https://www.barandbench.com/news/litigation/nakul-dewan-and-niranjan-venkatesan-appointed-kings-counsel

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NLSIU is literally the legal genius factory of India. Boils down to academic rigour and strict standards. No grade inflation here, you gotta work hard.

That is true. But what you do need is a reality check, which I am giving you free of charge! You don't have academic ability, that is clear. Otherwise, you'd let others carry on with their achievements and genuinely try to achieve something yourself, instead of bitching about people who have achieved stuff.

I am mad because the legal profession in this country is full of mediocre people who should have never been allowed to graduate with a law degree in the first place. If you weren't mediocre, we'd all be spending much less time here because we'd be congratulating these Indians who've achieved star-like things and moving on with our lives. You are no better than the white people and Asians in the U.S. who file lawsuits against universities when they don't get in because they think mediocre black kids got in at their expense.

That doesn't mean that the point doesn't need to be proved more and more often. We also need to show this in multiple fields. While the achievements of those who are abroad are substantial, I think there are fewer star Indian lawyers compared to doctors or scientists or CEOs in western countries.

I am sure the guy is a brilliant one and deserves every bit of success that he gets, but why exactly is this supposed to be a laudable achievement? Why are we so hung up on approval or acceptance from the British? We should rather be sad that such a brilliant mind will not be put to use to serve our own country and the hundreds of people here who could have benefited from his work. We couldn't provide him with the opportunities that he deserved, so he left us.

If we had truely made progress as a society, we would have cured this chip on our shoulders about British honours. This is why I think your comment is slightly disappointing. I think most of us would have been equally happy if this had been a KC in Canada or an SC in some Australian states, for example.

Again, why? Why does it have to be any other country? What will he be doing that's different from the top lawyers in this country? The point as you rightly said isn't about Britain, I would have said the same for any other country too. We glorify these things simply because very few among us can and do these or are even allowed to, not because the work is inherently superior.

We celebrate people who achieve things here. There is nothing wrong with celebrating his accomplishment. It is none of our business which ladder he chose to climb. The main thing is that he worked hard and excelled. His achievements don't take anything away from the senior counsels and judges who are applauded here.

What an asshat of a comment! Privilege? Bro, the only privilege that exists is in the Senior Advocate system in India. This guy would never have become a Senior in India at this age, but in the West they follow meritocracy, so he became a KC. India is a country running on privilege and nepotism at one end, and freebies and reservation at the other. Zero meritocracy.

what kind of privilege makes sure you top the class in every exam for five years? did he learn contract law in the womb? everyone else at NLS was some underprivileged little woobie?

Theres a wide gulf between saying "hard work alone doesnt cut it in this world any more" and saying he only got this far because of privilege. the latter is objectively not true. Dont motte and bailey.

the original comment on this thread that I was initially responding to said this was all due to privilege. All your petty insults and projections dont mean squat to me.

Its no use to allege privilege until you can substantive describe how it works and how much of an impact it had in any individual achieving anything. all it does is make you look like youre sour someone else did something you didnt.

Its worthwhile to talk about inequality of access to opportunity in society. I do so all the time, its not useful to try and pull down folks who have worked hard to get ahead in some sort of race to the bottom.

How on earth is this even an argument? You have zero sense of logic! By definition, if you have to "slog", you don't have all that much privilege! Do you really think he was living in some fancy house mate? Get your head out of the clouds! Houses in London (even of the two-bedroom type) cost through the roof! He'd have been living in dreadful conditions (can speak from experience) and it would have taken him a long time to come up. Is that really privilege for you? Yes, privilege of having better brains than 99% of people for sure, which certainly you lack! Oh yes, and privilege of genuinely loving the law and the work he does.

Stop being deliberately disingenuous. Obviously what the person meant (though they could have phrased it more accurately) is that Rhodes pays for the university study undertaken in Oxford. Any stay in England after that would have to be paid for by the individual's own hard work. You surely realise this. Just tell the truth, you were probably one of the mid-to-bottom students both at school and at university (i.e., law school). Therefore, you couldn't make an opportunity to go abroad, however much money your parents may have had. So you want to pull everyone else down by hiding behind "patriotism", hoping that one day, the world will be overpowered by mediocrity and the most bitter, shameless bullies like yourself will come out on top based on whose kick down and attempts to bully hurt most. Now go back to law school, do pranaam to the administration to repeat your degree, actually pass it with good marks and make something of your life instead of bitching about others.

Wow! Fancy English eh? That's really the best you have got? You are the one making random assumptions about privilege! Prove that he has privilege first. You are clearly somebody who has failed at lots of stuff so want to bitch about other people. If you were a true patriot, you'd be asking what we could do to attract people like him to come back or to make the possibility of not leaving at all more attractive. You know who does this well? The VC of the best law school in India! Instead, you make random assumptions. Why do you do this? The only motivation I can see is bitterness and the desire to pull others down to your miserable level. Please do not degrade the achievements of those who, unlike you, have failed to gloriously waste their lives since they turned 18. Now please go write that email to your Vice Chancellor, begging her/him to give you a second chance at academic success; say you have seen the error of your ways and that you have reformed.

As long as people like you are among my countrymen/countrywomen, I admit that yes, it wouldn't be cool for me. In fact, I would go so far as to freely admit that if I had come to know that a person with your lack of intellectual depth and bitter, vindictive personality was an Indian citizen and if I had been in London as part of our high commission's diplomatic staff rather than as a private citizen (clarification: I am here as a private citizen), I'd have asked our high commissioner here (after reading this comment) if our flag could be lowered to half-mast to mourn the ill fortune to which our country is forever a slave (the ill fortune being that our beautiful land is only fit for trolls rather than for heros because of the scumm, like you, within our midst).

PS: Apology to all LI readers who come across this comment other than the author of the comment to which I am replying. Somebody must combat the constant mudslinging going on here and I've figured (perhaps wrongly) that the best way to fight it is by engaging in it in the reverse way to how the other side is slinging mud. Therefore, please treat this as a rant and nothing more.

1. I did not attend NLSIU. I am not clever enough, so I went to a lower-ranked law school. Therefore, any shortcomings of mine should not, under any circumstances, be ascribed to it - any attempt to do so after the publication of this comment would be uttering a deliberate falsehood with knowledge that the words being uttered convey a false idea.

2. You have absolutely no evidence of privilege. Prove it to us: put family bank statements on a Google Drive or even give his childhood address. You can do nothing of the sort. I would say that is evidence enough. Why can't you provide one drop of evidence instead of insinuations. And even if you are genuinely a person with merit and trying to shame people who look at careers beyond India by these tactics, that is equally bad. The fact that even one person like you exists in India, combined with its other problems, I would say makes it a very unattractive place for clever people to be in. You deserve the ad hominem you are getting, if not worse.