A minority that is giving the majority a bad name and defaming an entire religion and a slanted media narrative that is adding fuel to the fire – welcome to the new style of ‘politics of polarization’ taking roots in India.
No, I am not referring to the now clichéd “minority
community”, but the motley minority of extreme thinking Hindu politicians who
have voiced opinion adverse to the tenets of Sanatana Dharma* and the concept of Vasudaiva Kutumbakam^, that is now the basis of a media
generalization – happily lapped up by the political opposition and a ‘magnanimously-fed-by-left-liberal’
media houses.
National Democratic Alliance (NDA)
2.0 coming to power in 2014 with an absolute majority for the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) meant that every step of its parent body Rashtriya Swamsevak Sangh
(RSS) would be scrutinized. While there has not been any drastic approach of
the Government in imposing the “Hindutva agenda” as the Indian National
Congress and its alliance partners have been mongering the Indian electorate
for securing the power for itself for decades, few insensitive remarks by BJP
MPs began to give enough fodder for the starved-for-sensationalism media to
play up.
Every action or speech of a few outspoken
Sangh background ruling party MPs gave discomforting moments for the popularly
elected Government, causing enough embarrassment to the democratic fabric of
the nation of diverse religion and culture.
There is a rising wave of
anti-Hindu political reporting in the media, thanks to the jealously driven hate
against Narendra Modi. An outspoken politician whose popularity gave his party
the massive victory in the general elections and one that has only grown
through the endorsement of his Government’s vision by the international
community, Modi is continued to be undeservingly hated by the media for quite
too long now.
It is really saddening that
Hindus are being shamed just because the Gujarat chief minister, a Hindu icon,
aspired to become the prime minister of the country and succeeded in his very
first attempt, while dozens of ageing politicians across the left and left
leaning socialist parties have been dreaming of and failing to grab the coveted
post without adding much value through constructive debate in repeated stints
in the parliament.
Vying with the opposition politicians
are media houses, writers, film actors, celebrities of any and every kind - all
ganged up against Modi’s idea of India. The vicious anti-Modi hate narrative is
tilting its target towards Hinduism, which is becoming the victim.
While no opportunity is missed
to highlight the repeatedly headline making quote “Terror has no religion”, justifiably
too, there is always a “saffron terror” tag attached to one deranged Hindu’s
act of crime. ‘Hindu’ and ‘Hindutva’ are fleetingly generalized, a commentary that
has been built by a pseudo secular political mileage driven agenda.
.
Sample these two excerpts from
the recent media reports:
“A
mob of two hundred Hindu
men, incited by the village priest,
killed a Muslim neighbour and nearly killed his son on the strength of a rumour
that they had been eating beef.”
“A play titled 'Agnes of God' has been called off after religious
groups
objected to it.”
While,
the lynching of a fellow human for the food choices he makes is inhuman and
barbaric and needs to condemned univocally, where is the need to paint the
incident as a general ‘Hindu” mindset? The Church is justified in its objection
of the play about an American nun who
gives birth to a dead child and claims it is the result of a virgin conception,
which has been made into a film and has played all over the world.
Isolated
acts of crime including arson and looting at religious places get reported as
“Attack on Christianity” and “Burning of Churches” by HINDU RIGHT WING. There
are no follow up reports on the antecedents of the criminals nabbed in such
incidents and stories die natural death when the purported crime has no
religious hate attached to it.
Strangely
the Freedom of Expression brigade in the media goes to town only when the
sentiments of a few minority “religious groups” are hurt by the Hindu men and saffron
terrorrists, but it is never the other way round. This polarizing trend is
increasingly becoming the norm by the media with its ‘reporters’ who are
happily peddling opinion in the garb of news and reporting. Equally deplorable is
the intolerant few in the Hindu right wing support group on the social media expressing
their disapproval through extremely acerbic language, easily avoidable in a
democratic debate.
No editor has ever questioned
the usage of the “hindu men” for mob, and the “religious group” for the
minority presence in a crime scenario.
Changing times for India where
the words ‘ethics’, ‘neutral, ‘unbiased’ and ‘objectivity’ are losing their
relevance in journalism.
Notes:
*Sanatana Dharma: in Hinduism, term used to denote the “eternal”
or absolute set of duties or religiously ordained practices incumbent upon all
Hindus, regardless of class, caste, or sect.
^Vasudaiva Kutumbakam: A Sanskrit phrase which means "the world
is one family".
