It was LK Advani, now 88 years-old and banished to the party's Margdarshak Mandal (Committee of Pioneers), who first popularised pseudo-secularism in the 80s when he lifted the term from an RSS guidebook to an idyllic Hindutva state. It was a cornered Advani and the BJP pack when, taunted by "secular parties" for being communal and bigoted, who hit out with the pseudo- secularist tag. Advani termed pseudo-secularists, as all those politicians, mainly Congressis, who wooed minorities, not so much for their concern for the religious groups, but for their votes. "Secularism is only a euphemism for vote bank politics," Advani famously sneered, and soon the BJP cerebs, tarnished even those intellectuals, academicians, culturati, literati, Marxists, feminists, socialists, journalists, who genuinely subscribed to the diverse, multi-cultural, secular ethos, with the same brush.
After a glorious two-decade run, the sarcasm-laced pseudo-secularism soon morphed into the more abusive and venomous name-calling that social media made permissible and legit. It gained instant stardom and notoriety and the vilest labels unleashed, ranging from sickular, Paki-kissing, Paki stooge, Taliban lover, anti-Hindu, anti-national, Congi whore, et al, but the one that truly stuck was Libtard or the liberal retard, where liberalism was seen as a serious mental illness.