Media
is often referred as the fourth pillar in the functioning of a democracy.
Brazenness and partisanship of the Indian media neither astonishes nor shames
me anymore! “When
asked to bend they crawled”, is how Lal Krishna Advani
described role of the media during Emergency, proclaimed by Mrs. Indira Gandhi
of Congress. Devoid of any objectivity, which is a prerequisite to call oneself
a journalist, members of the Indian media ac as cheerleaders of the Government
when Congress is at the helm of affairs; assume the role of a mindless crusader
against the Government whenever there is a non-Congress Government at the centre.
During
campaign trail of the Lok Sabha elections the same media fueled the malicious
campaign of propaganda and hate, waged by political and ideological
adversaries, against both the BJP and its Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra
Modi. The media did everything it could to stop Narendra Modi marching towards
Delhi; if one relied solely on the media the paranoia of certain ‘journalists’
and ‘public intellectuals’ would have made him/her believe that ‘If Modi becomes PM… aag lag jayegi’! Nevertheless, rejecting
the propaganda of paranoia and politics of fear psychosis, the people of India
overwhelmingly voted in favour of the NDA and gave BJP a decisive mandate to
govern India for the next five years.
It
took a while for the media to recover from the severe setback of 16th May,
2014 and re-launch the propaganda of deceit and paranoia. Almost a hundred
days! They began with the black-money. Notwithstanding the facts that no leader
of the BJP ever said that they would bring back black-money within 100 or 150
days of forming a government at the centre and the first cabinet decision of
the Modi Government was to set up a Special Investigation Team to hunt for all
the black-money stashed abroad, the media has been working in cahoots with
Congress to needlessly attack the government over it. So-called anti-corruption
crusaders, e.g. Anna Hazare too have joined the bandwagon despite ongoing
efforts to prosecute of black-money hoarders by the SIT and sincere efforts of the government to curb the menace of black-money.
Then they attacked the Modi government over The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition,
Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Bill, 2015. However,
such attacks failed to deplete the popular support for the Modi government or
tarnish its image; hence a propaganda of fear psychosis was launched.
All it began with casual rumblings of religious intolerance,
towards so-called religious minorities, having been ramped up right after
16th May,
2014. The agenda is clear- to paint the government at the centre as intolerant
and fascist! The message also is the obvious- to showcase so-called religious
minorities being under siege. Despite Law & Order being the state subject,
BJP was dragged into the Saharanpur riots between Muslims and Sikhs in order to
cover-up the Muslim aggression which led to these riots and inapt handling of
situation by the state government. An honest and upright journalist Gaurav C
Sawant was publicly rebuked by a controversial journalist Rajdeep Sardesai,
notorious for abusing and assaulting an NRI at the Medison Square Garden,
for asking a few bold questions vis-a-vis Saharanpur riots. Sawant was forced
to retract and made delete his tweets. When Trilokpuri riots broke out, media in cahoots with the Aam
Aadmi Party alleged that BJP perpetrated those riots in order to polarize
bye-elections in Delhi and electorally capitalize from the polarization
without even a shred of any evidence.
The
new dimension was added to this propaganda of deceit when the media went on and
on with the story of churches in Delhi being vandalized and ascribing some pattern to such
incidents, despite Delhi Police dismissing the possibility of any such pattern. The
propaganda of paranoia took a bizarre turn when attempts were made to
ascertain that ‘Ghar wapsi was motive behind Ranaghat attack’, the unfortunate
incident of a gang rape of an elderly Christian nun. Without even a shred of
any evidence and fathomable logic! When the findings of investigation agencies
were broke out, that all gang-rape accused were Muslims whose activities were traced to
Bangladesh, those who were holding ‘Ghar wapsi’ responsible for the
incident of gang-rape mysteriously went silent. Nevertheless, no one, including
the National Commission for Women, had time to hear the plea of a Hindu Sadhvi, of
Ramkrishna Mission, who was brutally gang-raped a day before the gang-rape
incident with the elderly Christian nun. The Sadhvi in question, when she went
to the police station to lodge an FIR against her culprits, was asked by the
West Bengal Police to compromise with her rapists, instead of being assured of
prompt action.
The
issue here is skewed coverage of events and incidents and deliberate concealing
of the truth! The media went hyperventilating when the office of Holy Child Auxilium School of Delhi was allegedly
vandalized and a theft
of merely 8000 rupees took place. The PM had to summon the Commissioner of
Delhi Police, under the media pressure. Repeated assurances of security were
issued by the government, followed by prompt actions.
Nobody ever cared to ask what happened to those 206 temples, 30 gurdwaras, and
14 mosques which also were ATTACKED in the
year 2014! Talking about the year 2015, 14 temples, 5 gurdwaras, and 2 mosques,
along with 1 church, have been attacked so far…
Nobody
is bothered about incidents of theft in Hindu temples. The casual attitude of
media, when it comes to Hindu temples, is evident from the reportage of such incidents. Nobody feels
outraged over incidents of theft, robbery or vandalism when it comes to Hindu
temples!
So what exactly is under
siege? The truth is under siege, credibility of Indian journalists is under siege,
the trust of readers/viewers upon media houses is under siege, the reputation
of a vibrant democracy is under siege! Above all, the leftover mutual trust
between communities is under siege. Will you protect the truth from predators?
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