A recent tweet shared on platform X (formerly Twitter) by a user named @AskAnshul went viral on the platform after it showed a celebrated professor of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, Divya Dwivedi, in a conversation with a journalist from France 24, a French media house, on a debate-hour titled, "India's Moment: What stakes at Delhi G20 summit?"
Prof Divya who is a teacher of Philosophy and Literature at the institution, came under attack after her alleged criticism of the country's social environment and left some of the netizens in dismay as her speech was considered to have underlying tones of prejudice and hate.
"India waiting to be fully represented"
"If we look at India itself, then there are two Indias. There is an India of the past, of the racialised caste order which oppresses the majority population. This is the India of Aryan interests, anxiously expressing itself in an Aryan name, Bharata. And then there is an India of the future, an egalitarian India without the caste oppression, and without Hinduism. That is the India which is not yet represented but is waiting, longing for the world to show its visage to the world,” Prof Divya asserted.
Many X users accused her of dishonoring the Sanatana Dharma and some called her a person with flowery language but driven by an agenda to degrade the status of the country.
India not progressing?
The conversation ensued with the France 24 journalist, with him explaining that India has witnessed growth in the past few years. He shared the conversation he had with a rickshaw-puller, a working-class individual, who has benefited through the technological change and now, can expand his business and connect not only with the customers in India but with the whole world, and inquired from the professor, "Is the future not smiling upon India?"
Dwivedi refuted him by saying that such "media-tised anecdotes" are not a demonstration of the country's progress but looking at the society, one can witness the division, where lucrative and powerful positions are still occupied by ten per cent of the people who belong to the upper caste.
The journalist questions, "Isn't it all the same in other G20 countries?" to which Dwivedi replies that inequalities would grow with the growing GDP, further widening the economic gap, but she harks back to India where not only there is evidence of economic inequality but further, such problems are aggravated due to racial oppression, exclusion and "a hoax representation in the form of Hindu religion".
The IIT professor was condemned by the social media users who attacked her for spreading hate against the country at a global forum and with a foreign media agency, and termed her as "a habitual offender".
The eighteenth G20 summit which is being held at the Bharat Mandapam Convention Centre in the country's national capital from September 9 to September 10, 2023, has welcomed global leaders with its arms wide open with the spirit of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam or World is one Family.
