Ask any cricket lover if they are aware of Kapil Dev or Sunil Gavaskar’s caste, and you would probably be met with a blank stare. Both are legends of the game, not just in Bharat but across the cricket-playing world. But if you are a senior ‘intellectual’ from India’s mainstream media, you are entitled to see things quite differently from ordinary mortals.

Meet Dilip Mandal, whose twitter bio says it all – “Founder, Center For Brahmin Studies। Editors Guild। EPW, ThePrint, BBC, Quint। Ex – Editor, India Today, STAR, MCNUJC- Adjunct, CNBC। Harvard India Conference”

Now, take a look at Mr. Mandal’s tweet on the movie 83, which is centred on Bharat’s stirring triumph at the 1983 cricket world cup.

“Sunil Gavaskar played 6 matches in the 1983 world cup. Made a total of 59 runs. Ravi Shastri made 40 runs in 5 matches, took 4 wickets. Captain Kapil Dev did not have the right to remove them. He had to bear the burden (of their underperformance). He scored 303 runs, took 12 wickets. India won the world cup. The film 83 could not pick up this tension,” says the ex-India Today editor in his tweet.

Stumped? Speechless? Dilip Mandal’s twitter timeline is full of such gems. For the record, Ravi Shastri was dropped for the last few matches of the WC, including the final. But such lies and half-truths are par for the course for such ‘opinion-makers’.

We don’t know whether the spectacles Dilip Mandal wears are to correct his eyesight or they are responsible for coloring his entire worldview through the filter of one thing alone – CASTE. The man’s indefatigable obsession to run down Hindus and their religion offers a masterclass in how to peddle an agenda 24×7.

Dilip Mandal is the privileged elite of modern-day India. Due to his identity as an SC/OBC intellectual, he can get away with all sorts of bigoted, tasteless remarks and mind-numbing commentary. Sample his ‘analysis‘ of Parag Agrawal’s ascent to post of Twitter CEO.

Mandal routinely uses the hashtag #Casteist_Collegium to slam the judiciary, creating a narrative that judiciary is biased in favor of ‘upper castes’. The reality is starkly different. If anything, our judiciary is routinely bullied by Lutyens’ left-liberal intelligentsia to act contrary to the principle of ‘equal protection of law’. SC contemptuously dismissing Kashmiri Hindus’ plea to reinvestigate their 1990 genocide, or refusing to remove stifling government control over Hindu temples and private Hindu-run educational institutions, being some cases in point.

One of Mandal’s pet grouses against SC is that it ruled in favor of Hindu litigants in Ram Janmabhoomi case. The merits of the case are immaterial to Mandal – blinded by Hindu hate, he simply cannot digest the fact that an important center of Hindu Dharma was restored to Hindus. For the same reason, the likes of Mandal turn their guns on Muslims who speak up against the fundamentalists and fanatics within their society. Such Muslims are labelled as ‘government stooges’ and literally as ‘murtad’ (apostate).

While every sane person wants the unconstitutional collegium system to end, so that judiciary becomes accountable to the elected government, Mandal has a 1-point agenda: to introduce reservation in judiciary. This is the same mindset that makes propaganda outlet Caravan evaluate the ‘caste composition’ of Pulwaya martyrs.

But these Hindu-hating elements in our polity will maintain a studied silence over discrimination faced by Ajlaf/Pasmanda Muslims at hand of ‘foreign-blooded’ Ashrafs; or the terrible atrocities heaped on non-Muslims (often poor SC/OBC Hindus) unfortunate enough to find themselves living in Islamist-dominated parts of the country like Mewat. And they will never dare open their mouth against the patriarchy and crimes of Church hierarchy, because that will offend their Western benefactors.

Dilip Mandal and other Hindu-bashers can say whatever they want about judiciary and other constitutional authorities, even launch vicious, abusive attacks against individuals, and our state just looks on benignly. Indeed, their relentless bashing of judiciary often has the desired effect of intimidating judges to toe their line.

Recently, he tweeted that both CJI Ramana and Justice Chandrachud are ‘nikamma’ (useless). A lawyer initiated contempt proceedings against him, but the request was turned down by Attorney General Venugopal who said “Shoulders of court are broad enough to shrug off such comments.”

The above tweet also shows another pet peeve that Mandal has: the EWS reservation benefit given by the Modi government to poor general category Hindus; he is besides himself with rage that the petitions challenging that decision are not being fast-tracked by the SC.

It’s not social justice that likes of Mandal seek, but the demonization and utter disenfranchisement of so-called ‘upper castes’ is the end goal. And it is no wonder that he finds a platform to spew his venom from the highest echelons of Indian media, such as Shekhar Gupta’s The Print. Hindumisia is the defining characteristic of such media elites who are funded by leading businessmen like Ratan Tata, Uday Kotak, Nandan Nilekani etc.

Some of Mandal’s criticisms about the judiciary are not off the mark. There is indeed an unhealthy tendency among judges to overreach into executive domain and pontificate on everything under the sun, instead of focusing on efficient and speedy justice delivery. But when ordinary people and netizens critique judiciary, judges almost immediately lash out that they are being ‘targeted’.

So how is a public figure like Dilip Mandal able to say and do whatever he wants, unlike us ordinary mortals, without any fear of being held accountable as per law of the land? As the man himself says – it’s because he has the ‘protection’ of Babasaheb, Phule and Periyar. Truer words were never spoken!