Hindu phobic Indian media, FHRS chalks out remedial steps

Foundation For Hindu Religious Studies (a non-profit organization)

P.O. Box 451015, Westlake, OH, 44145, USA Contact Telephone Number: 440-503-6692

The Foundation for Hindu Religious Studies organized a historic symposium on “Indian Media’s War on Hinduism” in Chicago as part of the Human Empowerment Conference-2008 from October 31-November 2nd 2008. The symposium was widely attended. There were 18 presentations from India as well as from the USA.

The Indian media since the time of India’s independence in 1947 has been under the Leftist and Marxist influences and suffers from Hindu-phobia. The focus of the symposium was to find strategic solutions to the problem of Indian media’s systemic bias against Hinduism and repeated bashing and lampooning of Hindus, Hindu icons and Hindu practices. Most of the participants suggested engaging the Indian media more seriously to correct these biased attitudes towards Hinduism.

Since western media picks up these biased and motivated stories from the English Language Indian media, it is imperative that these Hindu-phobic biases of the Indian media be corrected. Some of the strategies suggested involved writing letters to editors, economic boycott of offending media groups, writing informative articles in print media, participating more closely in content creation for entertainment media and using the internet-based media outlets to correct these biased attitudes. Hindu youth were encouraged to take up journalism as a serious career choice.

At the end of the FHRS symposium the participants passed five resolutions so as to continue to take sustained measures to resolve this problem. It was decided to start a local radio station on the model of NPR in each major city in the USA for correct portrayal of Hinduism, designate independent Hindu spokespersons for media in major US cities and start a media investors’ group that may invest in Indian print and electronic media. The FHRS decided to create a continuous media monitoring group that will work on an ongoing basis till Hindu-phobia in Indian media is resolved.

SWADESHE POOJYATE RAJAH VIDWANSSARVATRAH POOJYATE

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