Our Mogambos make us so very unkhush

We love to hate our firangi villains - the word 'firangi' itself originating in the Persian word 'farang' from the Old French word for 'Franks', the European tribe West Asia encountered during the early colonialist project called the Crusades. Our collective memory of British colonialism, with its fair share of racists like Jallianwala Bagh's Reginald Dyer and 10 Downing Street's Winston Churchill, have morphed into our collective imagination in the form of Mr India's Mogambo, Lagaan's Captain Andrew Russell and all the 'gora' bad guys in Hindi movies. Couple this legacy with decades of Left Americophobia, and it was only a matter of time for us to update our bad White bad guys.

Enter the likes of ousted Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. Dorsey has made unflattering comments about India. (He made them from outside India.) He stated that GoI had threatened a Twitter shutdown when he was boss if certain accounts were not restricted during the farmers' agitation. GoI has called him a liar, and that he is a classic colonialist - 'If I can't get things my way, I'll use the highway.' The truth? Why on earth would that matter! What matters is that we have got a new entry in our collection of Shakaals - Shakaal being the 'international crime lord' in Ramesh Sippy's Shaan - in Dorsey, who is no lovable anti-Musk Jack Sparrow in our eyes any more.