Secular Media ‘Duplicity’ and Ayodhya

Dear Sir,

Reference the report  ” Liberhan report rebukes the media “  – (TNIE – 25 NOV).

Justice Liberhan according to the report had stated:

” – -  It may also be noticed here that some vested interests are acquiring an increasing foothold in the media and media organizations.. With active encouragement from these interest groups, the media is acquiring disproportionate dimensions in the garb of freedom of speech. These attempts at setting up a powerful and unrebuttable power, Centre puts at stake not only the national security, but the peace in the society and law and order ” .

In a similar vein to the Liberhan Commission indicting the ‘ secular ‘ media,  an on-the-spot investigation was conducted under the aegis of the New Delhi-based Council for International Affairs and Human Rights, on ‘ Gujarat – 2002 ‘. It was headed by Justice Tewatia. Its findings were made public as early as April 26th, 2002, through a press conference held in Delhi.  Running counter to the politically correct line of an “orchestrated attack,” they were largely ignored by the media AND, NEVER REPORTED!!


Here is Justice Tewatia’s ‘mention in dispatches’ about the media:

(a) – Gujarati language media was factual and objective.. Yet its propensity to highlight the gory incidents in great detail heightened communal tension.

(b) – English language newspapers … appeared to have assumed the role of crusaders against the State [Gujarat] Government from day one. It coloured the entire operation of news gathering, feature writing and editorials. They distorted and added fiction to prove their respective points of view. The code of ethics prescribed by the Press Council of India was violated … with impunity. It so enraged the citizens that several concerned citizens in the disturbed areas suggested that peace could return to the state only if some of the TV channels were closed for some weeks.

JAI HO!!

Lets now return to Ayodhya and the media reportage !!

Here is what a former Editor of the ‘ undivided ‘ Indian Express Group -  Arun Shourie wrote in his ” Indian Controversies “
(pp -541):

” The third lesson is for the media. – -. I would say in some cases duplicity have been the hallmark of the media’s treatment of events and issues. – -The treatment of the Ayodhya controversy has been exactly the same kind. No paper has recalled that mosques have often been destroyed and built elsewhere in Middle Eastern countries for purposes as mundane as widening highways. – – Every paper has studiously avoided mentioning that while the AIBMAC etc. have been shouting that there is a graveyard there, the area having been turned inside out upto a depth of twelve feet not one grave has turned up. Once it became clear that the documents submitted by the two sides- [VHP & AIBMAC in the Govt.. sponsored talks – Chandrashekar Govt.] – strengthened the VHP’s case, the papers studiously neglected them. When the AIBMAC representatives failed to turn up for the meetings the Govt. had scheduled, there was scarcely a murmer: what would have been the case if the VHP representatives had stopped coming? It is this pattern which has done as much to raise the Hindu temper to the present pitch – -“.  JAI HO!!  YET AGAIN !!

The media ‘duplicity’ doen’t end there!! It may be recalled that the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court had mandated the ASI to undertake excavations in the summer of 2001, to confirm the presence/absence of a Temple predating the Babri Masjid. It is shameful for the Indian media, that a Belgian historian, Dr. Koenraad Eslt, has painstakingly chronicled the ‘secular’ reporting & ‘spin’ by the media!! A few examples from his  ” Ayodhya: The Finale”, in the Chapter aptly entitled

” The Great Indian Vanishing Trick ” :

” On June 11, 2001, after the ASI had been registering new findings for months, the world learned to its surprise that the final tally somehow amounted to zero”. (pp-12)

(a) – Rediff.com:  ” No proof of structure in Ayodhya: ASI Report”.

(b) – Asian Age:  ” Nothing found below Babri site: ASI”

(c) – Times of India:  ” ASI finds no proof of structure below Babri Masjid : report”

Dr. Koenraad Elst wrote on the foregoing headlines: ” The occassion was the ASI’s filing of an interim report, yet none of these papers quoted the report, only ‘sources’. Most papers attributed the conclusion of ‘no evidence’ to the ASI, which is a pure lie; and this is implicitly revealed even in their own reporting, for ‘none quote the ASI report to that very effect ” !! (pp-12)

Again. ” In disinformation campaigns, the first stage of planting false news must be followed up with a second stage of making the false news into familiar presence. Once it is repeated in magazines, in TV chat shows, even in jokes, it is becoming part of the collective consciousness. That is the ambition of every disinformation operative worth his salt.” (pp-13)

And yet, ” Even the attentive reader of the newspapers which on June 11, 2001 starkly denied the findings could have seen that something was wrong, for the very same day, they carried the following news item:

(a) – The People’s Daily of Chennai- oops!! The Hindu:  ” ASI fabricating evidence in Ayodhya, says Waqf Board”

(b) – Times of India: ” ASI fabricating evidence: Waqf Board”

Here is Dr. Elst at his best. ” The party most likely to be elated over the non-finding of traces of a Temple should have been the anti-Temple lobby, including the Sunni Central Waqf Board, yet it complains that the ASI team DID find evidence, only it was of the pro-temple kind, hence FABRICATED”.  (pp-13)

Again over to Dr.Elst for his impressions about the ‘secular’ Indian media (pp-25):

” Distortive or even totally false reporting on communally sensitive issues is a well entrenched feature of Indian journalism. There is no self-corrective mechanism in place to remedy this endemic culture of disinformation. No reporter or columnist or editor gets fired or formally reprimanded or even just criticised by his peers for smearing Hindu nationalists. This way, a partisan economy with the TRUTH has become a habit hard to relinquish. And, foreign correspondents used to trusting their Indian ‘secularist’ sources have likewise developed a habit of swallowing and relaying highly distorted news stories”.

To put the entire Ayodhya debate and the ‘LIES’ perpetrated by the media in its proper perspective, here is Dr. Koenraad Elst:

” Future scholars of political and communications science will study the REPORTING on the Ayodhya affair as an absolute classic of brilliantly successful disinformation.”

In this light, I regret to state that your two editorials: ” Liberhan leaks lack the sting ” – (TNIE-25 NOV), and, ” Liberhan hardens BJP ” – ( TNIE – 26 NOV), are ‘not worth the piece of paper on which written’.

Remember Gurumurthy’s column in the TNIE of 29 Jun 2004 –

” Secular hoot and scoot, tell lies and run away “. Ayodhya reportage FALLS IN THE SAME CATEGORY !!

JAI HO!!

VANDE MATARAM

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