Author: Shailendra Marathe
Publication: Myind.net
Date: March 18, 2016
URL:   https://www.myind.net/mother-teresa-and-editorial-freedom-expression

A lot of noise is made by the mainstream media editors in India about freedom of expression. Every now and then we find editorials & opinions attacking the powers to be for suppression of freedom of expression. But do most of these editors really believe in freedom of expression? The answer, sadly and unequivocally, is a “No”.

Loksatta editorial on Mother Teresa

On 17th March, 2016, Marathi newspaper Loksatta, of the Indian Express group, carried an editorial titled

“Asantanche Sant” (असंतांचे संत) in print as well as the online edition at www.loksatta.com. The editorial condemned and ridiculed the recent announcement by Pope Francis about the impending declaration of Mother Teresa as Saint on September 4th, 2016. In December last year, Pope Francis had approved a second “miracle” attributed to the Noble Prize Winner, which by the way was widely condemned in the western media, but did not receive any condemnation from the Indian mainstream media.

The Loksatta editorial shocked most people beyond imagination, and literally left us speechless (or, “comment-less”). So much was the shock that I thought we should wait for some more time before praising the newfound self-respect, courage, rationalism and integrity of the editor at Loksatta, which, to use very mild terms, was totally lacking all these years. The editorial, of course, tried to ‘balance’ by bringing in Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and Baba Ramdev into the discussion and condemning them, without offering any insights or rational explanation for the same.

What did the Editor say?

The gist of the editorial is reproduced below.

“Mother Teresa’s sainthood is a clear example of religious powers working hand-in-glove with political powers for conversion agenda. Christianity spread over centuries by exploring the linkage between Church and the State. Likewise, Wahhabi Islam has spread and morphed into a political force like ISIS by joining hands with political powers like Saudi Arabia. Political powers of Samrat Asoka helped spread Buddhism. The sole driver of Mother Teresa’s charitable activities was conversion to Christianity, as exposed by Vijay Prasad and Christopher Hitchens.  Hitchens rightly called Mother Teresa as a “fanatic, fundamentalist and fraud”. Mother Teresa was least bothered about the quality of treatment given to the patients in her care home.  Her goal was to the gather money for more and more conversions and she used her poor patients towards that goal. The pseudo- secularist political brigade led by Congress party found an ally in Mother Teresa for thrashing Hindus. Pseudo- intellectuals used Teresa as a stick with which to question and abuse Hindus. The same Christian fundamentalists who hanged Galileo in the 15th century for saying that the earth is not flat, are the ones promoting Teresa through the sainthood fraud. There is a need for being cautious about frauds in all religions.”

As you can see from the above, there is every reason for the average reader of mainstream media in India to be shocked beyond imagination from the contents and tone of the editorial. Has Indian mainstream media last shown the courage to speak the truth, instead of spreading canards?

The Editors then develop cold feet

The decision to be skeptical about the Loksatta editorial was proven right within 24 hours. On the very next day, 18th March 2016, the Loksatta Editorial was pulled out and the Editor posted an apology in its place. The apology is printed in the paper edition, as well as the online edition. Additionally, it appears that active efforts have been made to ensure that the cached version of the edit is not available on the Google servers.

The apology merely reads that the editorial is being pulled out since it had hurt the feelings of the readers. It does not mention who these readers are, and why their feelings were hurt. The usual argument of the editorial class against banning books, paintings and films is that, if you don’t like what is depicted, don’t see it, and ideally, write a rebuttal. The Loksatta editor does not clarify why the same stand is not taken in this particular case. The editorial did not mention any religious references even in the passing. The fundamental tenets of Christianity as stated in the Bible or the agenda that drove persecution also did not find any mention in the editorial. In that case, why were the readers’ feelings were hurt? Why should Mother Teresa be treated any differently from, say, Asaram?

This is not a one-off incident 

The mainstream media (print, online, TV) has a long history of being silent on the proselytizing practices of Christians, Muslims and other religions. The honor of strong and harsh criticism has only been reserved for Hinduism. A similar trend is observed with the film industry, artists, human rights activists, women’s rights activists, self-styled “liberals”, “rationalists” and others. AIB apologized to Christians for a joke on pedophile priests, a reality which is well documented and published worldwide, by Christian activists themselves. Aamir Khan took pot shots at every possible Hindu practice in his movie “PK”, while controlling his artistic urge when it came to Islam & Christianity. A Muslim woman journalist, writer and activist, Seyyid is being hounded by fundamentalist groups –not in one but two countries--because of her outspoken criticism of certain “Islamic” practices such as the purdah system, and her warnings against creeping. Kamlesh Tiwari is behind bars for exercising his freedom to criticize Islam’s Prophet. M F Hussain’s artistic freedom did not find expression in drawing Christian and Muslim religious icons as he pleased. A Muslim woman activist of PETA was beaten up for questioning goat sacrifice on Bakri-Id and PETA is not yet finding courage to take on humongous goat-slaughter that happens on Bakri-id. Only one brief article on ‘Halal’, a most cruel way of killing animals, finds place on PETA’s website; there is not active movement asking for a ban in Halal across the world.

FoE (Freedom of Expression) and Rationalism are meant for “soft targets”