So George Bush has come and gone. Protests happened across the country and our nuclear programme was compromised. Open and shut case of bending backwards to please the Yanks. The corporate media opened its pages to sing praises of the most reviled mass murderer in history…after the Auschwitz butcher, that is. What he ate and did not eat, where he stayed and did not stay, how his dogs – about 16 of them accompanied Bush – enjoyed the hospitality of ITC Maurya Sheraton was covered by the media in threadbare detail while millions of rupees went into entertaining a guest whom a large part of the country’s population did not welcome at all. Whose money? The taxpayer’s money! Was the man our guest? No most certainly he wasn’t. He was the guest of a banana government, which has been blindfolded to such an extent that any sensible action on their part cannot be expected as far as the United States is concerned. We are slaves now, Mr Prime Minister of a country that is guilty of mass crimes and murder in more than half the world.
Everyone in the government seems to be happy with the deal coming through and Bush calling India a pilgrimage and himself a friend of India. Who cares if four people are killed in communal clashes that erupt right after an anti-Bush protest march in Lucknow turns violent? How does it matter if the country is slowly but steadily getting divided on religious lines because of American action in Iraq and Afghanistan? A cursory glance at any news channel during the Bush visit was enough to give me goosebumps. Messages flooded channels debating whether or not the man was good for India. Notable was the fact that while messages bearing Hindu names were almost wholly supportive of the Bush regime, its actions across the world and also thought that he clown was our real benefactor, messages sent by Muslim Indians spoke of the brutal force occupying several countries of the world, their reluctance to trust the Americans and their foreign policy and derided the Indian government for going out of their way to prostrate ourselves in front of the leader of a pack of mass killers. The difference was stark, real and very, very fearsome. Was a foreign state ruining the social fabric of India which boasts of its secular character though the same is tested everytime a Gujarat occurs?
The immediate answer that comes to my mind is yes; the difference in attitudes is much too distinct to be neglected. The answer, on a more theoretical level, lies in the plethora of writing that backs the actions of the Hindutva lobby. Where does Hindutva fit into all this? Well it does and in no small measure. Here’s how.The militant Hindu movement, which we all know as the Sangh Parivar evolved along the ideology of separation. Furthermore, the ability or rather the reluctance to accept the partition as a travesty of history and move on has created a wide edifice that refuses to close in. this edifice has been broadened and its walls strengthened by political Hindutva riding on the wave of success brought on by the immensely popular Ramjanmabhoomi agitation. On one end of the edifice stood the ‘Us’. The other wall was made up of this monolith called Islam, the religion practiced by more than 14% of Indians, or the Muslims. The gulf lay in between sharpened and deepened by the Parivar and its activities across the country. Sangh Parivar literature offers to guide young Indians to stay away from the Muslims as they are Pakistani –agents, to ruin their businesses because they ostensibly earn for the community and not for the country, to kill and maim them whenever possible as they do not consider India to be their ‘Fatherland’ and pray to a God different from the Hindus– the nationalist, the patriotic and the true sons of the soil.
Fanaticism that runs through these pieces of heinous literature has pervaded the hearts and minds of so many Indians that George Bush’s actions in Iraq and Afghanistan seem like the coming true of a childhood fantasy – of Muslims being butchered in large number without us lifting a gun…or shall we say sword!The import of the messages on television is sinister, whether or not we believe that the Sangh Parivar’s indoctrination has worked and the malaise has spread like plague among Hindu youth in India. Every communal conflagration brings with it reports on how the losses to property and lives of the Muslims was far greater than that of the Hindus. Historical statistics hold that more than two-third of the victims of the bloody riots that preceded and followed the Partition were Muslim followed by the Sikhs. Communal divides are all pervasive, Muslims live in ghettos and are denied work in states like Gujarat, something I can vouch for as I have been witness to an interview at a private firm where a Muslim applicant was denied the job solely on the basis of the religious denomination he belonged to. The fact the Sangh Parivar is originally a conglomeration of sundry businessmen and petty banias also serves to explain why a majority of Hindus are keen on the Bushfire in the Muslim world. Some comments made by acquaintances are also illuminating.
Someone I know recently sneered, “Bush is doing the right thing. As long as he is killing Muslims.” No amount of sensitivity towards the cause of building a Hindu rashtra could warrant such statements. Another one stated rather snidely, “ These Leftists are all pro-Muslim. See how they supported the Jamaat rally.” Shocked I was certainly not. This was to be expected from a generation raised on the blood-thirty war-cries of Ek dhakka aur do Babri Masjid tod do!Forget the coming of Bush and the signing of the nuclear treaty, India waits for a generation to awaken to a new mindset which does not recognize the distinction between Us and Them. Perhaps Rang de Basanti style…
Friday, August 18, 2006
Why do people study the media? Not because they love Marshall McLuhan. Not because the smartass Israelis have started what can only be described as a debased, outlandish, outright demonic, defying all semblance of reason or rhyme war with Lebanon on the pretext of going for the Hezbollah. Who cares if hundreds of Lebanese civilians (official estimates and one can only believe these figures at one’s own risk) have already been killed and a thousand others wounded? How does it matter if Israel has broken all rules, entered Lebanon and has laid it bare for rape and plunder? Is it alarming if the US is sitting pretty, basking in the glory of having restored democracy and freedom to the people of Iraq? The invitation to Syria to join the war following which it too will be mercilessly pounded by American jets spewing all varieties of ominous biological, chemical, and what have you weapons, is open enough. But no one seems to notice. At least not the media, for sure. Instead, the rather fastidious and stupid act of a bunch of sozzled youngsters grabbed eyeballs, shutterbugs, and airtime for more than two days. The we also got to know the intimate career secrets of the former air hostesses and how they were grounded because of a grizzly disciplinary record. The parents muttering inanities on how their children were being harassed were interviewed on prime time. Thankfully we were spared innocuous kid pictures and long discussions on how perfectly normal youth behave in an irrational fashion given a certain circumstance. Just a little before this TV went on a benevolent rescue mission to bring Prince out – alive – of the 60-foot pit into which he had mistakenly fallen. As reporters scrambled for space to get their camera persons a good long shot, members of parliament, the Haryana Chief Minister, the UPA chairperson, and even the Prime Minister bowed their heads in prayer for the bewildered Prince in the pit. The coverage, some might argue was not being given to a rich Casanova or a murdered politician but to a farmer’s son; a sign of changing times….the media after all is becoming conscientious and responsible towards it’s primary duty. But there are ways to showcase care and responsibility and this was certainly not it. What about the close to 800 farmer suicides in Vidarbha and other parts of Maharashtra? Is anyone bothered? It is only after 19 days of relentless fighting and bombing that the Indian media rises to the occasion and starts covering Lebanon. Ajay Shukla of NDTV showed us the blood and the gore (whatever is permitted according to broadcast rules) perched comfortably on the heaped rubble of a bombed out building while Lebanese men who have lost their all pledged devotion to Hezbollah chief Hasan Nasrallah. But, the news that comes to us, comes filtered. Filtered through the watchful eyes of the Big Boy up there in Washington just like filtered, half-baked, biased news is sampled by the Americans and the rest of the world. Is there someone whom we can trust?
31 July 2006
31 July 2006
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