Thursday, December 03, 2009

Rabid support to Islamic fundamentalism by Indian media

One incident can expose the clear agenda of Indian media - overt support Islamic fundamentalism.
Recently the Swiss Govt. held a referendum banning minarets in mosques. Note this clearly, minarets aka those creepy towers not the mosques themselves. Did they ban the freedom of worship? No. Did they ask Muslims to pay a tax for practicing their religion? No.
What does our India media do about this, claim that it affects Indian Muslims who live far away. 99% of whom have never visited Switzerland, 90% have probably only seen Switzerland in movies.
The 2 main culprits are Mr. Vishnu Som of NDTV and our beloved Mr. N. Ram of The Hindu.
Vishnu in a response clearly aimed at self publicity shot this nugget out of his behind upon hearing that Islamic minarets were banned,
the ban of minarets in Switzerland represents a fundamental threat to Muslims here in India.

Then posted a few posts in his blog about secularism without giving any rationale behind his statements and has yet to detail out any level of cogent logic behind his support to the fundamentalists. Remember the ban aims at banning actions of fundamentalists who banned Satanic Verses, attacked Salman Rushdie and Taslima, attacked Geert Wilders and burnt Danish cartoons.
Mr. N. Ram in his editorial claims,
The ban, however, has nothing to do with forms of Islam or with whether minarets and domes are essential to Islamic devotional architecture; mosques without them exist all over the world. Instead the SVP campaign for the ban focussed on the burkha, on the Sharia law, and on the allegedly widespread oppression of women in Islamic cultures and countries.

The insanity of Mr.Ram is clearly evident when he states "allegedly widespread oppression". The word allegedly is not wrong, but it clearly whitewashes the pain of women in more than 20 Islamic countries undergo in oppressive societies without fundamental rights. As an editor of a leading newspaper, one expects him to know a little bit of general knowledge, perhaps reading what the Human Rights commission has to say about women's rights in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Afghanistan, Indonesia ...
Have these leading journos Vishnu and Ram ever questioned why Saudi Arabia has banned temples, churches, gurudwaras, fire temples? Never. Have they asked about the pathetic conditions of minorities in Pakistan and Bangladesh which border India? Never. But they are first to jump when a country thousands of miles away bans a few towers. The height of hypocrisy is ridiculous.
Hat tip to reader Xinhua Ram for bringing this up.

9 comments:

kuttychathan said...

DD, that is why the readership of the chindu has fallen by 2.95% during the round 2 of IRS 2009, while the readership of almost all its rivals including the New Indian Express, Deccan Chronicle and Times of India has grown during the same period. What is more striking is the dazzling growth in the readership of The New Indian Express. Despite its appalling print & editorial quality, the readership of the NIE has grown by 11.26%. Clearly NIE is growing at the expense of chindu. If only the NIE improved its print & edit quality, the owners of the chindu could soon be seen picking rags in the streets of Chennai.

வஜ்ரா said...

The words of Mr. vishnu som and Mr. N. Ram can only make sense if you take it as an islamic fundamentalist world view. And this is the exact problem.

Why are indian media houses mouthing Islamic fundamentalist world view ? The heck even Aljazeera did not do such things.

Dirt Digger said...

kuttychathan,
Based on some other reports it does appear that cHindu has fallen greater than 5%.
Unfortunately the extended cHindu management has made enough money to not depend upon the circulation numbers for anything.
Its like a govt. job for most of them.

Dirt Digger said...

Vajra,
The ability of our journos to provide a rabid angle and get away with it is amazing. Its left to ordinary people like us to question them and hold them accountable.

Anonymous said...

In a country where convicted rapists (Vidya Shankar Aiyar- Face The Nation - IBN) could be anchors, why not out right idiots?

Jeeva

Dirt Digger said...

Jeeva,
Its a bad choice, picking a rapist vs. a bigot. Some of us should think of starting our own channel.

வஜ்ரா said...

Dirt Digger,

What is even more bothering to me is, Vishnu Som calling everybody who do not think that "its a fundamental threat to muslims in india" as right wing people (probably meaning derogatorily as Fascists).

I think Vishnu som would only talk these nonsense from his TV studio hereafter as nobody talks back in a TV show. If he tweets or blogs such nonsense, he is finished for sure.

Anonymous said...

True Vajra. So long as these people are there in the studios, they can get away even with murder. They cannot do the same with print media.

Hindu Fundamentalist said...

if a country like switzerland -- it has a long history of staying neutral, including during the world war 1 and 2 -- could vote against the minarets, it has more symbolic meaning than a real threat to millions of muslims worldwide.

there is an undercurrent in the european public. the swiss vote is a public expression of that growing feeling of suspicion against islam. switzerland has, within the limits of acceptable political parlance, said no to islam. it has set the precedence.

is muslim faith so fragile that it will collapse without minarets in a tiny country like switzerland?

muslims are protesting not because they perceive a threat. the rage boys of islam are looking for a burqa to cover their ugly acts of terror. what better way than to project themselves as victims retaliating when pushed to corner.

the ongoing battle between the desert cults is being renewed by switzerland acting as a flashpoint. touché.