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? 

Victimhood Justifies Violence

Note: This is a long but non-linear post of multiple parts. Each part is connected but can also be read separately.

Blame is lame

Some of the Twitter accounts that the GOI wants blocked: KanchanGupta (26025), SanghPariwar (16438), ShivAroor (6694), Barbarindian (5631), AnilKohli54 (2818), Scamsutra (2605), Dosabandit (1552), DrPravinTogadia (1430). The number after each account is the follower count at 11.30am IST on August 24. After using mathematical Multiple-Angles Identity formulae I have arrived at the conclusion that all of these handles are Hindus. I follow 2 of these accounts. Not exactly clear what their offence is but the general terms being used are “spreading-hate” and “hate-speech” following the clashes in Gogoiland or the “peaceful meeting” at Azad Maidan on August 11. How and who arrived at this list of accounts to be blocked? But let’s leave that for later. That done, TV debates don’t spare a second to further tar and malign social media as being part evil and whether censorship is justified. That the news media even debates whether any form of censorship is justified reveals the sewer they’re clogged in.

Now, you can compare those ‘block’ Twitter accounts with those of media celebs like Barkha Dutt, Rajdeep Sardesai, Sagarika Ghose and also-ran sidekicks like Ashutosh and Nikhil Wagle. You will find the celebs and their sidekicks have a far higher follower count than the ones to be blocked with the exception of KanchanGupta in one or two cases. The follower count is only to indicate the reach and influence of an account and not a comment on popularity or tweets. So far there isn’t a shred of evidence social media caused hate, violence or the NE exodus. None whatsoever!"Stick the convict's badge" first and then worry about evidence.

 News Media induces fear, anger and disgust.

The theory and scientific study of TV provoking anger and rage has been on since the early 70s. The constant shrill scream of “Breaking news” even after it has become a farce, constant hysterical screaming of reporters and anchors, constant dividing of the nation through manipulated debates do take a toll. It provokes fear, anger, rage and disgust. And every time there are images or texts, real and imaginary, that provoke Muslims into violence our media simply discusses their “Victimhood”. It’s almost like Jim Carrey in ‘LiarLiar’ telling the serial-adultery woman that she’s actually a “victim” and wins her a huge monetary settlement. That’s how Sagarika Ghose ‘positioned’ it (Term borrowed from Justice Arnab) and, of course, given her histrionics Barkha Dutt frequently comes up with Spielberg’s “Minority Report” as title for this victimhood nonsense. (Irony, since most of her panelists on such topics are usually from the Muslim community).

In a research document “TV news images that induce anger, fear, and disgust..” here’s what an abstract says: “An experiment tested memory and approach‐avoidance ratings for television news images that induce anger, fear, and disgust. Participants rated the ¡mages by moving a computer paddle toward or away from the screen during the stimulus presentation. Anger images received the rating closest to the screen, followed by images inducing fear, and images inducing disgust. Images that induce anger were found to be the most memorable on a latency‐to‐response measure, followed by images that induce fear, and images that induce disgust. Both retroactive and proactive memory effects were detected..”

Psychotic Victimhood.

The term PTSD (Post Trauma Stress Disorder) wasn’t coined until 1979. It mainly reflected the mental condition of Vietnam veterans of the US Army. Their sense of isolation and victimhood has have been portrayed in many movies. Psychiatrists who arrived at this disorder analysed many behavioural patterns. One of the characters they analysed was the extraordinary psychotic character Travis Bickle. Watch this little clip from the Martin Scorsese‘s cult movie Taxi Driver (1.12 mins)

That is as disgusting as TV media can get! Even if you haven’t watched the movie you can predict how it would have ended – in a bloodbath. Isolated, secluded, obsessed, victimhood, psychotic - all of that describes Travis Bickle. Taxi Driver influenced the real-life assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley. Blame Martin Scorsese or Robert De Niro?

Then there was this guy called Mark Chapman. Among many stories, Chapman wasn’t happy with the way “Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger ended. On December 8, 1980 he pumped 5 bullets into John Lennon, who’s often credited with creating modern day pop music, and kills him. Blame J.D. Salinger or his book? This is the same stupid logic that GOI has used in a mindless spree of blocking websites and Twitter accounts. Pathetic! Only psychotics and retards claim texts, images and videos being sufficient to provoke violent acts.

A short series of victimhood and violence.

Victimhood justifies violence? Let’s go through a series of events that have sparked violence in the name of religion:

1985: The Calcutta petition refers to a case which was directed at the very core of Islam – The Quran. Sri Chandmal Chopra and a few more filed an application in the Calcutta High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India on 29 March, 1985 to declare each copy of the Quran, whether in the original Arabic or in its translation in any of the languages, as forfeited to the government claiming the Quran incites violence and religious disharmony. Both the state and central govts were rattled. Predictably there was violence.

1986: The DeccanHerald printed an article ''Mohammad the idiot'' (Absolutely no reference to the Prophet as even ShashiTharoor confirms). The story concerned a handicapped youth named Mohammad, but the Moslems, who make up 10 percent of the city's population, asserted that a reference to him as ''a deaf and dumb prophet'' was an insult to their religion. Result? 4 killed and 50 injured in violence. Oh, just in case you thought Muslims were hurt, the article also had a character called “Sita” as a prostitute. No, Hindus didn’t go out and kill people or damage property. (See box from Desicritics).

2009: In February The Statesman in Kolkatta reprinted an article from The Independent titled "Why should I respect oppressive religions?" The Muslims felt hurt again and once again there was violence and blockade of the newspaper’s office. The editor and publisher of the newspaper were also arrested. Victimhood? Result, more violence.

2010: And then you can carry on with the article of Taslima Nasreen (March 2010) which angered Muslims. Result? Two persons were killed and over two dozen injured after violence broke out in three districts of Karnataka during rallies taken out to protest an article containing remarks against certain Islamic practices published in a vernacular daily on Monday. (HindustanTrolls).

Media perpetuates the lie of victimhood

The cases of images or texts resulting in violence can go on and on. And still our media continues to play the “victimhood” card. So on August 22 the Social Genius on CNN-IBN had another discussion on the topic: “Do Muslims continue to suffer from a sense of victimhood?” Ah well, even if they try to get over it our stupid media morons will never let them get past it just like our politicians. The real question, if there were any honesty left in media, should have been: “Should a sense of victimhood justify violence?” The only panellist to accurately analyse this “victimhood” syndrome was Swapan Dasgupta. He described the three different types of Muslim victimhood syndrome:

Material victimhood: This relates to their economic conditions and getting a share in India’s growth as an economic power. I agree, Muslims should get their share of progress and wealth but they can’t keep blaming society, the govt, the Hindus or other communities.  They have to stand up, shun and condemn religious violence and seek greater education for their children.

Political victimhood: This, says Dasgupta, stems from the feeling of loss of their might and nostalgic power of having once ruled many parts of India. Unfortunately, this could well apply to their leaders like Asaduddin Owaisi who issue threats from the parliament.

Belligerent victimhood: The feeling among some Muslims that the “whole world is against us” and therefore they have to fight every step of the way. The fight involves standing up and fighting up for this victimhood for incidents related to any corner in the world that offends Muslims. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq don’t indulge in violence over incidents in Burma or Bangladesh. Indian Muslims should put the country over religion to come out of this “belligerent victimhood”. 

Of course, never forget that everytime this victimhood is passed of as genuine excuse for violence the media has a finger pointing at only one direction - Right Wing (Read Hindus). The 'Message approval' is pretty obvious - keep chanting right wing is evil, right wing is evil. So the rise of the Right Wing contributes to Muslim insecurity. Truth is, right wing has come up exactly for the opposite reason.

The social media blockade will fail.

Let’s talk about the social media blockade. The Twitter accounts that are being blocked and many others are only pointing out the failures of the media and the govt in wrong identification of the problems of Muslims and trying to solve those by appeasements and hand-outs. Tweet after tweet, blog after blog keeps pointing out the same discrimination against Hindus and other communities for the vote-bank of Muslims. Every act of violence by Muslims is being either condoned or censored and that of others being magnified. This is the conflict that has been raging between the Twitterati and the media celebs, with their shows on TV and also provocative tweets on Twitter.

Where in the world did GOI suddenly find the wisdom and intelligence to find some 16 odd Twitter accounts (out of 16 million in India) to consider being a threat and fit to be blocked? I don’t think anybody has an iota of doubt that the list has been compiled in association with some of the media crooks. Block and destroy a few and send a clear message to others: “You are being watched and will meet the same fate”. As long as the media plays out the “victimhood justifies violence” song they will be at loggerheads with social media. Psychotic characters like Travis Bickle and Mark Chapman were loners but if the media continues its discrimination and biased behaviour they will create more mobs of psychotics and lunatics who will indulge in more violence and play victims. They will be questioned. Their turf is being threatened. And who would they blame? Clearly, the easiest ones to hang are the ones who expose them – The Twitterati and the social media. The GOI is already realising it won’t work. The media celebs too should learn to deal with social media sensibly and not be at war with them. Social media will neither play victim nor threaten violence. It’s here to stay and the blockade will fail.

Govt. Shouldn’t Censor News, But NBA Will...

No, I am not talking about some Basketball league or the Narmada Bachao Andolan. This NBA is different.

There was this mosque at Jangpura in Delhi. A relatively posh locality in Delhi. This mosque, Noor Masjid, was demolished by the DDA under orders from the High Court.  The mosque was built on encroached DDA land and therefore the court order for demolition. This followed with rioting by muslims in protest. Some newspapers and websites reported the incidents but TV news channels apparently blacked out the whole incident.

Zoomindianmedia, another site that regularly tracks Indian media has a full post on the TV blackout of the incident. Barkha Dutt, after persistent queries by tweeters, seems to have responded by tweeting: “All channels decided against (telecast?)...NBA decision. Just like on Telengana.” Well, that NBA is the National Broadcasters Association.

And they even have an Ethics Code for TV channels and the first of this reads as under (excerpt) :

Impartiality and objectivity in reporting:

Accuracy is at the heart of the news television business.....it is the responsibility of TV news channels to keep accuracy, and balance..... If despite this there are errors, channels should be transparent about them......Truth will be a defense in all cases where a larger public interest is involved, and in even these cases, equal opportunities will be provided for individuals involved to present their point of view. This also applies in cases where television channels report on those holding public office, though by virtue of doing so, no person can claim immunity from scrutiny from or criticism by news channels.

You can read the full guidelines on ethics at their website.

So according to Barkha Dutt the blackout decision was taken by NBA. The riots were followed by Sheila Dikshit meeting the Imam Bukhari (of Delhi’s Jama masjid) who was to lead Friday prayers last week. So in this case there was neither truth nor public interest involved and therefore a good case to blackout the news on TV channels. The media which cannot stop shouting itself hoarse over censorship will now do the censorship for you.

The mosque case is one of illegal occupation of public land, illegal construction, the Delhi government not protecting public property till the HC gets involved. Following the demolition, people riot, even hold prayers at the same spot with the support of the CM. All that is not truth or public interest. The fences erected by the DDA were also brought down by the mob. Some residents in the locality have objected to the nuisance being created for them because of the rioting, blockades by policemen and the prayers still being held there. The mockery of a High Court order is not news-worthy. You don’t need to know.

The NBA ethics code also states on its page: “It is a fundamental paradigm of freedom of speech that media must be free from governmental control in the matter of “content” – censorship and free speech are sworn enemies.” The NBA itself might be doing the job that it doesn’t want the government to do.