HOOT and SCOOT of TJS George

“First arrest in Malegaon case” (TNIndian Express -31 OCT),I was reminded of TJS George’s “Terror in times of moral bankruptcy”  (TNSE-17 SEP).In his ‘Sunday Sermon from the Pulpit’, George,rather grandiosely wrote: “Our leaders point to the’foreign hand’ whenever a bomb explodes.What foreign hand was there in the Malegaon blast,or in the killing of a College Professor at Ujjain?We have non-bearded terrorists as well– – -.”

Truth catches up- FAST!! The nation knows the perpetrators of the Mumbai blasts.Foreign or “desi”? As regards Malegaon,one wonders whether Noor-ul-Huda Shamshudoha Ansari belongs to the ‘bearded’ or ‘non-bearded’ or ‘BEARDED non-bearded’ class of terrorists? George’s implied ‘non-bearded’ is ‘loud and clear’ given his history of flinging such baseless charges at the Hindu community!!

In a public opinion website,this is what I came across George’s bias:”And TJS George a regular Sunday columnist for The New Indian Express disrespectfully and contemptuously referred to the late Mahant Ramchandra Paramahans, a 94 year old man as having ’emerged from the woodworks and offering himself as a pin up poster boy on the Ramjanmabhumi issue’. These were the very words used by TJS George to describe the venerable old man who during his lifetime had sought the liberation of this Hindu holy land through the democratic judicial process. And 56 years after the case was filed in the District court of Faizabad, in 1950 when Shri Paramhans was 50 years old, the case is still pending in the courts, in 2006. And this venerable old man, with no other option left open to him, when the judiciary had failed him and the Hindu community, threatened to go on a fast unto death. T.J.S.George in his column labeled this threat to fast unto death as a ‘juicy fast unto death’. So much for the English media’s lip service to Gandhi and Gandhigiri!

Well known journalist Rajjev Srinivasan had written,a few years ago:”Similarly, the many Christians in the Indian media were also thunderously silent. Pamela Philipose, B G Verghese, Sevanti Ninan, Amrita Abraham, Gita Abraham, et al, all well-known and highly opinionated journalists, expressed no righteous indignation, so far as I can tell. (T J S George did condemn T John, but bracketed the VHP for good measure.) Nor did Christian fundamentalist columnists like A J Philip, Gail Omvedt or rediff.com’s own Dilip D’Souza, all of whom are quick to condemn Hindu foolishness. From their own texts, I ask them: ‘And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye?’Incidentally,none of these worthies condemned the Pope’s outrageous statements in Delhi nor the deplorable Dominus Iesus document either. Nor do they give any column-inches to the ongoing murders of Hindus and Buddhists by neo-convert Christians, who have become a majority in parts of the northeast. The plight of the Reang tribals, ethnically-cleansed from Mizoram by Christian thugs, does not get their attention. Why? I am forced to conclude that their silence implies agreement, sympathy, or ollusion”.

George appears to have a running ‘love affair’ with the VHP!! as can also be seen from his,”Let Life Be” (TNSE-24 Sep):”Can brain cells be regrouped to turn a VHP agitator into a CPM activist”?

So much for ‘secular’ writings in our country!!Our hacks continue in their merry ways!! I remember reading in your columns a few years ago,the entire editorial team of the NEW YORK TIMES ‘apologising’ to their readers for the paper’s ‘wrong reporting’ on Iraq. In direct contrast,in India we have,what Gurumurthy aptly titled his column of 29 JUNE 2004: “SECULAR HOOT AND SCOOT,TELL LIES AND RUN AWAY”!!

George’s column, at a personal level,has become a ‘POINTLESS VIEW’!!