Digvijaya's Desperate & Dangerous Communal Call

Guess who the media houses like NDTV, CNN-IBN, TimesNow, Headlines Today and others run to first for a few soundbites and crumbs from the Congress? Yes, Digvijaya Singh of course. DS’ propensity to make mindless, foul-mouthed comments, often generously sprinkled with untruths, endears him to our slave media. Naturally, they all conspired to cover up a hateful and dangerous call DS made to his party-men in Bangalore on July 2: “The Sangh parivar and BJP are conspiring to incite communal violence in Congress-ruled states including Karnataka. The government will have to keep strict vigil on Hindutva organisations… BJP has realised that they won’t win unless they play communal card and they want to secure victory by inciting communal passions” he said. Alright, for the moment let’s keep Diggy on simmer. We’ll boil him later.

If anyone still has the notion that the Gujarat 2002 riots changed or polarised the people in the state then let me dispel that notion. Here’s a story that every Indian should read and understand why Gujaratis have booted out Congress and aren’t friendly with the party. These are edited excerpts from Wiki:

The Dabgarwad Massacre was a legal case involving the burning down of a single mother Maniben’s home in Ahmedabad, India, on June 9, 1985. The incident resulted in the deaths of 8 Hindus, and has come to symbolize the carnage, security mismanagement, and sloppy investigation during the 1985 Ahmedabad violence. On February 1985, a mass movement against Gujarat Government's new policy of caste based reservation was launched in Ahmedabad. Congress(I) government came down on movement participants with an iron fist… Most of the movement participants were Hindu students. It is alleged that Congress(I) leadership used Muslim mafia don Abdul Latif's gang against the movement's participants. As a result, Ahmedabad was rocked with communal riots, between Hindus and Muslims, for several months.

Note carefully, even then it was Congress (I) but since 2004 the party and our corrupt media conveniently changed it to INC. The current Congress has absolutely no relation or connection to the original INC. The anti-reservation stir was deliberately turned into a communal riot using anti-social elements. The king-pin in the events was one Abdul Latif, a local goon of the D-Company. The Congress CM then was Madhavsinh Solanki. The story during the period of the anti-reservation agitation before it became communal continues on Wiki:

There was a mass exodus of Hindus from their houses in the riot hit locality of Dabgarwad, Dariapur. When peace was partially restored, few residents returned; However, Maniben continued to live in her house, with her two daughters and four grand-children, because she had no other place to go or she was confident that she shall not be harmed. On 9 June 1985 at 1:30 PM, Military which was stationed at Dabgarwad was withdrawn. As a result, a large Muslim mob attacked Maniben's house, which is located about 250 feet from police outpost, setting fire to it, and chaining it from outside resulting in death of Maniben, her two daughters, four grand-children and son of a neighbor. Next house set ablaze was of Navin Chandra, Kantilal, Kalidas and others. Mob, including women, attempted to prevent fire brigade from extinguishing the fire. All accused, including main appellant Dilaver Hussain Mohammad Laliwala, were acquitted on 5 October 1990 due to lack of evidence. Supreme Court of India criticized police investigators for late recording of evidence, failure to produce the Chief Fire Officer as witness and delay in preparation of panchnama of Maniben’s home.

I can vouch for these incidents as being accurately described. In post-independence India the biggest record of engineering communal riots is held by none other than the Congress. So Digvijaya’s nonsense is beset with absence of historical truth. Thus 1985 was the year in which Hindus in Gujarat decided enough is enough and booted out the Congress forever in the next election.

After that communal riot Madhavsinh Solanki was sacked and replaced only to be later reinstated as CM. But in the next election in 1990 the Congress was removed from power. Since then it has had a CM only for just over a year owing to political horse-trading. Since March 1995 there has been no Congress govt in Gujarat. The BJP has won all elections but the greed for power made Shankersinh Vaghela defect and form his Rashtriya Janata Party (RJP). Vaghela grabbed power with the support of Congress but couldn’t last more than a year as CM. And since 1997 it has been BJP and the Congress has been wiped out of Gujarat. That’s the story. The 2002 riots didn’t propel BJP to power nor did it polarise people as the media propaganda would have you believe.

In the decade since 2002 the governance and performance agenda has overshadowed communal divisions. Since independence and right up to 1985 it is the communal politics of the Congress govts in Gujarat that has polarised the state. I dare say, while Gujarat has been saved from the communal Congress, other states that are still being exploited with their “Hindus are communal” crap will someday learn.

Encounters are the flavour of the season, so let’s also find out what happened to that mafia goon Abdul Latif. He was Dawood’s “made-guy” in Ahmedabad. He had even won local elections from 5 wards in the Muslim dominated areas of Ahmedabad. He was later arrested and housed at the Sabarmati jail for his crimes pending trial. In 1997 Shankarsinh Vaghela was the CM. Here’s what happened to Latif as every Gujju who was witness to events knows (from Rediff):

Notorious gangster Abdul Latif was shot dead by the police early on Saturday morning in Ahmedabad, while trying to escape. Latif, a Dawood Ibrahim associate, was arrested in Delhi in 1995. He had been lodged in the Sabarmati Central jail since then. The incident occurred at 0215, near the Naroda crossing. Latif had been taken for an investigation and was being brought back to the jail. He asked permission to answer nature's call and tried to escape by firing at the police. The police retaliated, shooting him dead. He was cremated under strict security in the evening at the Shahibaug graveyard.

Interesting, eh? Latif was in prison, was being escorted in darkness of early hours under police custody. He wants to take a “bathroom break” around the bushes near the road. And Holy Moses, guy pulls out a pistol? Huh? Where did this pistol suddenly come from? So he tried to attack the police and was shot dead. Do you believe that? Now Vaghela is a Congress member since those days. If this was not a fake encounter what was it? So the Congis who are now crooning like Madonna over Ishrat Jahan should remember who started the culture of fake encounters. Just as they and parties holding similar “sickular” persuasions are the ones who engineer communal riots. Even if you look at the chronology of recent history of communal riots, the worst ones have occurred under Congress govts. More minorities (as also Hindus) have died in communal riots under Congress govts.

So Digvijaya is doing nothing but raking up the old Secular V Communal fear-mongering for elections. He is now also joined by Nitish Kumar. As this sound grows the media too will join the hunt sooner than later. Let me sound an alternate warning: If at all communal riots happen between now and the general elections it will likely be engineered by Congress and not by BJP. Congress is the one who came up with divisive plans for India including Madhavsinh’s infamous KHAM (Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi and Muslim) calculation for vote-banks. Since the KHAM invention many regional parties have borrowed the theory to form their own vote-banks like BSP, SP etc. The Congress would be foolish if they allowed Diggy to continue his mindless rant. People are sick and tired of their deceptions and of “fake secularism” which fools Muslims and all other minorities. The Congress principle of tagging anyone speaking for Hindu interests as “Communal” is the most sinister and divisive campaign ever created in this country. And these guys go around calling others Hitler, Fascist, Communal, Polarising and all the dubious terms they can come up with. This time, it may not pass and that is the fear that haunts Diggy to his bones as it does the Congress party.

To deviate a bit from the issue the Congress also supports a vast network of organisations and NGOs which are busy creating a deep social divide in India. Researcher and writer Rajiv Malhotra calls it “Breaking India”. In his book, Malhotra describes and explains how major foreign funds are being poured into India to alter the religious structure of India through dubious means, conversions and other inducements. He also explains how many so called “intellectuals” are ‘useful idiots’ in this scheme. You can see most of these idiots frequently on TV panels and some are anchors too. I don’t have to elaborate to which party these dishonest intellectuals owe their allegiance to. The map on the cover of Malhotra’s book is influenced by the sinister designs of the players behind the scenes. This is no figment of imagination but is actually happening on the ground in India.

I may not know much about Diggy but I do know one thing for sure. In his 10-years as CM of Madhya Pradesh the guy couldn’t build a single decent road between the two main cities of Indore and Bhopal. The distance was a mere 170kms. MP remained a BIMARU state under him. Having been thrown out of MP he has spent the last decade mouthing rubbish frequently which the media delightfully reproduces like a box of parrots. His statement warning of a communal riot is one of desperation and with the knowledge that Congress may get a severe thrashing at the next general elections. The final response of a historically divisive Congress has been “fear-mongering”. Diggy has just made a desperate and dangerous call. It’s not the BJP or others but the Congress party that people must watch out for. 

While The Cattle Burned In Godhra ...

Some myths take time to get busted; but they do get busted. This is a pic from the Slutwalk in New York in 2011. The poster a woman is carrying may shock you. At the bottom left corner of the poster is a self-caricature of the man who is often credited with inventing modern-day pop music. Yes, “Woman is the nigger of the world” was written and sung by John Lennon who also founded The Beatles. When the song was released it naturally sparked a controversy but those who protested realised quickly that it was a very pro-feminist song and not an insult to women. At other times, using the word “nigger” can have serious consequences across the world. In due course, the US Organization for Women awarded Lennon a "Positive Image of Women" citation for the song. After Christopher Hitchens, who lampooned Mother Teresa’s missionary work, there is lately another research by Canadians which states she was anything but a saint. It suggests that Mother Teresa was a “media-created saint” (see TOI report).

One such myth floating around is Shashi Tharoor (ST), the Honourable Minister, as an “intellectual”. I first closely observed Tharoor during a debate he had with Christopher Hitchens on ‘free speech’. I believe that was the first time ST too ran into a “real” intellectual and was schooled by Hitchens. I summarised the work of Tharoor, the happy-tongue hypocrite, in a post 3 years ago. Nothing has changed since then for me to assess him any differently. I was naturally curious when my Twitter friend Utsav Mitra put out this tweet on March 1. I guess ST was just furthering the Congress agenda of the TwitterNREGA programme when he started following people he would otherwise never have followed. These are a few Congress supporters on Twitter. Remember all the gaffes of ST? His “Nehru’s moral running commentary”. “Saudi Arabia as interlocutor” for Indo-Pak issues and most of all the “cattle class” remark, are all legends. In short, all of these would suggest ST is nothing more than Sushilkumar Shinde in a suit and speaking fluent English.

All his utterances plus his IPL misadventure cost him his ministerial job earlier. So ST in his second innings as a minister found the ultimate tactic to survive in Congress politics as a minister. And that is to frequently write about Narendra Modi and tar Gujarat. Now, as a politician ST is entitled to criticise and rubbish Modi as much as he wants and also proclaim Modi is unfit to be PM as he now writes in some papers. Nothing endears a politician to our media and the Congress party like a man targeting Modi. ST has learnt his lessons well. But when it comes to talking about riots and Jihad, ST proves he is not very different from Teesta Setalvad (TS). TS and ST! Let’s deviate from Mr.Happy-Tongue a bit. Let’s find out what Teesta is harvesting.

A report in DeshGujarat, and in many other news sites, has reproduced a letter written by residents of Gulberg Society in Ahmedabad to TS. The letter accuses TS of having collected over 1.5 crores for some purpose in the name of the Gujarat 2002 riots victims. After feeling fooled by her for all these years, the residents have now demanded the amount be distributed among them and the victims of the riots. In a separate letter, Gulberg residents have also asked the Police Commissioner not to allow any NGO crooks near them anymore. You can read the whole story in the link provided. There is hardly any doubt left that TS was a scavenger who enriched herself playing the saviour for riot victims. She’s not the only one many others too have enriched themselves. Some of them are prominent media celebs whose faces you see on your TV screens or newspapers every single day. Most of them have also received many awards, including Padma awards. The TS tactics of success are essential for progress under Congress and “Sickular hypocrites”. Any surprise why ST pays more attention to Gujarat and Narendra Modi now?

So in response to a query over an article concerning Narendra Modi ST sent out this tweet on February 28, 2013. This is line with the TS School of Success in Politics programme. This also partly borrows from the Digvijaya Singh School of stupidity, Asad Owaisi School of radicalisation and Sushil Shinde School of excuses for Jihad. I wonder if ST got a call from Hafiz Sayeed yet. If not, he will find praises from Hafiz ‘Saab’ pretty soon. Remember, both Digvijaya and Owaisi maintain the Babri demolition was the first advertisement for Jihad and Gujarat 2002 the second. We now wait for Owaisi’s ‘third wave’. Let’s forget that Jihad has existed and killed millions for 15 centuries across the world. Let’s forget that Pakis have promised a “1000-year Jihad” against India decades ago. It is futile to ask people like ST to see sense.

What ST forgets is that his tweet dangerously paints the Muslim community as a thoroughly violent community capable of no civilised response to violent events. What ST implies is that Hindus must and are capable of tolerating all kinds of atrocities and remain peaceful despite grave provocation. Okay, fine! But what he does miss is that he insults the entire Muslim community by implying that the only response they are capable of is Jihad. He confirms that Muslims are incapable of responding to communal riots with anything other than Jihad. By his own twisted logic Godhra was advertisement for the riots that followed. That’s your intellectual in a suit. That’s what brings me to ST’s cattle class nonsense. Remember how he justified it? No? Alright, we’ll get there.

Since Akhilesh Yadav took over UP CM there have been at least 9 communal riots as reported by CNN-IBN. So what did CNN-IBN do? They nominated him as “Indian of the year”. ST would agree since in most of those riots Hindus were victims and the media kept quiet. Er… Hindus didn’t see the advertisement. Hindu houses were burnt and razed to the ground sometime back in Deganga. Hindus all over talked about it, media supressed reports but Hindus didn’t get together and declare “jihad”. Oops… they didn’t see the ads. Recently, there have been communal riots in Canning (Bengal) and yet again Hindus were victims. Oh, they didn’t retaliate, they didn’t see the advertisement. Incidentally, Hindus are again being killed in Bangladesh but I’m sure Hindus in India or ST didn’t see any ads. Did they? Muslims have been so misguided and misled by certain leaders that they have been led to believe that the only way to respond to even events unrelated to India is through violence and jihad. Remember Azad Maidan? That orgy of violence was based on fake images. I believe ST would justify those images as “advertisement for jihad”. ST stereotypes them by implying Muslims are incapable of any other response. And Muslims gladly suffer such insults to their community and to their intelligence. It is leaders like ST whose utterances permanently keeps Muslims on the edge and leads them to believe Jihad is the only answer.

The stupid justification that ST offered for his cattle class is that he has lived abroad for 30 years and it’s a common joke for the way airlines treat passengers. Should I say, swell? I doubt ST had the gall to refer to anyone as cattle class while he lived abroad like John Lennon had the guts to call a woman a nigger in his song. In each case Mr.ST the context is important. Your cattle class is airline economy class, in India cattle class would be S-6 in Sabarmati Express. Even if it were a ‘western’ joke, the context in India is vastly different. India is a country where a huge majority has never flown in an aircraft much less experience bad treatment from airline companies. I doubt ST has ever travelled on Indian Railway train. Has he? I don’t know but let’s assume he has. If he has indeed ever travelled on an Indian train he wouldn’t have missed the fact the second class and general compartments are packed with people like they would normally be packed with ST’s cattle.  Even in reserved second class compartments there are crowds during a day journey. During the night there are encroachers who sleep on the floor.

So all that ST has done is join the huge gang that sees only Muslims having died in Gujarat 2002. It’s a very rewarding industry as a retired judge or many NGO crooks will tell you. For all these people, the 59 people who were burnt alive and were roasted to death were just cattle class who were stuffed in a train compartment. ST probably wasn’t in India when Godhra happened. In all probability those 59 who burned to death invited their deaths by advertising the name of Lord Ram by their chants. Right Mr.ST?  I haven’t seen one tweet from Shashi Tharoor about the Godhra burning when he mentions Gujarat 2002. Well why should he tweet about that, he has nothing but contempt for holy cows, doesn’t he? 

Sagarika's 'Miss India' Solutions To Illegal Migrants

On April 20, 1968 British Conservative party member Enoch Powell made the fieriest of speeches against mass immigration. The media titled it the “Rivers of blood” speech. He had then warned of immigrants swamping Britain and marginalising its original population. Mind you, it wasn’t even a great deal of “illegal” migrants he talked about. He started with the line: “The supreme function of statesmanship is to provide against preventable evils. In seeking to do so, it encounters obstacles which are deeply rooted in human nature”. For two decades now Britain is coming to grip with reality and paying the price of failing to heed Powell’s warning. Rivers of blood haven’t flown in Britain but they certainly have in India, especially in Assam this month.

Lately, some in India have been talking about illegal migrants and how to deal with them. The problems India is facing on account of illegal migrants are outcomes of seeds sown and nurtured by the left-liberal-votebank mafia and their sympathisers in the “communist” media. Many also make the terrible mistake of tagging a predominantly communist Indian media as “liberal”. Typically, it’s the bimbos in this very media who tend to make absurdly loose statements about illegal migrants in the wake of the Assam communal violence; the Bodo-Muslim riots. Cleverly, the media and the Congress won’t even call them Illegal Bangladeshis but Bengali-Muslims.

Many may be aware, many not but Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady, campaigned in 1979 to bring in immigration reforms. Till the early 80s Indians visiting UK didn’t need Visas. We could go to any port of entry in UK and get an entry permit. Same applied for Britons visiting India. All that changed in 1984 when Thatcher introduced Visas for even short visits to UK. Till then, many Indians went on a visit to UK, got married or contracted a marriage and got settlement rights. All that changed when Thatcher introduced the British Citizenship Act in 1981. New rules meant that your ‘Visitor visa’ for UK couldn’t be converted to a residential permit. Also, UK now has a Border Control Agency, US has a Homeland Security along with Border & Customs Protection agency. All these were measures to check illegal immigration and other illegal activities at their borders. However, the eminent Social Genius (SG) in our media will tout some liberal nonsense without the slightest thought or reflection on what changes have been brought about by many democracies to curb illegal immigration. She is like that famous MissTeen SouthCarolina who explained why Americans weren’t good at reading maps. Doesn’t ring a bell? Never mind! We will get to that soon. Our eminent SG likes to cook ‘2 Minute Noodles’ with the most serious of problems with absurd comments.
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Don’t look at me! I didn’t think of that 2-minute noodles thing. I’m not that original. This is none other than Barkha Dutt admitting with unusual candour that media folks tend to cook 2-minute judgements. I like the honesty in that tweet. The only problem is that these cooks don’t seem to show any intention of learning. If you read articles by Barkha Dutt, Sagarika Ghose or Rajdeep Sardesai you will hardly find much research, no depth, no painstaking digging for facts. Lately, you will only find such serious work in the Social Media. Take this article on Right To Education by @ssudhirkumar or this one on Kingfisher by @TheKaipullai. Both have depth, filled with details and meticulously compiled. And these are just two of them. There are hundreds of such writers who aren’t regular journalists or media celebs. These aren’t 2-minute noodles! But the media celebs have found something even better to cook their 2-minute journalism with – Twitter!

Again, I’m not the one saying it but just rephrasing the eminent SG: “When it comes to understanding and judging Twitter, Rajdeep Sardesai is “Numero Uno”! And true to his enormous reputation Rajdeep concludes, after being nagged by tweets over Assam, that he will now see Twitter as just ‘amusement’. Yeah! He wants to get back to some ‘real work’ like concocting some amusement like ‘TheGreatestIndian’! I guess Mr. Yogendra Yadav must be on vacation or else Rajdeep could have conducted another national poll to reach the same conclusion: ‘Twitter is amusement’ and then conducted a panel discussion on the amusing topic. Alas, we missed some amusement ourselves! But only for a while! For before too long his deputy, Sagarika Ghose (SG), the eminent Social Genius backs up Rajdeep’s conclusion with some mind-numbing and amusing tweets. 

Damn! I was almost starting to forget what I started with: Illegal Immigration. But I trust SG to bring my focus back with her tweets. So in the midst of all the violence and discussions on illegal immigration SG quotes someone and concludes migration from the rest of the country that has led to ‘ethnic multiplicity’. So now all the ethnic migrants in Mumbai should shut up and live to together. Raj Thackeray should learn from SG. Oh wait! She wasn’t talking about Mumbai but Assam is it? It’s always such a thrill to misunderstand SG! After Jerusalem, Assam, particularly Bodoland, has to be the best ‘promised land’ around the country. Not surprisingly migrants from places like Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Gujarat and other states have been rushing to Assam for many years. Then these people learn Assamese or Bengali, convert to Muslims or Christians or to Bodo Tribals and create havoc in the area. We would have heard such reasoning and answers from many past Miss India winners. And yet this nation of 1.2 billion (minus 1) can’t see it as clearly as SG does. And here’s a warning for those who rant about illegal immigration (I’m already heeding..):
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Stupid USA! They should have shut their borders in the 18^th century itself. For a country that was built by immigrants they should have listened to SG long back. The tough measures that USA frequently takes against illegal immigrants, especially in their southern border with Mexico and with their legal framework have to be researched by some social media writer. Such silly tasks are not for our 2-minute cooks you see. And even Rajdeep will find it amusing that SG says ‘whites attacking browns’ without mentioning what kind of attack that is. Well, let’s just assume its racist more out of colour and ancestry rather than stupid illegal immigration. What SG forgot to tell you though is that India, Bangladesh, Pakistan are all ‘whole wheat bread’. They are all brown! There may be some differences in physical features but comparing an illegal immigrant or migrant issue to a racist issue is what an absolute moron can manage, without any assistance. I am no expert to firmly conclude the Assam tragedy is only of illegal immigration. But SG, given her 10 years of journalistic work in the Bodoland area, can most certainly conclude it’s not.

So you see, it’s quite hard to understand or interpret the amusing tweets of SG. Maybe we need expert comedians like Raju Shrivastava, Johny Lever or that guy (Pehchan Kaun) to really understand the genius of SG. I say that because late night comedian, Jimmy Kimmel, a few years ago, did a splendid job of interpreting a Miss Teen USA contestant’s answer to the question: “A 5^th of Americans can’t locate USA on the map, why is that?” (Do watch the video of 3.53 mins):

So you get it now, don’t you? The similarity between MissTeenUSA and Sagarika Ghose when it comes to offering solutions to issues is striking. Isn’t it? Fortunately MissTeenUSA is not grappling with some nuclear-bomb issue. I can't say the same for our Social Genius! But hey, they are both still very young and will learn as they go.

On a serious note, illegal migrants from Bangladesh have been a problem for decades. And yes, as I said in the beginning they find support in our Vote-bank mafia who will sacrifice national interests to remain in power. The communist media too will do all they can to support this mafia. Assam may have a strong contingent of these illegals but they aren’t all permanent residents of Assam alone. They are in Bengal too. Many have melted into smaller towns in India. Many have melted into the vast ghettos of Mumbai and other suburbs.

I quote from the post: ‘MakeMumbai a separate state’ (And also recommend you read it if you haven’t already) - (Rediff): “In terms of illegal immigrants in Mumbai, Bangladeshis alone account for between 3.5 lakhs according to a minister and 16.0 lakhs according to Kirit Somaya, a former MP.  What would you say about a government that can’t even get its numbers right on such matters? This is in no way to suggest that any of this population is involved in crimes but the possibilities that some may be cannot be discounted. But it sure is a matter of serious concern”.

Illegal immigration from Bangladesh and also Pakistan is a truly serious problem. When have you even heard the current govt talk about any population control measures? It is not just a social problem but a serious national threat as well. The threat of ‘Rivers of blood’ is far more pertinent for India than Britain. The tragedy, apart from the terrible votebank mafia, is that bimbos from the media seem to think this is a simple “Miss India” contest question and answer it that way. 

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Excuses For Assam

For a change conflict-heroes like Barkha Dutt and Rajdeep Sardesai weren’t reporting from the ground on the Assam situation. Hardly any great incentive there for anyone, not even one of bringing down a govt or tarring a Chief Minister. As the violence in Assam flared, even on July 25, all our channels were running programmes on Pranab Mukherjee as president right through the day. Sure, they had to repeatedly show Pranab taking the oath, given it’s the first time ever an oath was administered to a president-elect. When they managed to remember Assam they had to hunt for titles for the violence. Communal violence, ethnic violence, Bodo-Bengal Muslim clashes and so on! They didn’t seem to be sure what to call it but soon every one settled for “Ethnic violence”. Ethnic sounds a lot more moderate and fashionable than ‘communal’. Doesn’t it? Much has since been written and aired about Assam but very few seemed to deal with proper facts and sequence of events. It’s also not what they didn’t or couldn’t report but the reasons or excuses they brought up that should make interesting reading.

And what could be a better reflection of journalistic ethics than that practiced by Rajdeep as his tweet shows. More died in Gujarat than Assam he says as reason for media coverage. Well, you can’t fault RS for vision and foresight. When he landed in Ahmedabad to report the 2002 riots he was pretty sure the toll would cross 1000. Just a minute! When did he come to this lousy figure of 1000 though? For years NDTV and CNN-IBN, both homes for Rajdeep, had thrown up any number for Gujarat; from over 2000 killed to over 3000 killed. They also made you believe it was ‘genocide’ or it was a ‘pogrom’ in which Muslims alone were butchered. At the time here’s a bit of what Rajdeep wrote on Gujarat: 

“…And now in Gujarat, the accusation is of (media) ‘inflaming communal passions’ when the fact is that the flames of communal hatred have been stoked by a mob, a section of which at least has been patronised by the ruling establishment in Gandhinagar”. The numbers Rajdeep reported and even concocting without any solid evidence that the mob was patronised by the govt could have very well come from Digvijay Singh or any Congress member. Umm.. it must be hard to find such intelligence on clashes in Assam. Later, on the same day of July 24 Rajdeep tweeted an apology for his insensitive tweet. (He says tweet of previous night although it was on the same morning of July 24.) Typically, after his apology RS asked if other tweeters would apologise for questioning his integrity. Integrity? That’s laughable. The lies through Rajdeep’s tweets and reports and of his channel are all too many to qualify him a liar, integrity is too far a bridge.

If Rajdeep’s apology was a lightning bolt of conscience the deputy editor of CNN-IBN couldn’t be left behind. In her true bumbling style Sagarika Ghose tweeted about the violence and a majority of those in relief camps being Muslims. Here we go! So I read both the pieces by Samudra Gupta from the relevant dates, here and here. Nowhere do his articles corroborate her statement. 

The first article of his (July 25) even contradicts her statement as does The Hindu, a clip of which someone has pasted with her tweet. That Sagarika feels motivated enough to take on Internet Hindus is one thing but the content of her tweet, like many before, is the kind of integrity that viewers are questioning. Rajdeep doesn’t seem to get it. Does she or Rajdeep ever wonder if they only report to Internet Hindus or to a larger audience who deserve the facts? After all that and after tagging Assam incidents as “Ethnic violence”, accusing IHs as wanting a religions narrative and describing the state as a complex cauldron what does SG’s channel run as headline? “Clashes between Bodos & Muslims have killed 44 people dead so far”. That is since 8am on July 27. Religious narrative? That’s integrity of these characters who parade as journalists.

It is one thing for the Indian TV channels not to have been quick enough to be on the scene to report but to make excuses, compare degree or deaths in riots all indicate the degradation of journalistic thought and ethics. Capturing images of violence or damage is not merely for airing those for vicarious pleasure of anyone. Videos and images have also often helped in rendering justice to the victims and during times of trouble get help faster. Most channels do not even have regular reporters in the NE states. Not even in the state capitals. Each time there is an incident someone rushes from Kolkatta or from Delhi, after much heartburn I suppose. Instead of admitting that the NE is off their radar, not politically or financially very attractive some media celebs indulge in a slanging match on twitter.

Ironically, the best report I have read so far in MSM on the Assam situation, clearly sequencing the various incidents that led to the larger flame, is on a foreign journal. Samrat, the Asian Age editor and from NE himself, wrote the report on NewYork Times’ India Ink page. (Violence in Assam has deep roots). His report, sans drama or literary flair, narrates the story of events since May 29 which is hard to find in an Indian news report.

Oh well! If you wanted drama and thrills in a report about Assam, the best place has to be NDTV. As the Congress organised a 10-member panel for Assam NDTV came up with their usual “TOP10” on Assam. The hits just keep on coming. I am surprised they don’t do a countdown of the top 10. The only recent occasion NDTV itself found a good deal of time for Assam and sent some reporter to the state was for their entertainment programme “Will Travel for Food”. As for Rajdeep Sardesai and Sagarika Ghose, what can one say anymore? They couldn’t even find their usual best reporters in Assam – the Citizen journalists. Whether for riots or for other issues will the TV channels at least now alter their approach to NE states and care? One has to remain sceptical or wait for more creative excuses next time instead of scale and degree of riots and deaths.
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