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, OrissaŠa 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 thereŠThere is no evidence yet that Dara
Singh" (the main suspect in the Stains incineration)
"was actively involved with any Sangh Parivar
organisationŠ"
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 violenceŠ 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 ifŠ