The English Media's
Hostility Towards Hindus
The English Media's Hostility
Towards Hindus
Title: The English Media's Hostility Towards Hindus
Author: Arvind Lavakare
Date: 02/02/99
At long last, thank god, a confession has come from the English
media. Reacting to the BJP's grievance that the entire media,
particularly the one which communicates in English, has been
greatly exaggerating the recent anti-Christian violence, the
regular column last week of Shekhar Gupta, Editor-in-Chief of The
Indian Express, displayed a rare ethical standard, combining as it
did a fair degree of contrition with a healthy commitment to
truthfulness --- qualities which are difficult to find these days
in our troubled land.
Let's see the facts as outlined by the gracious Gupta himself. His
column stated that---
· "First of all in Jhabua, there has indeed been no evidence
yet that anybody from the Sangh Parivar was involved in the rape
of the nuns."
· "Then, despite all the commotion and outrage in the media
and the world, not a single Christian has been killed in Gujarat
yet Also, Gujarat has a history of Hindu resentment against the
missionaries dating back to Mahatma Gandhi's times."
· "Similarly, Orissa...a state run by the Congress, has a
history of indigenous violence against the missionaries. Six
persons were killed only last year and since the state has a large
tribal population, conversions have been going on there...There is
no evidence yet that Dara Singh" (the main suspect in the
Stains incineration) "was actively involved with any Sangh
Parivar organisation..."
Based on an examination of the above, Gupta came to the conclusion
that "On facts, therefore, it would seem that we in the
English-language media have something to answer for." Just a
few paragraphs later, Gupta's column recanted even more by stating
that "Surely, we in the media have much to answer for."
Now it is precisely such irreverence for the vital difference
between "something" and "much" that often
exhibits itself in a lot of our newspaper copy and misleads
millions of readers.
It is the same old imp that springs to action again towards the
end of Gupta's column. After admitting that the media has
"something" as well as "much" to answer for,
he quickly passes the blame on to the Sangh Parivar spokesmen's
utterances for causing "self-inflicted wounds." He finds
fault with (i) the Vishwa Hindu Parishad's charge of Christian
conspiracy in the matter of the Nobel Prize awards to Amartya Sen
and Mother Teresa, and with (ii) L K Advani for quickly giving a
clean chit to Bajrang Dal for the Stains carnage. Now can any
mature media man accept these two utterances as grave enough to
warrant the kind of calumny that was repeatedly heaped on the
Sangh Parivar by the media? The first reason cited was over in
just a couple of days when the VHP withdrew its statement; and,
revealingly, the second reason cited occurred weeks after the
calumny had already been stuck by the media on the Parivar.
No, Mr Gupta, it is no use finding pretexts for running away from
the truth. Just consider the following:
* The lead paragraph of a front-page report of The Hindu appearing
in its edition of January 2 stated that "The two-member
central team which visited Gujarat to assess the situation there
after attacks on Christian missionaries were reported, has pointed
out that the situation took an ugly turn after a meeting of the
Hindu Jagran Manch was stoned at Ahwa town on Christmas Day and
the HJM retaliated."
Towards the end of his report the newspaper's special
correspondent mentioned that "In view of the tense atmosphere
prevailing in the regions, the judgement exercised by the District
Administration in permitting a protest rally on Christmas Day
seemed to have been inappropriate and this led to the occurrence
of other incidents." Yet the heading of that report
proclaimed "Timing of Hindu rally inappropriate: panel."
Was that fair? And despite that categorical report of the Central
team, (without any such word as "seemed"), Mr Gupta is
not willing to buy the Sangh Parivar argument that Christians
started the riots in Dangs on Christmas Day.
* Despite the categorical report of its special correspondent,
Yogesh Vajpeyi, did The Indian Express loudly announce to its
millions of readers that no Hindutva group was involved in the
Jhabua rapes? On the other hand, if Vajpeyi's report had even
smelt the Hindutva hand in the affair, one can imagine what the
paper's headlines would have been.
* Despite the categorical report of Vajpeyi, a veteran
correspondent we are told, did The Indian Express and the rest of
the media Parivar dub the Christians' national protest day of
December 4 last year as being unwarranted, communally acrimonious
and a vicious slur on the BJP-led government?
* Based on the information provided by the Congress government of
Madhya Pradesh, Home Minister Advani announced that half of the
arrested persons in the Jhabua case were Christians. However, one
Church forum had the gall to publicly label Advani as being
untruthful. Did the media criticise this defamation of the
nation's home minister?
* On January 7, Ghelubhai Nayak, a 75-year-old Gandhian settled In
Dangs since 1948, sent a fax communication to the Special Bench of
the Minorities Commission setting out some disturbing facts of
Christian activity in several villages of that district on
December 25 and prior to that day. Did any journalist bother with
Nayak and that fax of his?
Perhaps the gracious Mr Gupta and his ilk should seriously
introspect over the accusation in a rare article published by The
Times of India on January 29, 1999 in what seems another welcome
instance of transparency tantamount to a confession. The writer of
that article, Sultan Shahin, says, "The products of Christian
missionary and other English schools that run our media treat
everything Indian, particularly Hindu, with contempt. Our
intelligentsia, by and large, treats the Hindu leaders as usurpers
of power, even though they have come to power in a democratic
manner. This is what is leading more and more Hindus to
fundamentalism, militancy and violence... Hypocrisy has perhaps
become a part of our intelligentsia's bloodstream during the long
Congress rule."
This bellicose stance against Hindus and their BJP-led government
is not the only affliction of the English-language media. Be it
politics, civic affairs, economic issues or sports, the typical
working journalist exhibits a flippant-cum-arrogant attitude in
the stuff he churns out, oblivious of the rights of the readers.
And the award of the by-line status is considered as licence to
play around with myth and reality as per the writer's predilection
or mood of the moment. The desire to learn, to study, to research,
to dissect objectively is being sacrificed at the altar of
sensationalism or animosity. Retired journalists of not so long
ago will testify to this.
That state of affairs must be why the country's Vice-President,
Krishna Kant, was provoked to say what he did at the function last
year to give away the B D Goenka awards for excellence in
journalism. As quoted in The Indian Express, Mumbai, of July 1,
1998, our vice president observed that "Loaded phrases,
attitudinising adjectives, coloured descriptions, one-sided
versions, half-truths, twisted statements, distorted quotations
--- all of them diminish the truthfulness of reporting" while
stating that if the Indian press wants to ensure its credibility,
it needs to report faithfully and without bias. Now Krishna Kant
is not a Sangh Parivar man, is he?
But then, even the gracious Shekhar Gupta admitted in his column
last week that "It's difficult to defend the English media at
the best of times. God knows we do commit crimes each day, on each
page, including the rape of Queen's English."
It would therefore be of incalculable help to the vast, ocean-like
Indian public if our media bothered less about suggesting
solutions for preventing the so-called "self-inflicted"
wounds of the BJP; the media's more important task ought to be to
improve itself by attending to the malignancy taking root within.
Instead of advocating transfer of the district magistrate of Dangs
or Dhule as "an elementary administrative measure," it
should first examine what degrees of punishment it can mete out to
those of its own who are a slur on professionalism. And the first
action in this regard is for every editor to suspend for a week
all those reporters who write the all-too familiar phrase of
"pelting stones" at the Church or the temple or the
train; punishment alone will drum into all those errant ones that
"pelt" means "attack," not "throw,"
and that the correct thing to is to say "pelt the train with
stones."
Yes, it's high time to remember the old, old advice of not
throwing stones at others if...
Copy and Pasted from: Nation of Hindutva
www.geocities.com/Capitol...obby/9089/
www.hinduunity.org
pub6.ezboard.com/bhinduunity.html
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