An open letter to Pseudo Secular Media – India Abroad

Dear Editor, Sir

I am a life-subscriber to India Abroad for over a decade, and I have painfully come to the decision of canceling my subscription and ask you to stop mailing the issues due to me from now on. I took this step to boycott your paper, as I believe very strongly you are part of the machine for pseudo-secular (P-sec) anti-Hindu propaganda. Francois Gautier, an eminent columnist of Le Figaro wrote a year ago: “Oh! Poor India ! Thy journalists are thy worst enemies” (Hindu, March 2002) I came to the same conclusion as Gautier quite a few times as I keep reading your paper. Let me illustrate a couple of cases to prove my point.

In the year 2000, there was a burst of Christian church bombings in South India. Your Eminency, India Abroad, headlined on front pages for weeks and attacked ferociously the Hindutva groups assumed to be the architects of these dastardly acts. You had no proof and gave none whatsoever. You just assumed blindly just as all other P-sec media did. It must be Hindutva. Eventually when the proof came out and that a Muslim outfit, named Deen Daar Anjumaan (DDA), trained in Pakistan, was arrested and found guilty of these church bombings, the whole rogue media fell silent. We haven’t heard anything about that DDA outfit or any further details. ‘Mum’ is the word for it. Your silence is indeed “deafening” as one Rediff writer put it. A much respected professor from Syracuse University (author of many books – his name I choose to withhold here) presented a paper (in a conference held at Stevens Institute of Technology, Sept. 2002) attacking the Hindutva groups for the many church bombings. When I asked him for the source of his points of attack, he said without much hesitation “India Abroad columns”. That professor, when I gave the details of DDA and its bloody mischief to him, he expressed his profound shock and regretted his mistake. But, India Abroad! You are no professor and you have no such compunctions. When I wrote a letter asking you to retract all of the lies and innuendo against Hindutva groups, you chose to send that letter to your wastebasket. Do you need a more clear-cut case of your unabashed anti-Hindu propaganda of lies and innuendo?

Last year when Sir V. S. Naipaul of Indian origin received Nobel Prize for literature, we expected some self-congratulations, and praise for that great accomplishment. Alas! Your weekly immediately burst out with two one-4page P-sec columns. As they expressed his masterly command of English prose writing, they are more critical of Sir Naipaul’s views, particularly his writings about Muslim countries. One has gone even to the extent of attributing this Nobel to post 9/11 anti-Muslim tirade. Your P-sec writers have very imaginary traits. They also have profusely “bleeding hearts” when it comes to non-Hindus that are killed. It is okay, but why not a few crocodile tears when fifty-six or so Hindu men, women and children were burnt alive in a train. We hear about Gujarat carnage daily without a break. However, Godhra carnage, which started it all, is conveniently forgotten and does not get even an occasional mention. As English language media’s misinformation campaign, you play a central role in USA . Professor Romesh Diwan in his column “India Ascendant” (http://sulekha.com/column.asp?cid=298065) suggests a more appropriate name for your paper ‘Pakistan Abroad’. He lists a large table of how P-sec media fabricate/slant reports and black out to further their anti-Hindu agenda. I pick a few of the incidents from that table for you here.

Place: Jhabua, Madhya Pradesh; Incident: rape of four nuns; Media Report: blowed up. Blamed: RSS, and Central BJP government and workers; no mention of the state Govt. or tensions due to conversion activity Facts: Rape by converted Christians. Madhya Pradesh Government is run by Congress Media Response: Story never retracted; No apology to the Hindu parties so maligned. No explanation or self-examination for such false reporting.

Place: Manoharpar, Orissa. Incident: Australian priest and his two sons burnt alive Media Report: Blamed Bajrang Dal, and Central BJP government; Facts:

(i). An eyewitness detailed report in Rastradeep, a Oriya Weekly from Cuttack, Orissa, Jan 26, 1999, shows conclusively that the burning is the result of tension in the community caused by forced conversions and manipulation by Dara Singh, a Congress worker.

(ii). Orissa State government is run by Congress and Dara Singh helped the election of its ministers.  Bajrang Dal has no presence there.

(iii) A Central Bureau of Investigation officer, Joginder Nayak, told a court of the District and Sessions Judge M. N. Patnaik on Monday that none of the 18 persons charge sheeted in the 1999 Graham Staines murder case belonged to the Bajrang Dal. [” Staines murder accused not Bajrang Dal activists: CBI” January 27, 2003 Rediff.com/news [Emphasis added] Media Response: Story never retracted. No apology to the parties maligned. No explanation or self-examination for false reporting.

Arundhati Roy, a darling of India Abroad and the colonial West liberals, wrote about Muslim young women in Ahmedabad by falsely giving a personal witness-like account of the nature of their rape and burning when in fact they were not in Ahmedabad but safe and sound in the US and this information had already appeared in the print media. The details are:

Fact: T. A. Jaffri, son of Mr. Iqbal Eshan Jaffri, killed in the riots, said, “Among my brothers and sisters I am the only one living in India . I am the eldest in the family. My sisters and brothers live in the U.S. No body knew my father’s house was the target.

Fabrication: Arundhati Roy described ‘the stripping and burning of two daughters’ safely living in the US : “A mob surrounded the house of ex-Congress MP, Iqbal Eshan Jaffri. His phone calls to the Director-General of Police, the Police Commissioner, the Chief Secretary and the additional Chief Secretary (home) were ignored. The mobile police vans around his house did not intervene. The mob broke into the house. They stripped his daughters and burnt them alive. Then they beheaded Jaffri and dismembered him.

Arundhati Roy fabricates facts as neatly as she covers her true Christian name. Editor, sir, let me come to my final point. I have determined to send this letter to as many friends and like-minded Indians, organizations here and abroad to tell them of my boycott and ask them to join me in this boycott if they agree with me. I believe most NRI’s are not going to lie low forever and take the non-sense your P-sec media is dishing out without fear of a counter attack. Your propaganda of lies will be exposed and I am ready to fight for Truth and India.