Al Jazeera & Internet Hindus

So the newest entrant in the English TV news media in India is Al Jazeera the famous Arabic channel. One imagines they would mostly be covering international news with an Indian flavour. To break into the minds of viewers some special event was in order. What better than a discussion on some contentious topic! And so it was about ‘Internet Hindus’ (IH). On the night of July 9 through the LiveStream (@AJStream) on the internet they had a discussion with a panel that included Dr.Subramanian Swamy(SS), Sagarika Ghose (SG) and Sadanand Dhume (SD). (Youtube)We all know about Dr.Swamy. Who in the world doesn’t know Sagarika? About Sadanand Dhume I have heard little. Other than reading a stray column of his I knew nothing about his stance. I didn’t know if he took an Off-stump or Leg-Stump guard, but from the debate it is fair to assume he prefers Middle-stump. More of all this minor discussion later! Let’s start at the beginning with the one who takes immense pride in coining the term ‘Internet Hindus’, Sagarika Ghose, of course.

IH is just one of many inventions and concepts that Sagarika has introduced into our lives. The list is too long to run here. Let me make it absolutely clear that she didn’t coin the IH term in frustration or anger. And it’s wrong to suggest that Sagarika bears any hatred towards or is against the IH. That is as far from the truth as Earth is from the planet Moronus. Sagarika is just against logic, reason, accountability and science. Umm.. maybe even against civilisation itself. Her latest piece of brilliance was seen in her tweet on the day the Higgs-Boson (God Particle) was announced. Have you educated yourself? Did you read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins? (Read the whole lot at Sudhir Kumar’s Blog). Now, since she is so enamoured by Dawkins, and so passionately calls herself and her media gang ‘liberals’, I thought it best to quote a post from The Richard Dawkins Foundation itself. The birth of IH can be partially explained by this (Emphasis mine):

Most people are aware of Karl Popper as the father of the modern scientific method, and especially as the creator of the logic known as 'Popper falsifiability'. Somewhat less known is just how well Popper applied his prodigious logical powers to issues of society. In particular, to an issue much in the news these days...that of 'tolerance'. And in that respect, Popper made what to me is the defining statement on the matter:-

"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them… We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.”

This should be framed and mounted on the wall of every liberal's house. Especially those liberals...and there are all too many of them....who are so enamoured with tolerant thinking that they demand tolerance even of the intolerant. To my mind, that level of unthinking and unlimited tolerance is akin to those Trojans who rather stupidly thought the nice wooden horse outside the city was a gift.

Fatwas, open call for murder of cartoonists, chopping off arms of professors! Tolerance! Well, now that we have set a few things in place we can get back to the AJStream discussion. A lot of questions, particularly by Sagarika, were sprinkled into the discussion on Hindu tolerance. Lisa Fletcher, the host, started off with this question:

Who are the Internet Hindus? Why do they oppose a secular India?

Did I hear you say WHAT? Okay, I have to assume this is her first foray into any Hindu related topic, so I’ll choose to forgive the stupidity in her innocent question. I don’t want to recall history of the Mughals or the British but if at all anybody in India is secular it has to be the Hindus. I am tempted to rephrase John Bradford and suggest: “But for the grace of Hindus, India would have been a Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran or even Bangladesh”. And though Lisa works for an Arabic channel she doesn’t seem to have looked deep into Arabian society to be asking such a question.

And in her first draw Sagarika states there are many online ‘organised’ communities on FB, Twitter etc. who follow the ideology of Hindu Nationalism. They attack you if you differ with them. And lo and behold the best of Sagarika: “Hindutva becomes a message for violence on the ground”. Then she gets upset when the so called fake liberals are called “paid media, servants of the Congress or the govt” and oozes emotions suggesting Javed Akhtar and Shabana Azmi, the well-known Bollywood couple, can’t find a house in Mumbai. Really? So Javed and Shabana are struggling to find a flat? Where did that one come from? If Al Jazeera or Lisa Fletcher ever wanted stories from the crypt about the Indian MSM’s misdeeds and crimes then I hope they visit this site. They can close their eyes and click on any post here and they would be alarmed at what they find. And this is not the only one, there are many other sites which have repeatedly exposed the MSM’s lies, manipulations and extreme bias against Hindus. This is all the more evident when the media handles the issue of terrorism.

Naturally, Atirath Aich, formerly associated with AJStream himself, tweets this question during the discussions. Even an average eye can clearly see that the Indian media has mostly been covering up Islamic fanaticism and terrorism and trigger-happy with the so-called saffron terrorism. It’s another story that some of the saffron terror-accused are not convicted, not tried and some have proven to be spurious cases. And Sagarika claimed they have done many exposes on Islamic fanaticism. Oh yeah? I would like to challenge her to prove this silly point she makes. Subramanian Swamy made some telling points, that India is secular because Hindus are still in majority. He points to the state of Kashmir where Hindus are a minority and speaks the truth when he says a Hindu in Kashmir suffers more discrimination than Muslims do in the rest of India where they are minorities.

SS also pointed out the incident in Kerala where a quack Sharia court ordered the arms of a professor chopped because he inadvertently wrote something negative about Islam. The order was carried out and his arms were chopped off. This is the danger that Islamic fanaticism has brought to every society where it has lived with other communities. No sane Hindu would suggest discrimination against Muslims. But Muslims are certainly responsible for their own backward condition. If Hindus had continued to practice many of the social evils of their own society they would have been just as backward too. Muslims refuse to reform and have a notorious intolerance for other communities. It is this intolerance that has grown to a point, supported by indiscriminate appeasement by the Congress and other Socialist and Leftist parties that has brought about the IH. And some of the IH are belligerent and abusive as well. By Sagarika’s measure most of her own tweets would fall under the belligerent, intolerant and abusive category. Some could even be called racist.

As far as Sadanand Dhume is concerned he mostly played the balancing act. That is a splendid achievement considering the two wings of panellists he had. But he did make an important point: “Name a country in Asia that is more tolerant of its minority” than India. The current churning against the media, the Congress+Socialists+Leftists and even intolerant Muslims did not happen overnight. This was waiting to happen. Distortion of their history, abuse of their rights, discrimination through constitution and appeasement of minorities have made many Hindus say “Enough is Enough”! The Internet blogs and social media have helped bring out the truth about the distorted history and the lies the media and historians have peddled for years. Sagarika must learn to accept that fact.

If Lisa Fletcher and AlJazeera look deeper into Hindu society they will realise the undeniable fact that Hindus are not bound together as a community by their religion. They are bound together by their traditions, social customs and practices. In her opening statements Lisa mentions “Hindutva is a core principle of the RSS”. Now, RSS doesn’t influence all Hindus nor is it a concept similar to the ‘universal brotherhood’ that applies to Muslims. And the great scientist that Sagarika is, she suggests “Hindus don’t need to fear anything”. No, they don’t need to fear anything but they are also not willing to welcome any more Trojan horses. If some IH are belligerent and abusive they would have been so even without the internet. Trust me the Muslims don’t even need the internet for that. As someone tweeted jokingly, their equivalent of IH, the IM, is already a terrorist organisation.

Here’s the last word dear Cacofonix! You may have coined the IH term to ridicule Hindus but given that you’re very scientific, you didn’t foresee the response. The panellists even debated it as an offensive term. That’s seriously a laugh. THEY ARE WRONG! Far from seeing it as ridicule or offensive, many Hindus on the net have worn it proudly as their identity. The aggressive Hindus who would have otherwise have gone by their own names or other funny names have exploded into a huge mass with different variants of the term IH. That’s called Hindu tolerance, even embracing an intended ridicule as a badge of honour. That’s the true Hindu Liberal. Go figure! 

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Media Mullahs

In an interesting oped titled ‘Messianism versus democracy’ in The Hindu this is what Prabhat Patnaik had to say: “Maulana Bhashani, a popular peasant leader in what is now Bangladesh, used to give marathon speeches that were interrupted when people went home for lunch or dinner, or even for a night's rest, and resumed when they re-assembled afterwards; and the speeches contained much information about everything…”

Here’s another excerpt from the article: “Messianism substitutes the collective subject, the people, by an individual subject, the messiah. The people may participate in large numbers, and with great enthusiasm and support, in the activities undertaken by the messiah… but they do so as spectators. The action is of the messiah; the people are only enthusiastic and partisan supporters and cheerleaders. If at all they ever undertake any action on the side, this is entirely at the messiah's bidding, its ethics, rationale and legitimacy never explained to them…” Well, I don’t agree with quite a few parts in the article but this post is not to debate that. Patnaik probably has inadvertently described religious following itself. The para I quoted can be used for Jesus Christ, Prophet Mohammad, Moses or any other prophet you can think of. Imagine if prophets from centuries ago had 24X7 media in their time.

Till the time a messiah from the general public, as Patnaik sort of describes Anna Hazare, comes around the role is usually played by those hyper media celebrity anchors and hosts. Each one passionately intent on heaping some agenda on viewers and readers. Desperately agitated and tired with the twittering and twattering of people on the social networks criticising her, one prominent media cacofonix called them ‘Internet Hindus’! If Maulana Bhashani’s marathon speech is an indicator our media celebrity speakers would have to be called the ‘Media Mullahs’.

If Prabhat Patnaik does a casual count of the number of followers our Media Mullahs have on their twitter accounts he will find them outnumbering those out on the streets supporting Anna Hazare. Secondly, to those who dismiss the crowds as not representing all of India one must point out that if social scientologists like Yogendra Yadav can make conclusions for the nation on sample populations of 20000 then the population sample of Anna is far more superior and far more reliable where accuracy is concerned. But in the crowds in the media are also those whose criticism of Anna’s effort is based on sloganeering and not completely on facts. Is everything in Anna’s protest fair? Obviously not. You are unlikely to find any mass movement in history where you are likely to find every part being fair and logical. This is simply because the end objective of mass movements are their stated objectives and that is that. Sometimes even unstated objectives like the partition of India are achieved/conceded. We don't exactly hang our earlier messiah, Mahatma Gandhi, for that.

Some innocent tweets wondered why Barkha Dutt wouldn’t go to Ramlila maidan to cover the protests when she considered it so important to rush to Egypt and Libya. The reasons for her not doing so is pretty obvious to people who have followed her reporting over the years. But taking the cue the other media mullahs rushed to Ramlila. Rajdeep Sardesai went to meet Anna and even had a photo op. Rahul Kanwal of Headlines Today is reporting live from Ramlila today. After his return from Ramlila, Mullah Sardesai’s pattern of discourse has substantially changed. You can expect a similar change in Mullah Kanwal’s approach. The media mullahs may also have to slowly admit that the battering they receive from Internet Hindus is not entirely unjust or misplaced.

What does it say about our media mullahs when they invite those who trash people or protests with absolutely no logic at all? Mahesh Bhatt calls the Anna movement Taliban. Does that make sense? Yet he figures prominently on NDTV and CNN-IBN. Nikhi Wagle of the CNN-IBN group also tweets of religious bias and questions secularism of the protests. Since when was secularism the agenda of the protests in any case? Since when was a religious tone or bias the agenda of the protests? But both Bhatt and Wagle would like to tweak facts brazenly to lend some insidious motive to the event. And where Arnab Goswami is concerned, he is already a convert and is doing a non-stop coverage of the event.

What Prabhat Patnaik misses is that when the protest eventually winds up the only messiahs left continuing the messianism will be our Media Mullahs. They may just have to alter their agendas a bit.

CNN-IBN: Divide The Nation Polls - Terrorism

CNN-IBN carried another instalment of its series of opinion polls on August 11. This one was on terrorism. In the first two instalments IBN’s partner in this hobby, The Hindu, put out the complete data through PDF files on their site. However, in the last two polls (Economy and Terrorism) I have not been able to download the data files. Try downloading the data files at The Hindu’s site here and here. I guess CNN-IBN and The Hindu expected people to be awed and go gaga over these polls instead of being analysed in-depth. So now, you only have clips from their TV show to go by which are scanty in details on the questions, the respondents and so on. One word for their tomfoolery – BUSTED!

Anyway, before I get to this latest instalment on Terror one has to understand the minds that work behind such surveys and polls. Much of it looks like a political position already taken by  the heads of the organisations involved. Now read Rajdeep Sardesai’s anguished tweet over the right wing. I don’t know if I qualify as right-wing yet but here’s what Rajdeep tweeted:

“afzal on death row for 5 years, kasab for 3, but rajiv assassins on death row for 20 years. why no right wing anger? Gnight”

August 11, around 11.30 PM

That is probably one of the most boorish tweets to have come from Rajdeep. I also think Rajdeep was completely unaware how stupid his tweet and his thoughts are. Now, here is a media dealer who keeps shouting hoarse about a lot of things on his channel and yet it didn’t occur to him that he should be the one asking the Nalini question to the UPA. Having failed in that job miserably he thinks the right wing should be making those noises. So tell us Rajdeep have you, as a media dealer, ever asked that question to MMS, PC or Sonia Gandhi? Or have you asked that question on your channel? If not, make it a point immediately that your channel would want the same fate for Nalini as Guru. Having abrogated your responsibility don’t point fingers at some vague right-wing. You should be ashamed that you didn’t actively seek justice for both Nalini and Afzal Guru and then lament that people don’t care about others on the death row. Do you care?

In case Rajdeep forgot,  it was Rajiv’s own family member, Priyanka Gandhi, who met Nalini to seek solace. In case Rajdeep forgot, the Indian right-wing didn't coin the term 'Global Jihad'. Rajdeep has found a place in many of my posts but I thought it would be a good point to remind him of what I think of Nalini. And here are excerpts from some of those posts:

The Scum Of All Spheres

What if Pakistan did hand over the remaining 49 wanted persons from that list of 50? What exactly would our government do? Afzal Guru and Nalini (Rajiv Gandhi’s assassin) are still comfortably lodged in jails.

‘Terror’s Creed..’: MorePoppycock From Rajdeep Sardesai

Killers of Rajiv Gandhi are still in jail. Ajmal Kasab continues to dance around Indian courts every week. Now that, I suppose, is resolve for you……..It is the serious ineptness of the UPA in allowing killers like Afzal Guru or the killers of Rajiv Gandhi to defy justice that spurs anger among citizens

Islamic Terror, Government &The Indian Media

So let’s understand what the 3 stooges have said. The first stooge, PM talks about resolve. Resolve is usually shown by messages or by action. There is neither any message nor any action. Afzal Guru still continues to live in some jail. Killers of Rajiv Gandhi are still in jail.

There, Rajdeep, patriotic Indians are not biased like our media to distinguish justice for terrorists. In fact, the killing of our Prime Minister is as much a war against us as the attack on our parliament. And it is polls like the ones CNN-IBN is doing that attempts to divide the nation with dubious leading questions.

That bit done, let’s get back to CNN-IBN’s dubious surveys. Behind all the silly percentages, not backed by raw data, the only conclusion that Yogendra Yadav came to was “People say terror not linked to religion”.  Frankly, that is a line any lame duck politician will give you free of charge. Why spend all the money on surveys unless it’s free funds? And really, one had to go and ask BJP and Congress workers about their perceptions on terror? That’s really cool. CNN-IBN gets guys from BJP and Congress almost every day on their show. Where’s the need for this exercise?

Historically, terrorism was born out of religion and intolerance. Now, if all the wise men and women at CNN-IBN, CSDS and The Hindu are those who have supposedly read history then they live in denial. Not so long ago there was terrorism by IRA and PIRA in Northern Ireland/UK. The objectives were political but the motive was religion. Surveys that don’t even ponder the political motives of terrorism are usually conducted by ‘useful idiots’. Islam is not just a religion but also a political doctrine. The conquest of territories, conversions, belief in supremacy over other religions are all part of the political and religious agenda. The only religious group to have any influence in the UN is the ‘Organisation of Islamic Countries’ (OIC) who collectively attempt to pass international laws on blasphemy and such religious beliefs. That our media consciously spreads untruths is now out in the open. Don’t claim it to be ‘journalism’ anymore when the only motive is money, money and more money. The best part is getting people like A. Owaisi of MIM to debate terrorism. How clever is that? Groups that are violent against writers like Taslima Nasreen. And terror has no religion?

Rajdeep’s anger at the right-wing is understandable. I think he finds them too intelligent and far too capable of expressing themselves truthfully against CNN-IBN and their close relatives at NDTV, HT and so on. His deputy editor is credited with coining the term ‘Internet Hindus’. Far from seeing it as an affront the right-wingers wear that tag proudly. Not something she would have anticipated. The politicians’ constant endeavour is to divide the nation in every possible way. They wouldn’t have succeeded but for the help of media crooks.

At the very best Yogendra Yadav’s article “People say terror has no religion” might win an essay contest in some primary school or maybe the UN. But if truth were the measure, it fails miserably. These are media-lessons on how to divide the nation.

Raman Rage

There is a ‘I-hate- Sonia-Gandhi’ page on facebook. Actually, there might be more than one such page. In case you didn’t know there is also a funny ‘IhateObama’ website. There is a ‘I-hate-Amitabh-Bachchan’ page on facebook. There is a facebook group page ‘Take Barkha off the air’ and even one called ‘Barkha for worst senior journalist on planet’. There is a page that refers to an article by Sagarika Ghose as ‘Porn article…’ Somebody wants to police them all and send them to jail. These are usually the people who shout themselves hoarse against moral-policing and yet fail to see they indulge in the same activity. 

Okay, if you hunt for these pages and don’t find some, don’t blame me. Pages on the net have a strange habit of disappearing suddenly. As you can see, many public figures have hate pages somewhere and some of the content/comments on those pages are funny or even weird. Some hate pages also become redundant and just hang around until something new comes up about the person concerned.

So why exactly should these silly things rattle someone like B. Raman? (Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India )Especially when he calls this lot a minority? And of all the people who have been decorated with hate on the web why does he pick out Sonia Gandhi, Barkha Dutt and Sagarika Ghose? Well, if you go through Raman’s blogs it’s no secret he is a big admirer of Barkha Dutt. I guess making it all about Barkha would have been silly, so throw in a Sagarika and a Sonia for keeping it sane.

This is what he wrote in an article titled ‘A venomous glee over the Internet’ at Rediff.com. He first posted this on his own blog and rediff then decorated it with some pics. He rattles of a rage against certain people in the same hateful manner that he accuses them of. Some excerpts (in blue) are being reproduced here for the extraordinarily silly logic and arguments that Raman employs:

One has reasons to be concerned over the ill-concealed irrationality of a small number of people, who have been exploiting the advantages of anonymity and wide dissemination for irrational and venomous thoughts provided by the Internet, to indulge in a vicious campaign against those with whom they are in disagreement….…which is seeking to distort and venomise the political debate by using language, arguments and tactics, which are not dissimilar from those used in the past by irrational elements such as the Nazis and  the Fascists.

Actually, what you won’t find now on the rediff article site are two pics of tweets that were originally featured and then removed to be replaced with pics of Barkha Dutt and Sagarika Ghose. If one were to go by some of those tweets, you will find nothing hateful. Which is why it was so conveniently removed, I guess. Mind you, the pics and their removal is Rediff’s own doing and may not have anything to do with Raman. Among the names were Sandeepweb, Calamur, TweetingSourav, IndianUlu, Desh2014, Ssudhirkumar and Talmukund. Sudhir has responded to the mischief on his blog Serious-fun. You can also read the tweets from others. There sure is some ridicule but nothing that would qualify as ‘hate’. And ridicule, Raman should understand, is not such a bad way of dealing with those who concoct and colour news and discussions on television. That is true for politicians too.

You can see screen shots of the two original pics at the serious-fun blog I’ve mentioned above. There you go, Raman, people keep screen shots knowing well how media can manipulate reports within hours. That should tell you something.

Their language, arguments and tactics are also not dissimilar from those used by some of the contemporary irrationals such as the jihadi extremists and the right-wing extremists and the Neo-Nazis of Europe.

Jihadis, Right-wing extremists and Neo-Nazis? Raman is also an ex-Intelligence guy. It is one thing to defend Barkha or Sagarika or Sonia but to trash others as Nazis as an argument can only come from sick minds. In the entire article he does not provide a single example of such hate-writing. It is a tradition with those who cannot combat in a debate with others to trash them as Nazis and fascists. Repeat that lie over and over again and it might even gain currency.  

….The worrisome depth to which their campaign has sunk has become evident from the vicious comments and wishes being disseminated by these elements through the Internet following reports that Sonia has been taken by her family to the US for medical treatment. They do not conceal a certain venomous glee over the indisposition of Sonia.Their obnoxious campaign is directed not only against Sonia, but also against Barkha Dutt for favouring the right to privacy of Sonia Gandhi and her family in the matter of her indisposition.

Some might rationally disagree with Barkha on this point, but what one has been seeing is not a rational disagreement, but an irrational wave of attacks on her, including expression of wishes or curses that Barkha herself should develop the same illness as Sonia for defending the latter's right to privacy.

I am yet to see any viciousness in the tweets that Rediff had originally used as examples. I didn’t find any curse on Barkha either. In reality, it was the Congress itself who managed to ridicule a serious issue. First they mentioned viral fever as the reason for Sonia’s absence from parliament. Then she had cervical cancer, then surgery in the US, then no surgery, then skin cancer. Naturally, the illness of the Congress president who is also seen as the default head of the government cannot be a matter of privacy. Her treatment and recovery can surely be in privacy but not the news about her illness and progress of her recovery. No one has even remotely ridiculed Sonia’s situation.

If there are people who ridicule Barkha or Sagarika it’s because they have come to represent the worst of Indian news media. Barkha has not reached this stage of ridicule overnight. She was once very popular. But repeated drama in reporting events, terrorist attacks, Radiagate have all exposed her to be hollow. People are not going to forget the ‘shoddy journalism’ episode in a hurry and nor are they going to forget Radiagate. It is when tainted journalists continue their sermons on morals and ethics that they invite severe ridicule and rightly so. Any self-respecting news outlet would have fired Barkha Dutt long back. Defend her if you like but don’t become an extremist yourself by trashing people as Nazis.

As I had argued on many occasions in my past articles, history is replete with instances when irrational minorities prevailed over rational or moderate majorities because of the failure of the majority to confront the irrationals with determination and solidarity. We saw such instances in Germany, Italy, Russia, Japan and Mao's China.

The antidote to this lies not in imposing curbs on the use of the Internet in order to prevent these elements from misusing the Internet, but in exposing the activities of these elements, in standing in solidarity with their targeted victims and in finding ways of using existing laws against hate-mongering through the conventional media against those indulging in hate-mongering through the new media of the Internet.

Yeah, you’re right! Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and Mao’s China. There’s only person in the article with an Italian connection and not strangely the very party that usually parties with communists is the one to keep India a stable democracy? The Internet people are not the ones who famously got India the name ‘banana republic’. If a majority of our institutions have eroded and are in trouble it is not the making of internet people. Radiagate would have been buried by the entire media if not for the internet people. In the US a majority of people now rely on Jon Stewart’s comedy show (The Daily Show) for reliable news. In India the MSM has reached a point where reliability for facts and truth is at an all-time low. Guess who are the famous ones responsible for burying the credibility of the news media Mr. Raman?

It is usually the loser who runs out of sane and fair arguments who wants to prosecute people for imaginary hate-mongering. And in case Raman fails to see or understand, it’s the people he defends who hold more powerful public positions which they can and do misuse and not the people on the internet. By that token we would have to believe everything that is written on the internet, which fortunately most people don’t because they possess good judgement. If there is real hate-mongering that goes on secretly it is surely not on the internet but on some of our news channels.

The bias, the colour, the spin, the suppression of facts and truth that go on in news channels is what has spawned a host of writers on the net. If Raman were driving we would have called it ‘road-rage’! On the net it’s simply Raman-rage! If that is not enough, the comments in response to his article at his own blog site are a fair indication of what people think.