped person, the protests and objections would not be from people who are "prejudiced" against Africans or Chinese or dwarfs or physically or mentally handicapped persons, but from people who object to fake and motivatedly distorted depictions.
2. Traditional and folk dramatic depictions; or artistic musical performances (where the singing and dancing talents of the performers are important, and not their looks or the real or alleged implications of their looks) − or even non-musical performances where the performers show their unique or special acting skills; or performances by local groups of enthusiasts; or by special international troupes which statedly or implicitly contain members from different countries and "racial" appearances; or by a particular group of people where the cast members will naturally all, or almost all, necessarily belong to that particular group (e.g. a Ramayana or Mahabharata based performance by a group of Russians or Italians or Chinese or Ethiopians, or by members of some particular handicapped group like blind performers, etc.).
Thus, for example, all societies (from Japan to Shakespearean England to traditional India) had traditions where all roles, male as well as female, were played by male actors. In such performances, while males who could best reflect feminine beauty and grace in playing the roles of Sita or Draupadi, or even Menaka or Urvashi, for example, would naturally be preferred, no-one would seriously object if the Sita or Draupadi or Menaka or Urvashi was played by a person with noticeably masculine features or lack of real good looks.
3. Parodies or Comic depictions of stories are naturally not only allowed but are even expected to show (within limits, and if there are no viciously mala fide intentions involved) parodied or uncharacteristic or ludicrous features, actions, dialogues and story-lines, for the sake of entertainment. I remember a Delhi Doordarshan Hindi/Urdu drama in the old Doordarshan-only days in Mumbai, about Salim and Anarkali which was a truly hilarious parody of the (in any case, I believe, fictional) story, where Anarkali was depicted as a fat, giggling and silly girl being egged on by her mother to try to entrap Salim, and Salim also depicted as a stupid and easily-fooled person who gets entrapped. In this case, there were no mala fide intentions − the purpose only being pure parody and comedy − and the performers were Delhi-based Urdu enthusiasts who included Muslims, and the fact is that Salim and Anarkali are, in any case, not objects of ardent veneration or adulation. On the other hand, one can imagine, for example, the furore that would be kicked up in Maharashtra if Chhatrapati Shivaji or Bal Thackeray or Dr Ambedkar, or even Jyotiba Phule (who, despite his various achievements, was a viciously anti-Hindu and pro-British and pro-missionary person) were parodied as comic personalities. By contrast, a drama by Vijay Tendulkar, "Ghashitam Kotwal", which severely parodied the Peshwas, and even the Pune Brahmin community as a whole, is lauded as a masterpiece: many of the performers were Pune Brahmins themselves! Whether this was because the drama had great artistic merit, or because there was an element of truth in the depictions, or because Hindus as a rule are tolerant, or because Maharashtrian Brahmins have been a favorite punching bag in the politics of the state, I really cannot say.
On the other hand, No-one would dare to produce any drama or film which would even seem to poke even the slightest bit of fun at Jesus or Mohammad, or even at the most well-known examples of vicious Evangelical fervor like the murderous "Saint" Xavier or the modern "Saint" Mother Teresa. But Hindu Gods, priesthood, customs, rituals, etc. are perfectly "politically correct" targets of parody, insult and vilification in films and serials. But for this, we have only Hindus to blame: Hindus who accept the "secularist" dictum that it is the duty of Hindus to accept, with a bowed head and a tolerant smile, every insult to and vilification of every aspect of Hinduism; and at the same time also his duty to accept the right of Muslims and Christians to object strongly, violently and effectively at even the slightest perceived disrespect to any and every aspect Islam or Christianity.
Let me make it clear that, except for the hate-filled woke leftists and the more vicious specimens among Muslims and Christians, and Hindu elitists in their pay, most normal (even if otherwise staunch) Muslims and Christians have no real objection to Hindus protesting against insults to and vilification of Hinduism, and in fact they have genuine respect for staunch Hindus and contempt and disdain for "secular" Hindus −however much they may be aware that it is the "secular" Hindus who are their allies and fifth columns, and the staunch Hindus their theoretical opponents. I will give just two examples from my own personal experience:
1. A disproportionately large number of my best friends in school, college, office, and outside, have always been Muslims and Christians (and Parsis). All of them have known my views and, however much they have not been in agreement with them, have always respected me as a human being who did not discriminate against people on the grounds of their religious, linguistic, or any other identity, and as a person who could be trusted to help them and who would not lie to them. Many of them have expressed their contempt for "secular" Hindus who made anti-Hindu and pro-Muslim-Christian remarks (whether in the office or in the news) with comments like: "if they cannot be true to their own religion and people, how will they be true to us?".
During the heyday of the Ayodhya days (1992-1993) I was working in the Girgaum branch of Central Bank of India. One of my colleagues was a Muslim officer with a Marathi surname and extremely fluent Sanskritic Marathi speech (I think he was Marathi-educated). We had frequent friendly but intense debates/arguments on Hindu-Muslim issues, including of course Ayodhya. In the very thick of the riots, one day, a Marathi peon in the office jokingly (but loudly and in the public hours) told him to be careful while going home. The customers who were present were surprised, as they had assumed all the time that he was a Hindu. But this unnerved him so much (it was the time of the Great Hindu Backlash in Mumbai) that at end of the office hours, he felt nervous to leave by himself. He did not dare to ask any other Hindu colleague, since he did not trust them (although some were vocal anti-Ram-Mandir socialists and communists), and he asked me if I would accompany him to Charni Road railway station and wait till he caught the Virar train (he stayed in Vasai). After that, he remained on leave till everything had quietened down. Many years late, when he was transferred from the branch, he startled the rest of the staff by saying "Shrikant, you are the only person from this branch that I will remember".
2. The way Muslims and Christians regularly organize large and effective protests every time they want to announce that their religious "sentiments" are "hurt", and the way in which Hindus accept every misrepresentation and vilification of, and every insult to, their religion and their identity with complete indifference and even "tolerance", is too well-known to be elaborated here. Whenever I have made any reference to the fact that they are protesting too much, friendly Muslims have pointed out: "why don't Hindus also protest when Hinduism is insulted? You have only yourselves to blame". In fact, many of them express their open contempt for Hindu tolerance, and one of them once told me "Hindus always like to let their pants down and say: 'come and….'" − I will not, and need not, complete the sentence, uttered in colorful and vulgar Hindi!
The fact that Hinduism is insulted only because Hindus allow it to be insulted came home to me most tellingly from the following incident related to me by a lady colleague (again, during my Girgaum branch days). The logic is akin to the logic by which Muslims in Mumbai used to go on rampaging riots many times a year, every year, on the pretext even of events taking place in other remote Muslim countries, till Bal Thackeray put a stop to it in 1992-93 with his Great Hindu Backlash. After that, in over 30 years, there has not been a single Muslim riot in Mumbai! [It it is the same in the case of Gujarat and the Great Hindu Backlash after the Godhra incident].
[It is the perception of this fact which made Gandhi say: "But my own experience confirms the opinion that the Mussalman as a rule is a bully, and the Hindu as a rule is a coward. I have noticed this in railway trains, on public roads, and in the quarrels which I had the privilege of settling. Need the Hindu blame the Mussalman for his cowardice? Where there are cowards, there will always be bullies.". And which inspires a common Islamist slogan "Ladhke liya Pakistan. Hanske lenge Hindustan".]
The lady, and a good office colleague and friend. is a Maharashtrian Hindu married to a Mangalorean Tulu Hindu. Her name Roza Amin (Roza a Russian communist name given by a communist grandfather, and Amin a respectable Mangalorean Hindu surname) once led a Marathi customer to ask me surreptitiously: "Isn't that lady a Muslim? How is she wearing a mangalsutra?" Her son was studying in St. Xavier's High School (also the school where I studied). In one social function in the school, the children (obviously tutored by some staff members) performed a "drama" with the Ramayana story in a "modern" setting, where a modern "Rama" was shown, among many other things that I do not recall now, smoking and using foul language. The drama was apparently a "hit", and was scheduled to be performed again a few weeks later. My friend was justly incensed, and spoke with some other parents, in order to lodge a group protest. But the other parents demurred, on the grounds that it might lead to a targeting of their children by the school. However, she went ahead alone, and lodged a formal protest with the school principal. The school not only apologized and cancelled the repeat performance, but her son never had to face any consequences or repercussions of any kind!
So it is time Hindus decided to stand up for themselves − regardless of what leftists, "secularists", and vicious specimens among Muslims and Christians, have to say − and stopped being doormats and punching-bags and the kind of sub-human beings who let their pants down and say… well, I think it is clear what they should not be saying!
It may seem that I started the article with the issue of woke-dictated "politically correct" word usage, and moved on to other topics. But these are not "other topis". It is the same topic extended from mere words to actual actions.
After reading what I have to say, motivated woke leftists and those influenced by their mesmerizing propaganda may aver that my views are indeed based on "racist" sentiments or feelings, or some other kinds of "parochial" mindsets, but it was in fact the awareness of how far woke leftist hate-based righteousness and terrorism has indeed brainwashed "modern" thinking to this twisted extent of illogic that made me all the more determined to say what I felt like saying, regardless of how my words may be twisted. It is time someone spoke some sense, since it is not likely that many others will dare to court all-round censure by expressing views which can be (and will most likely be) branded, however incorrectly, as "racist".
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