Of “Hindu Hooligans” and “MIM Activists”

It is unusual (or it used to be), and unusual headlines evidently work with viewers/readers. The viewers are equally responsible for not being critical of, and even agreeing with the ways of, our ‘wonderful’ news media.

I notice that this entry is tagged “Distortions, Misrepresentation about Hinduism”. Apt.

Indeed, the Indian media is one great joke!

The scary part though, is the damage they cause by their ineptitude and irresponsibility.

shantanu, anu info on the reasons for the attack? Are there hordes of girls ‘disappearing’ from mangy?

http://www.haindavakeralam.com/HKPage.aspx?PageID=8098&SKIN=B

Real Talibans of India – Media

When a female journalist called Soumya Vishwanathan was killed in India’a national capital, the Chief Minister of Delhi Smt Sheila Dixit blamed the dead female journalist for her own tragedy by saying that she was too adventurous. The Media wholeheartedly supported Mrs Dixit and went gaga over her shortly afterwards, when she won the Delhi Assembly elections.

When Scarlett Keeling was raped and killed in Goa and the needle of suspicion pointed to a strong nexus between the Goan Ministers, the drug mafia and the sex racketeers, the media played it very safe by conveniently choosing not to pursue the leads from the investigation.

When a 14-year-old German girl was raped by Rohit Monserrate, the 21-year-old son of Goa Education Minister Atanasio Monserrate who is also a powerful political figure in Goa, and the girl’s mother was repeatedly harassed and their lawyer was grievously injured in order to coerce him to withdraw from the case, the Media didn’t find anything extraordinary in that.

When Taslima Nasreen’s press conference was rudely disrupted and chairs and all sorts of dangerous objects were thrown at her in full glare of the cameras by the “secular” muslim jihadis of Hyderabad lead by the MLAs of Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM), the Media didnt at all find anything amiss in that.

When Laxmi Oraon, an Adivasi woman was brutally thrashed and paraded naked through the streets of Guwahati, Assam, with the whole police paraphernalia and official state machinery in tow, the Media chose to downplay the episode since, the victim was a hapless adivasi woman from the lower strata of society.

The Media felt that since all the above unsavoury incidents had occured in the states lead by Madam Sonia Antonia Maino’s puppets, it is all perfectly legitimate and absolutely secular and progressive.

Kudos to the Media who are the Real Talibans of India.

What is the meaning of Satyameva Jayate ?
Choose one of the following two options:
1. Truth prevails or Truth alone triumphs.
2. Whatever prevails/triumphs is truth.
The choice is expected to be logical.
Media reports what has prevailed and therefore tells the truth. Media tends to mix views with facts and can therefore distort truth. Some section of the media reveals only part of whatever has happened. Relying entirely on media may not necessarily take one closer to the truth.
Visit suhasphanse.blog.co.in

I put this on another blog but it may be relevant

Methinks that this antipathy of the mainstream media to bloggers goes much deeper than what we see. It actually represents a pretty deep divide in Indian society. I will go back to schooldays. Remember when you were a middle class kid in an elite school. Parents stuggled to put you there. You would carry your lunch box that Mom prepared and watch the rich/elite kids in school. Two categories the newly rich who would probably be working as hard as you and also spend their weekends in family businesses and the other elite which comprised of kids of old rich families, media people, IAS, IFS etc. The latter group represented the families that did fine during the British Raj. I also remember how patronizing most of them were. They spoke English with the british accent (never went to britain to study), had “liberal” views and actually thought the british raj benefited India.
The rest of us middle class folks were products of desi type families refugees from Pakistan, Kashmir and other riff raff.
The interesting thing was that these “elite” were only good at History, English etc, while the rest of us wanted to crack the quant and science subjects so that there was a chance in hell for us after school. Our parents could not fund foreign, private edu so we’d better get into good college, eng, medicine etc.
And I tell you these guys resented us deep inside for performing well academically. Remember the term muggoos.
Anyway, cut the long story short I was really puzzled as to how someone who got 60% in their boards could get into brown – they wrrote the write essays decrying Indias poverty and their experiences of the same (think deepa mehta, suzanne roy. Most of them went “abroad” for undergrads to do English, pol science etc, while those who stayed back stuck to these subjects in Indian colleges to go out later for some journalism degree or other.
The blogger vs. English media divide represents exactly this. The english media comprises of the sepoys who cannot tolerate to be upstaged by middle class desis like us. After all they are the representatives of the great west (as is half the congress party). The rest of us are middle class Indians. The desis who worked their way up, whose parents struggled to get us a good education. We can now speak after 60 years of independence. And what we are saying disturbs the status quo. The desi group is nationalistic and vigorous and speaks English (with an accent).
This is just the tip of the iceberg. This clash will happen everywhere including politics (just you wait congress) and education

http://outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20090209&fname=Cover+Story&sid=6

Pale Fires Don’t Scorch
Deviants of Mangalore and Malegaon are demonised fallaciously

Francois Gautier

When I began reporting, I went to interview the RSS leadership in Delhi, expecting, from what I had heard, a few bloodthirsty fascists. I was surprised to meet those old daddies with their long khaki shorts, who would not hurt a fly. Twenty-five years later, the word ‘Hindu Talibanisation’ is being heard amidst the clamour following the odious pub episode in Mangalore. Such incidents should be condemned, as it has no precedent in Indian history—from Prithviraj Chauhan to Shivaji, Hindus respected the women of even their enemies. Yet, I beg to disagree: this is not about the Talibanisation of Hindu groups, it is about their demonisation.

British colonisers in league with the Christian missionaries realised 200 years ago that the biggest obstacle to fully subjugating India was Hinduism, as it was ancient, woven into the fabric of life and held the country together. They set upon defaming Hinduism, by dwelling on what they perceived as its negatives: castes, sati, superstition, etc. Simultaneously, they created in a span of two or three generations a class of Indians who looked up only to the West.

Macaulay, the architect of the scheme, summed it up in his Minute on Education: “We must do our best to form a class of persons, Indians in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect.” Macaulay despised Indian culture: “Hindus have a literature of small intrinsic value, hardly reconcilable with morality, full of monstrous superstitions….” The demonisation of Hinduism was apace.

As a result, these Anglicised Indians became ashamed of their own culture. This Western/anti-Hindu outlook was handed down from generation to generation, right down to our age, where many of India’s brilliant and articulate Hindu-Marxist intellectuals, products all of institutions like jnu, or St Stephen’s, keep on repeating, as if by rote, what their hoary forebears were taught by the British. And unfortunately, they pass it back to their friends from the West, neatly marking a full circle. How else could a film like Slumdog Millionaire, made by an Englishman, which literally craps on India from the very first frame, be feted by most of India’s intelligentsia? How else could India specialists like Christophe Jaffrelot peddle to his gullible French readers the spurious theory that there is a “Hindu tradition of terror”?

Politically, the Congress just took over from the British, as I explain in my new book (A New History of India, 2008, Har Anand), and used its English-speaking press to present Hindu social and political parties as fanatical and ridiculous. The goal was to corner the Muslim vote, which was—and still remains—achieved. It does not help today that the supreme leader of India is a Christian. Whether her aides or her ministers (many of them capable people in their own right) rush to gratify her in true bhakti spirit or whether she directly speaks her will, one does not know. But what better way to please her than by equating Hindu fundamentalism with the Muslim one and to turn the flak on to small Hindu outfits which are amateur lambs compared to the Islamic ones?

There are two standards today used by India’s media and intelligentsia. One for minorities and the other for Hindus. It is totally illogical: if 4,00,000 Hindus are hounded out of the Kashmir Valley which has always been their home, nobody protests; but New Delhi has been rooting for Palestinians for four decades and recently donated a million dollars for their welfare. When blast after blast wrecks Indian markets, when trains are bombed, hotels attacked by men worse than animals, intellectuals blame it on Babri Masjid (where nobody was killed) or Gujarat (triggered by the burning of 59 innocent Hindus).But when a few Hindus plan to establish a Hindu rashtra and plot a clumsy, small-scale revenge, they are equated with deadly fundamentalists. A universal theorem is made of their single act, which should stand out as isolated, because Hindus have been for thousands of years tolerant to the point of cowardice. Our intellectuals never theorised when, in Kashmir, militants used to throw acid on women who did not cover up, but now devote reams to the goons of Mangalore.

Finally, to be fair, one has to say that a lot of prudishness has seeped into India because of the Islamic purdah and, later, Victorian stuffiness. Yet, Hinduism always enjoined its adherents to live life fully, including its sexual aspect. We do not want an Indian youth which blindly apes the West: drinking, drugs and promiscuity. But the Hindu political leadership should also shun rough, prudish and moralistic acts which will only alienate its young voters.

——————————————————————————–

(Francois Gautier is the editor-in-chief of the Paris-based La Revue l’Inde)

http://theprudentindian.wordpress.com/

AR has published this this post on his blog with the following preface:

B Shantanu blogs with a zeal for the Hindu cause. He is definitely very communal in his approach, but I thought this article he wrote was worth thinking about. For a few seconds anyway. Then I remembered this is what he looks for – signs of Hindus being victimized to make a case for the majority.

In response, I have left the following comment (on his blog). I am reproducing this below for the record:

AR: Thanks for posting the article here…I am curious to read your thoughts on these reports…

Any views?

It would be even nicer if you could leave a comment on my blog..

Also, could you please help me understand what you mean by “He is definitely very communal in his approach…”

***

Separately, I hope you get a chance to consider the plight of Kashmiri refugees in India during your panel discussion at WUSC today.

Here is one of the links that may be relevant:

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne291108in_exile.asp

Kaffir left the following comment on AR’s blog which I am reproducing below:

AR, would you be interested in engaging Shantanu in a discussion and responding to his post by telling us *why* you think that post by Shantanu is communal? Is it communal to point out media bias? Journalism is about honest reporting, not about taking sides with minority or majority. That kind of divisive approach is best left behind, if India is to make some progress.

Thanks Kaffir.

*** COMMENT MOVED HERE ***

*** NOTE by MODERATOR ***

Kiran: Pl. post comments on the appropriate thread(s). There are several ways to find the right thread. Use the “search” box, or the “Categories” drop down menu and/or google!

Shantanu, no problem. Discussion of issues with those who have a different viewpoint is always preferable.

–
It seems AR definitely got insecure and uncomfortable with the facts in the above post. He resorted by adding the preface.

Indian, too early to say – let’s give him some time to respond, and state his perspective and reasons for his opinion of Shantanu’s post.

@Jayadvan

I will be back with the patel girl topic! I have known one case about patel girl kidnapped and lost for ever. They sold her somewhere in brothel from where she cannot return. And surprisingly muslims were the one who brought Mujras in the country and many are still involved in this business in another form of mujras.

And very honestly and seriously my impression about Keralite muslims hating Gujaratis is becoming strong. I have come across many who as soon as hear about Gujarati and Patel they will get mad. I need to find and dig out more on this topic. Hmm… May be patels and gujaratis are strong enough to lock horn with them?. K. Muslims have got some idea that its hard to penetrate in Gujarat and defeat Gujjus?. well! more on this later.

LEGAL NOTICE TO RENUKA CHOWDHURY FOR COMPARING MANGALORE TO TALIBAN

http://greathindu.com/2009/02/mangloreans-issue-legal-notice-to-renuka-chowdhury-for-talibanization/

oops. Many of us in Karnataka refer to our country as ‘bharatha desa’. I never knew this is a communal word. I am from TN, actually most of us in our family, relatives and friends circle in tamilnadu use the word ‘bharatha desam’. I don’t mean to be sarcastic, but I’m really surprised and hurt.
If this word itself is taken so communal, we all actually wear tilak, tulsi mala, white dhoti, most of us do bhajans, poojas, and services to temples. Are we branded as anti-secular and communal even by knowledgeable people like AR, omg, it will really be a big let down for me and others like me. I am not exagerating, but its my genuine concern.

Reading the comments I am very disturbed, may be I missed this ‘secular’ development in ever changing India.

Bharata – that’s how I call in my mother tongue Kannada. Bharat in Hindi and other variants in other languages. When did this become communal. When we are all shedding colonial constructs like Bangalore, Calcutta, Madras and getting to our roots. If we go by this trend India should be altogether dropped. What’s the SICKular logic behind Bharat being ‘communal’? If I lookup wikipedia ‘Hindustan’ is also another term. Now I can sense why the jehadis oppose that. But why Bharat. Can someone please tell me. Thanks.

We seem to be in a situation similar to 1000AD, when a storm was preparing to invade Hindu Dharma in the form of Mahmud Ghazni, and we were so shortsighted that we were focussing on silly internal issues.

That storm today is the Taliban, which is all set to take over Pakistan. Is there a SINGLE good analysis in the English media on what that might mean for India? Today Asif Zardari told US News that “The taliban hold sway over large parts of Pakistan…. We are fighting for survival.” That is seriously scary, and seriously important.

And our media is focussing national attention on a non-issue called Mutalik.

This media is doing what Jaichand did (during Ghori invasion).

@Om – so anyone you do not agree with is biased? Paid for? A fifth column?

Why don’t *YOU* start a newspaper, reporting what you deem fit and run it as a successful business? Seeing how many people here condemn the MSM, it should be a hit, right?

Are you on?

The Indian media is not faithful to the readers and viewers but the share holders. These companies are either totaly holding of minority or majority shares are belongs to minority. It will be interesting to see some one come up with analysis that why these media clawns jumps with the tune comes from the minority of India? Long time back in the stafroom of the school, one teacher ramarked…..”In News Papers, the name of the paper, date and doves are the correct one the balance is falls!”.

Looking at media of these days the teacher was right. Nautanki New makers of the claim, they are number one…..they are fastest,….buy in fact they are the cheap shots and bias to Hindus.