We live in a society where hatred has taken
over facts, especially in the media. Tuning into a news channel at nine would either
mean bleeding ears or shamelessly biased anchors peddling their ideology masquerading
as “honest opinion”. The poor quality reporting of print media forced me to
stop buying a newspaper five years ago. I now borrow newspapers from friends,
only to clean window panes and mirrors. Switching to online news at least lets one
read the news for free. One can also customise what one wants to read. Life
becomes a bit simpler. In the last few years we saw another form of “journalism”
taking roots. The kinds which is present only online. This makes sense, since
the future of news now lies in a smartphone and not in an LED TV.
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| Our wires are in bit of a tangle |
The three names which comes to my mind are
Scroll, The Wire and The Print. All three claim to be unbiased, but even a high
school kid can tell which way they lean. Every story they put up can be summarised
in one line, “I hate Modi and BJP”. There is nothing wrong in hating Modi or
BJP. It is impossible that every citizen of India would love them. But the
point here is that these are not just random Indian citizens. These are “reputed”
media houses, run by “respectable” senior journalists and they have a
responsibility, that of honest journalism. What happens when these platforms
start dishing out Fake News? The Scroll fake stories can be read here
and here.
The Print fake story can be read here.
And we all remember the Fake story run by The Wire on Amit Shah’s son, which
was later pulled down by the website. Even mainstream media published Fake
News, the case of The Hindu can be read here.
The three online publications mentioned above,
use not just real life incidents to write their fake stories but also use convoluted
social issues to establish a narrative that is hatred in the least and a
mechanism to paint an entire community in negative colour at best. Take this
story by Nilanjana Bhowmick on The Wire.
The headline reads, “Militant Hinduism and the Reincarnation of Hanuman”. The headlines
are usually not written by the contributor. They are written by others to make
them provocative and or interesting, primarily to click bait readers. In the
story Ms Bhowmick narrates her “ordeal” in Noida. She of course gives us an
alleged conversation with her driver. The driver seems to be the favourite pick
for journalists to concoct stories.
@ProfVarshney extent of political marginalisation especially. An auto driver there told me "growth is real but for others not for me"— barkha dutt (@BDUTT) December 15, 2012
Ironically have Rajasthan rajput driver in Gujarat. Says padmavati will be 'mast" film and Karni sena is bakwaas. The lessons of travel.— Saba Naqvi (@_sabanaqvi) December 2, 2017
She starts with the description of what she
believe to be a militant Hindu event, the Hanuman Jayanti procession in Noida.
Her scary description is supported by a “seven second” long video where a
random guy with a sword is leaning out of the window, amidst traffic. She
probably has never witnessed a Sikh procession where people with saffron
turbans march with swords and Kripans. The way Ms. Bhowmick reacted is how
people react when they have been brought up in a protected environment, away
from reality. But Hanuman Jayanti and the militancy of that single blade of
sword was a mere tool, to grind her axe. She immediately jumps on to the RSS
and gets disturbed by their weekend march in Khaki gear. She claims, “These
visuals are a disturbing assertion of a resurrection of the RSS and the Bajrang
Dal, and an indicator of how in the last few years militant Hinduism has grown
roots in India.” One wonders, how walking on streets symbolises militant
Hinduism. Please tell me if you get to understand this analogy.
Ms. Bhowmick is infact alarmed by the fact that
RSS has members in some “up scale” sectors of Noida. She is worried about the “proliferation
of Hindu extremism” in the apartment blocks of Noida. According to her people
of Noida should behave the way Ms. Bhowmick prefers them to behave. She is
after all the neo
Brahmin, who wants to control everyone else. She is also outraged by the
sudden increase in wealth of the local Gurjar community. She says, “Locally
known as Gujjar boys, they sit on the pile of money their parents made from
land acquisition. Their days are spent body building in gymnasiums or akharas.”
Is Ms. Bhowmik trying to say that the local Gurjar community is nothing but a
bunch of Hindu extremists? Is she painting an entire caste as militants? Or is
she simply suffering from the Savarna superiority complex, which makes her
uncomfortable when the peasants get rich?
Her absolute hatred to the Gurjar community
becomes clear when she writes, “They have the most expensive smartphones,
designer clothes, swanky cars, and more money than they know what to do with. What
they do not have is proper education.” As if her piece full of hatred,
bigotry and casteist slurs was not enough, she ends it with,” Noida is the new
India. And the enormous success of Hindutva groups here is a warning that we
will do well to pay heed to. And soon.” An alarming warning to instil
fear in the readers’ minds.
It is OK to hate the RSS and the Bajrang Dal,
it is Ms. Bhowmick’s right. But what is dangerous is to concoct stories using a
mythical conversation with an imaginary driver to instil fear. To malign an
entire community only because they now have money. To call an entire religion
militant or extremist, without giving a single piece of statistic. Ms. Bhowmick
and The Wire could have saved bandwidth by simply writing, “I hate RSS and
Gurjars”. We live in a society where hatred has taken over facts, especially in
the media.
