Chetan Bhagat, India’s best-selling novelist in English,  loves to use Twitter to expound on the state of the nation. Unfortunately, other users of the site don't often love him back with the same intensity.

In recent weeks, for instance, he has been ridiculed for his criticism of writers and filmmakers returning their national awards to protest against what they perceive to be growing intolerance in India.


On Friday, he put his proverbial foot in the mouth again by addressing the protest by 53 of the country's leading historians the previous day.

"Differences of opinion are being sought to be settled by using physical violence. Arguments are met not with counter arguments but with bullets," the historians said in a statement endorsed by such popular names such as Romila Thapar, Irfan Habib, KN Pannikar and Mridula Mukherjee said. While it is unclear if Bhagat’s tweet was supposed to be a funny one or a serious question he wanted answered, Twitter took the challenge head on.   Here’s a selection:













After the scathing attack, Bhagat once again took to Twitter to clarify that the whole thing was indeed a joke.


Of course, that merited a retort.