Evenly spreading it across all classes

Jawed Naqvi can be a challenging writer to read and follow, if you try to make one cohesive whole of his articles. Naqvi writes:

Her aunt and cabinet minister Sheila Kaul came to Dubai for a preparatory visit. I asked her if Mrs Gandhi would meet the Indian workers who lived haplessly in remote shantytowns. She said of course Mr Gandhi would, and I wrote the story in the Gulf News. When Mrs Gandhi came visiting Dubai, the various Indian associations, all controlled by the well-heeled members of the community, blocked the meeting with poorer workers. The consul general who joined the conspiracy to prevent the prime minister from meeting the workers whose hard-earned money singularly shores up India's foreign currency reserves, has become a columnist for the rightwing religious revivalist journal – Organiser. [Removing the culpable beam in our own eyes, Dawn]

This is the concluding paragraph from the article and from this you would never guess what the context was. In any case, this single paragraph contains a factually incorrect assertion and an unverifiable claim. It is true that remittances by NRIs is a significant sum, clocking almost $30 billions. But Gulf countries come second to the remittances from the US. Also, the so called hardworking and poorer workers actually contribute a small portion, the well-heeled conspirators are the big contributors. In other words, the statement makes no sense whatsoever. Had Naqvi mentioned private remittances instead of foreign currency reserves, it would make some sense. Remittances by themselves are merely a component of other items that clock up the reserves.

Ultimately, at least in the Indian context, it boils down to old and new money. The overnight emergence of a relatively prosperous class of Indians, thanks to a neo-liberal sleight of hand, has recast an old social malaise in a new format: the inability of economic upstarts to acquire good demeanour. [...]

A marked feudal upbringing of India's burgeoning middle classes has brought with it a culture of prejudices. The steeper the economic climb, the greater the chances of atavistic social traits tagging along.

These are parts of the two opening paras from the article. Ignoring the incorrect example from the movie Lage Raho Munnabhai, these paragraphs would clearly indicate an elitist tone. In other words, Naqvi is being very mean to the nouveau riche, a trait not uncommon among our socialists and seculars and a paradoxical one at that.

The very next paragraph will leave you grasping for breath:

Caste snobbery is evident among Muslim students too, as any old student of Aligarh Muslim University familiar with the perpetual standoff between the perceptibly diffident Bihari students and the loud and pushy Pathans from the Rohilkhand region of Uttar Pradesh would testify. I am told the Biharis have become more assertive now, as have the Dalits in Delhi.

This forced example shows that so far Naqvi wasn't thinking "Indians". This statement was thrown in to preserve the pretense of political correctness. In any case it is clear that Naqvi considers the "socially atavistic" traits among Muslims a lesser problem than it is among the Hindus.

As we go further along, we finally find out the context of the article - the recent attacks on Indian students in Australia. Then Naqvi explains at length the two classes of Indians in Australia (old vs. new money) etc.:

"The attacks on Indian students in Australia over the past two months have split the Indian community in the country,' said The Hindu. 'Broadly, the divide is between the entrenched Indian community and the newcomers but it is so evident that Australian authorities too comment on the disconnect.

"The old-timers do not just echo the government's stated position that the attacks are instances of 'opportunistic crime' and not racist in nature, but openly find fault with the way in which the new crop of students from the sub-continent have been conducting themselves.

Until this point you would think Naqvi is basically presenting an elitist, bourgeois view of the Australian incidents. After this, the article suddenly takes a definitive Marxist tone. Naqvi becomes very sensitive about the underclass, especially those working in the Gulf region. Finally he concludes with the paragraph quoted at the beginning of this post.

Basically Naqvi writes to the Pakistani street sentiments. He has to cater to the visceral hatred and lend credibility to every myth about "Indians" the man on the street in that country believes in. He does not really have any sympathy for the Indian (Hindu) underclass, it is only important for strategic reasons. Worse, he uses the excuse of the underclass to make unsavory statements about Indians (Hindus).

Funny that he conveniently omits a very relevant example.