HVK Archives: Is English media biased against BJP?
Is English media biased against BJP? - The Free Press Journal
M. V. Kamath
()
February 4, 1999
Title: Is English media biased against BJP?
Author: M. V. Kamath
Publication: The Free Press Journal
Date: February 4, 1999
Never before in the last fifty five years or so of one's close
association with journalism has one witnessed in the English
language media as much hatred and pure venom against one party or
group as one had witnessed against the Bharatiya Janata Party in
the last ten months. This is a sociological phenomenon that
bears examination. In their heydey the British have been
attacked - and in no uncertain terms. In its time the Muslim
League, especially-between 1945 and 1947, has been the subject of
much condemnation. But never have the British regime and the
Muslim League been subjected to the kind of ignominy ever as the
BJP has been in the English press in recent times. That the BJP
has not withered in the face of such concentrated barrage itself
is a miracle of a king. The hatred of the BJP in English media
circles is, to say the least, extraordinary. It stems from the
guts. It can't be explained in ordinary terms. It subsumes
everything else. It would seem that the English media will not
accept the BJP under any circumstance. The divide between the
two seems total and unbridgeable. It so happens that we live in
a society that is full of angers, and hatreds. The angers are
against wrongs, ancient or modern, genuine or perceived,
recompense for which has not seen to be made. Anger may erupt
among dalits for over five thousand years of social oppression.
The demolition of the Babri Masjid has been attributed to
accumulated anger against Islamic persecution of Hindus for a
thousand years. There has always been resentment - impossible to
quantify but for that reason not to be idly dismissed as bogus -
against Christian missionary attempts at conversion. The point
has been made that for all their efforts, Christian missionaries
have scarcely made any dent on India's demography. But the
revulsion against conversion remains and exploded in the most
unexpected places and in the most unforeseeable ways. One way to
look at it is to say that such revulsion does not. exist, that it
is something implanted in the minds of people by interested
parties and therefore all the more reason to be condemned. It is
in this context that the BJP, the RSS and the VHP and the entire
Sanghparivar are suspected of keeping ancient angers alive, to
the detriment of society. It is obviously this that the English
language media cannot accept or relish. How can apparent
irreconcilables be ultimately reconciled? Denying the existence
of angers is hardly a solution. Refusing ostrich-like to see
them, is even much less so.
Like Banquo's ghost, the angers just won't vanish much as we
would all like to see. What then, needs to be done to achieve
some kind of universal harmony in the country among all sections
of the people? Two points are obvious: One, we can't erase
history, much as we all want to, nor can we erase public memory
at one shot. Secondly, no one party or group or association can
speak for all people in this vast country with its different
groups and different group perceptions. It would be deluding
ourselves to think that we can achieve national reconciliation
overnight. And we do not have any one of stature like a
Vivekananda or a Mahatma Gandhi to help achieve it anyway.
When everyone takes unshakable stands from which they are
determined not to budge there is no way in which a possible
solution to our pressing problems can be evolved When Prime
Minister Vajpayee suggests a debate in the matter of conversion
all kinds of uncharitable motives are attributed to him. His
suggestion is allowed to die on the vine. In all the discussion
on the Orissa killings there has so far not been one constructive
idea to take the country forward. Politicisation of the issue is
the name of the game. How does it help the country or even the
very people whose protection the media swears to defend?
The Prime Minister is not taken seriously even when he announces
that he will fast for a day to express his distress if not to
atone for a murder that neither his party nor any of its
affiliates is responsible for. His announcement is treated as a
gimmick. With this kind of contemptuous approach towards the
Prime Minister what forward movement can one expect?
Central to the alleged sense of insecurity prevailing among
Christians is the unresolved issue of the right of conversion
demanded by missionaries. To say that the matter has already
been given the treatment it deserves in a Supreme Court judgement
and in the earlier debates in the Constituent Assembly is not to
face the problem squarely in the face. Conversions continue. It
is hard for any one to point out where persuasion ends and
pressurisation begins. Christians insist that theirs is an
evangelising religion and should be accepted as such. What if
this is questioned and what is worse, resented? Shouldn't this
be a matter for civilised discussion and voluntary curtailment of
one's activities in the larger interests of society? Do
Christian groups have to take extreme positions and preclude any
debate?
Certitude is no test of certainty, the great judge Oliver Wendell
Holmes once said. To assert one is right does not make one
automatically right.
There are some Christians who refuse to accept that India is a
Hindu or Hindu-majority country. Nor are they willing to accept
that tribals, with their reverence for nature, are Hindus. From
this stem their argument that when they are attempting to convert
tribals they are not poaching on 'Hindu' spiritual space. This
matter, too, calls for discussion and agreement. Peace in the
country cannot be maintained if any one party, group or religion
gives offence to another. This needs to be stressed again and
again. To live together in peace calls for a great deal of
concerted efforts, and a sensitivity, towards each other's
feelings. That sensitivity has long been missing in India.
India has for decades been considered something of a free-for-
all.
The country was fair game. That attitude has to change. The word
"conversion" evokes revulsion in thousands of Hindu minds, no
matter what the English-language press may say. If one does not
understand that, one understands nothing. By keeping on harping
that we are a secular society which permits conversion, one is
laying the foundation for extremism and compelling many people to
internalise their anger which then one day will explode.
Conversion and secularism are antithetical. There can be no
conversions in a secular society. It is doing no favour to
secularism by insisting on legalities and suggesting that the
number of people converted are infinitesimally small in
comparison to India's population anyway, so why worry. This is
like saying that picking the pocket of a millionaire is no crime
considering that he has millions stowed in his bank.
The issue of conversion has to be brought to centre stage and the
Congress must make its stand clear. By saying that the matter
has to be treated as closed shows a bankruptcy of a colossal kind
and a cowardice that needs to be exposed.
Let the Congress say in unequivocal terms that it supports
conversion; at least the air will then be cleared of hypocrisy.
Every act of the Congress reeks of hypocrisy. The visit of Sonia
Gandhi to the Balaji Temple in Tirupathi is a supreme act of
hypocrisy. Where was the need for her to visit the Temple? Is
she a devotee of Balaji'? If she is, let her say so, for the
record, in public. Fooling the public is a pusillanimous act.
And let it be said that communal peace will not be furthered by
hristian Bishops making common cause with Islamic mullahs. The
Bishops should know that no Muslim country encourages, let alone
permits, conversion. To openly make a show of siding with mullahs
is to show a total distrust of Hindus as a community. It would
seem that the Bishops have been badly advised. Hindus are the
best friends of Christians, whatever their shortcomings are and
goodness knows they are many. To openly thumb noses at them is
poor taste and worse tactics.
What should be done in the weeks and months ahead to bring the
situation back to normalcy? The first things to do is to hold a
dialogue between Christian leadership and Hindu leadership. Both
may start with clearly defined attitudes, the former holding that
it has an inherent right to indulge in conversions and the latter
denying it. The argumentation could turn out to be raucous and
even hostile and nothing much may come out of some early rounds
but at least there will be an opportunity for some earnest
exchange of opinion. It is better to argue across the table in a
civilised way than to torch a missionary and his two sons to
death.
There should be other ways of showing one's resentment than
through murder and mayhem. At the same time it is only fair to
point out that murder and mayhem is not foreign to Christianity,
as any student of the crusades can tell. Actually the best place
to attempt conversion is Europe and America which have fought the
worst wars in history.
Turning the other cheek is not the most distinctive
characteristic of European Christians, or of Americans. And if
the admonition to love one's neighbour had been religiously
followed, there should never have been any wars in Europe, ever.
Christianity, like charity, should begin at home. In Europe,
that is. There is work out there for missionaries,
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