Thank you, Sushmaji

So the secular buggers are yelping like kicked pariah dogs, after Sushma Swaraj gave them a taste of her own version of Dum Dum dawai. Under normal circumstances, Ms. Swaraj's statements are highly offensive and objectionable, but then again you wanna argue if these are normal circumstances? Be our guest (hint: large bundles of currency notes being flashed in Parliament, Amar Singh etc.). At least two BJP oriented blogs (Chindu and Offstumped) excoriated Ms. Swaraj's statements in no uncertain terms.

But such courtesy was not extended by the intellectual Junta post Sonia Gandhi's Maut ka Saudagar remark. Amar Singh uttered the phrase "communal forces" so many times that the fella might have developed a toothache from it.

The fact remains that the extended family has always resorted to the most vulgar rhetoric. The list of their victims is long - starting from Dr. Ambedkar to Babu Jagjivan Ram to the latest - Mayawati (a recent CNN-IBN comedy show made the most vulgar allusions to her appearance, Tehelka's Mintty Tejpal also made similar remarks in the past). Let us not even mention the most offensive remarks made about a certain set of people day in and day out. Now they are suddenly nice, working for "national interest" and ardent believers of "economic growth".

The media and the intellectuals must share at least a part of the blame for the recent dreadful attacks. The sheer scale of the attack and the meticulous planning behind it suggests the involvement of at least several dozen operatives. This would not have been possible without the aid of the media's constant flashing of terrible images and constant reopening of wounds. The Tehelka Sting finally bore its deadly fruit.

Shortly after the attacks, CNN-IBN had Mallika Sarabhai on call. She said something about humanity and insensitivity and then mentioned a couple of key incidents from 2002. Then she said, "perhaps about two hundred or three fifty or a thousand women were raped ...". Even if one were to disregard the statistics, how do you explain such casual statements?

What Mallika Sarabhai, Rajdeep Sardesai, Sagarika Ghose and countless other intellectuals want to say is that Ahmedabad deserved this attack. It is just that they don't have Sushma Swaraj's guts.

So, after dozens of attacks, lots of editorializing, politicking, indignation, discussions, analysis paralysis etc. etc., the only big question is: will they consider it even, now?