Arun
Shourie on Journalism
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"The Congress is like Ravana," The Hindustan Times of 2 September, 1999, reported Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi saying, "and they have unleashed Sonia, the Surpnakha (Ravana's sister who was humiliated by Lakshman) on the country." That in a box-item at the very top of page 1, under the heading, "Below the belt." The source? The Asian Age, reported The Hindustan Times... more |
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The Premise of democratic governance is that the people will decide. But what will be the character of the decisions they will take when instead of being informed, inspired, when necessary enraged to act on issues, they are distracted and merely entertained?.... more |
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Of course, he said, Hindus who became Muslims must be taken back into the Hindu fold. Otherwise our numbers will keep dwindling- we used to be around 600 million by the reckoning of Ferishta, the oldest Muslim historian, now we are just 200 million. "And then", he continued, "every man going out of the Hindu pale is not only a man less, but an enemy the more."... more |
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The depths to which society had pushed sections of its own induced the latter to convert to Islam, for them the conversion was a liberation, and the people who even today do not see this are "lunatics", says Swami Vivekananda... more |
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May I begin with a few passages from my book 'A Secular Agenda'? It was sent to the press in late September and comes out later this week. A chapter, "No time to relent", which concludes the section on Kashmir notes... more |
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Dainik Jagran is today among the largest newspapers in our country. Amar Ujala is also a substantial paper. Addressing a public meeting on October 12, UP chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav denounced the two papers, "Halla Bol", he exhorted his followers, "Commence the storming". Why read them, he told them, you don't have to even see them. No one present had any doubt what they meant: Don't let them be seen, that is what it meant... more |
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'Muslims all over the world including those of India were hopefully looking up to Pakistan for help and guidance... The Pakistani debacle of 1971 had caused immense grief to Indian Muslims.' The speaker? Maulana Abul Hassan ALi Nadvi, otherwise known as Ali Mian, whom the press always refers to as the widely respected scholar and moderate Muslim leader... more |
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But in looking at the ritual, at the idol, at the concept, why not start with the opposite assumption? Why start by assuming that they are empty, that they are the remnants of superstition? They had occurred to, they had been devised by seers, by persons of great insight... more |
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'It is a miracle... can be likened to the building of the Gothic cathedrals of Europe... There is no doubt that London has acquired a significant new building of traditional Indian beauty and interest... We can be grateful that this has happened in a part of London that needed transforming'... more |
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The super-speciality hospital which Satya Sai Baba has set up in Putaparti, the water schemes which have been inaugurated in Anantpur district to mark his 70th birthday will, of course, make the difference between life and death to vast numbers. The other point about projects undertaken at the direction of these teachers is their managerial excellence. The projects are invariably completed on schedule: it took just three years from the permission being granted for the temple in London to its being opened for worship..... more |
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In holding that not all references to religion in election speeches necessarily amount to corrupt electoral practices; that it is the soliciting of votes on the ground of the religion of the candidate or that of his opponent which is a corrupt electoral practice; that statements made by others do not have the same effect as those made by a candidate himself -- in all this, as we saw, the Supreme Court has merely reiterated what the the law itself says and what the Supreme Court has itself held on previous occasions. What then accounted for the fury of the secularists ?... more |
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"When Dabholkar comes to Delhi next, I must get the two of you together," Dr. J.P. Naik, would say. When I was to go to Bombay for some work, he would urge, "Take two days off, go to Kolhapur and meet Dabholkar." Years passed, Dr. J.P. Naik passed away, I never got to meet his friend, Dr. Shripad Dabholkar. And then I saw a little snippet in a video magazine of the Plus Channel. It was about an agronomist in Bombay, Dr. R.T. Doshi. The programme showed his roof farm -- on his roof in the middle of Bombay, he was cultivating grapes, vegetables, fruit, even six foot high sugarcane. I went to visit him the next time I got to Bombay. The second time I was able to take Anita, my wife along. I am just following the methods of Dr. Dabholkar, Dr. Doshi told us. Therefore, when the Pudhari group of newspapers asked me to deliver a memorial lecture in Kolhapur, I agreed at once to do so... more |
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All sorts of lessons are being propounded from the events of fifty years ago. But, as usual, political correctness is keeping commentators from facing up to the fundamental lesson. The fundamental premises on which the country was partitioned were that (i) religion defines nationhood; (ii) though they do not have a common language, though they are separated by a thousand miles, the Muslims of East and West India are a nation because of their common adherence to Islam; (iii) moreover, Muslims are a separate nation from the rest who inhabit the sub-continent; (iv) they can never get justice in a united India for they will be swamped by the Hindu majority; (v) once they are given a country of their own, prosperity, justice, fraternity and all else will flow automatically; (vi) as Islam is a religion of tolerance, brotherhood and equality, as it places human dignity above all, people of all beliefs, creeds, races, languages will enjoy equal rights, and live in liberty and fraternity.... more |
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'Dalits fight back,' 'Dalit resurgence,' 'Dalit politics will never be the same again,' 'Mumbai massacre a watershed' - headlines, news stories, comments in the wake of the firing at the crowd in Mumbai. There was a little hiccup - the leaders of the 'Dalits' whom these publications had been building up for years were thrashed by the 'Dalits' whose resurgence the same press was celebrating! But the prophets of resurgence soon regained their vigour... more |
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No one in the twentieth century has done as much to rid us of untouchability than Gandhiji. He attached more importance to ridding Hinduism of this accretion than to attaining Swaraj. He brought upon himself the hostility of orthodox opinion in western India, in the South by his uncompromising stand on the matter. But the other day, speaking during the commemorative session of Parliament, Kanshi Ram asserted that abolishing untouchability was never on Gandhiji's agenda. Not one person stood up to contradict him... more |
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These days when those guardians of secularism, our newspapers, refer to the Secular Front, they put the label -- "Secular" -- as well as the excuse -- "to combat communal forces" -- within inverted commas ! Those who used to preface their remarks about Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee with, "The right man in the wrong party", suddenly emphasize only "The right man" part ! "Things are all going right," says a person who has feasted off secular governments for ten years, as I run into him -- I don't immediately get what he thinks is going right, so out of touch have I been with him. "I mean, we are not going to get just a stable government, we are going to get a BJP government," he says enthusiastically... more |
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Sonia Gandhi endeared herself to women and the youth in Udaipur today," said a gushing TV reporter, by taking up issues close to their hearts - price rise, and unemployment." In what sense had Sonia "taken up the issue"? She reads out a sentence - I know how difficult it is for you, specially for my sisters here to make ends meet these days, prices have risen so much because of instability -- and "the issue" of price rise had been "taken up"... more |
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"And what about the pogroms that go on from time to time ?," the caller asked. Late at night, an editorial writer with one of the world's best-known papers was calling from the USA. It was becoming evident that the BJP would form the Government, he was gathering background information... more |
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"But What was the immediate threat?," ask the pundits. "Why now?," they demand. I K Gujral adds the considerable weight of having been Prime Minister to the argument: as one who had access to secret information as Prime Minister, he tells Parliament, I say that when I left office there was no threat that warranted the explosions... more |
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We are so dazzled by reports of the strides China has made in enlarging its economy that we do not notice that one of the principal uses to which it is putting its new wealth is to multiply its military strength. Pick up any book or analysis about security developments in the Pacific region or in Asia, and the facts it sets out about China are bound to startle... more |
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"Rational vs. National," screams the headline of the new pall-bearer of secularism, the magazine Outlook. "Tampering with history," proclaims the old pall- bearer, The Hindu. Having been educated by The Hindu that the "nodal ministry" for the matter is the Ministry of Human Resource Development, I ring up the Secretary of that Ministry. Has the Memorandum of Association of the ICHR been changed?, I ask. No, he says. It has not been changed, he says... more |
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Worse, even after a decade of killing by Pakistan armed terrorists, voices are still raised that hide Pakistan deeds under dust: An ex-editor is forever narrating the sweet words he exchanged on his most recent trip to Pakistan, how person like him had built a small lobby in Pakistan for peace with India; another editor proclaims that Nawaz Sharif should be given the Nobel Prize for Peace, so hard is he trying for peace in the face of such enormous difficulties... And they have an audience! for we just do not face the fact that Pakistan is working to a clear, indeed, to a singular aim - and that is to break India... more |
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"Death is just an insignificant word for them," begins the report in The News of 28 November, 1997 on the annual gathering of the Mujahidin-e-Taiba. "Killing those who do not share their set of Islamic values is the only reality. The congregation was flooded with thousands of people with these beliefs..." ... more |
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"You have said that this is a historic visit, that this is a defining moment in the history of South Asia, but what is the substance in these declarations?," asked the correspondent at the joint press conference of the Indian and Pakistani Prime Ministers in Lahore -- the usual European or American correspondent, with the usual condescension and derision... more |
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"The mandate is for a coalition government", the pundits declared in 1996. "Coalition governments have worked for decades in Europe. Why will they not work in India?", they demanded. The obvious answer was that Indian politicians are not European politicians. That at every turn the outcome will be in the hands of persons who have no scruple, no ideology, no idea, no shame. But this was rejected as carping, as specious pleading on behalf of communal and fascist forces. Several coalitions later, how does that rationalisation of 1996 look? So, the first lesson is for analysts: Do not contrive rationalisations... more |
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Even so deplorable and uncalled-for a crisis has yielded some good. At long last, the real Sonia Gandhi has stepped forth: and shown that she is just another politician, that the image which had been so assiduously projected -- the shy, reticent lady, concerned only with the security of her children, a lady who hates politics, who shuns power -- was just nail-polish. Her ambition, her readiness to use all means for acquiring office, her willingness to twist and turn -- "A minority government of the Congress, take it or leave it" one day, the magnanimous openness to a coalition the next, and the Papal, "No, we are not ready to pardon," the third -- were all put on display... more |
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"Without Sonia, the Congress is zero," declared a Congress leader when Sonia Gandhi resigned on May 17. "We all feel orphaned," they all said. The first element of Congress culture, therefore, remains - a commitment to truth. The Congress MLA, one Mukesh Sharma, declared that he was going on a fast unto death to persuade Sonia to take back her resignation. Contingents started arriving. Competitiveness was much in the air - who has been able to get to see her, how much time did she spend with whom.... Resolutions followed resolutions... more |
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Hostilities have but to commence and a rash of strategists erupts: indeed, it seems that everyone, except the ones actually running it, knows how to run the war. Just as suddenly, intelligence agencies start planting stories: every agency, it seems, knew what was going to happen, every agency sent warnings, but every other agency scuppered its reports; every paper, every commentator suddenly seems to know what which top-secret agency has told Government... more |
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To attribute the occupation by Pakistanis of such extended stretches in Kargil to "an intelligence failure" is too facile. It is an evasion -- an evasion of the basic cause, an evasion of responsibility... more |
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"India has massacred 60,000 Kashmiris, but the people of Kashmir will never rest till they have won freedom;" "India has deployed 700,000 soldiers in the Valley, and yet the Kashmiri mujahidin are inflicting heavy losses on them every day;" -- such "facts" are repeated ad nauseum in Pakistani papers. We tend to dismiss such assertions as the usual lies. Public Opinion Trends, are so inured to these concoctions that they excise them from their reports! In fact, the concoctions deserve attention... more |
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India's size has become "an unmanageable liability," writes an analyst in Pakistan's Frontier Post of June 9. "As a result, nearly one-third of its 25 states are at war, where military troops are routinely called out to keep peace." The cause for this is largely "India's exclusionary political, religious and social order that is heavily biased against non-Hindu minorities," he says. This from an analyst whose own country is being torn apart by killings of Shias by Sunnis, of Sindhis and Mohajirs by Punjabis, by tensions between Baluchis, Pakhtuns and Punjabis... more |
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"The secret of success is sincerity," reads The Cynic's Lexicon, "Once you can fake that, you've got it made." How hard Sonia Gandhi is trying to reach success by that route. A flood in Assam? Visit the area. Have yourself photographed. Pronounce: Government's relief measures are wholly inadequate. An earthquake in Kumaon? Visit the area. Have yourself photographed. Pronounce: Government's relief measures are wholly inadequate. Cyclone somewhere? Visit the area. Have yourself photographed. Pronounce: Government's relief measures are wholly inadequate. Fighting in Kargil? Visit hospitals at a safe distance. Have yourself photographed with injured soldiers. Pronounce... more |
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Aap log jis jazbe aur walwalese Jihad karten hain, vo Bharati kutton, muaf kijiye, faujiyon ko apni bandookein uthane ka mauka bhi nahin milta''- the passion and fervour with which you wage Jihad does not leave the opportunity for these Bharati dogs, pardon us, these Bharati militarymen to even pick up their rifles. ''Agar aap isi tareh Bharati faujiyon ko makhi macchar ki tareh jahanum ki vaadiyon mein dhakelte rahe, to ankareeb Bharat ka koi bhi kutta muazarat fauji Kashmir ka rukh nahin karega''- if you continue to push them into hell in this way, like flies and mosquitoes, no Indian dog, begging you pardon, no Indian militaryman will dare look towards Kashmir... Serious analysis in Khabarein, a leading paper of Lahore, of 10 July, 1999... more |
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"A thousand Pakistani militants have entered the Baramula and Poonch sectors of Kashmir" -- that was the lead story on the 9 p. m. news bulletin of a leading TV channel on 27 July. I was properly alarmed. And so I was even more surprised when the next morning not one paper carried anything about fresh infiltration. But it might have been a scoop of the TV channel, I thought. And was therefore triply surprised to see that the TV channel itself had no follow-up on the story the next day. The story vanished as swiftly as the terrorists... more |
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"Congress insists PM ignored I-B reports on Kargil," ran the six column heading of The Indian Express on 16 September. Other papers too gave much prominence to the allegation. This time the Congress spokesman had used as his peg a front-page story in The Tribune of that morning about a "strategy backgrounder" which the paper said the Army had prepared and circulated... more |
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"Not one paisa has been taken from the Trust," declared the Congress spokesman with a show of righteous indignation. He was declaiming on the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts. But the charge had been altogether different -- that the Trust had been a Government-trust, that it had received Rs. 134 crores of Government money and 23 acres of invaluable land, that it had been converted into a private Trust by fraud, that the conversion had been sanctified by collusion between a trustee and the President of the Trust, Sonia Gandhi. Not one of these facts had been disputed by the Congress... more |
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One thing to be said for the Pope's visit: he has silenced secularists, as well as missionary-apologists. Whenever attention has been drawn to the plans the Church has of converting India to Christianity, to its plans of "reaping the great harvest for Jesus," these propagandists and secularists have asserted that a miasma was being manufactured to sow hatred. Now that the Pope has himself declared that the Synod of Bishops was "a call to conversion", the secularists seem a bit non-plussed about how to make out that the apprehensions which were being expressed about the Church's plans and stratagems are figments manufactured to justify persecution... more |
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"The secret of success is sincerity," reads The Cynic's Lexicon, "Once you can fake that, you've got it made." How hard Sonia Gandhi is trying to reach success by that route. A flood in Assam? Visit the area. Have yourself photographed. Pronounce: Government's relief measures are wholly inadequate. An earthquake in Kumaon? Visit the area. Have yourself photographed. Pronounce: Government's relief measures are wholly inadequate. Cyclone somewhere? Visit the area. Have yourself photographed. Pronounce: Government's relief measures are wholly inadequate. Fighting in Kargil? Visit hospitals at a safe distance. Have yourself photographed with injured soldiers. Pronounce... more |
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The provisions of TADA were much more stringent than those of the new Ordinance. The constitutionality of those provisions, of TADA itself had been challenged in the courts. The Supreme Court specifically upheld TADA, and declared its provisions -the much more stringent provisions - to be in accord with the Constitution. While I happen to be in Government, my assessment for Parliament is the opposite one to that of the critics: the Ordinance bends too far back to accommodate human rightists, and that includes some impractical judgments too - like that of the Supreme Court in D. K. Basu v. State of West Bengal... more |
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From our experience over the last 20 years the following emerge as self-evident axioms. The technology of inflicting large-scale violence is becoming easier to obtain, and - per quotient of lethality - less and less expensive. This in turn yields three lemmas. The target country has to be equipped to counter the entire spectrum of violence: to take the current examples from the United States-from aircraft being used as missiles to anthrax; It is almost impossible in an open society to block a determined lot from acquiring the technology they want by blocking the technology itself-the only practical way is to be a leap ahead of the technology the terrorist acquires... more |
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'A State that's patronising terrorists should wake up to the consequences; in any case its immediate neighbours must'. Corresponding to the four ''don'ts'' are six ''do's'': Believe what the ideologues and organisations of the terrorists say. The one thing for which ideologues and organisations can be credited is that they are absolutely explicit about their aims and objectives. The fault - the fatal fault - is that of liberal societies: to this day they continue to shut their eyes to what these organisations proclaim to be their aim: domination, conquest, conversion of the ''land of war'' into the ''land of peace,'' that is the land which is at peace because it is under their heel - exactly as they had shut their eyes to Hitler in the 1930s and to Stalin later. Read their press, reflect over their books and pamphlets, and act in time - that is, before they have wreaked the havoc they proclaim they will... more |
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"This is an old charge which keeps surfacing now and then," wrote one of those "eminent historians", K. N. Panikkar, in an vituperative response to an article of mine - - the charge that close to two crores had been spent on the "Towards Freedom" project of the Indian Council of Historical Project, and little had been achieved. "About a year back the historians had then clarified through a public statement, that they have not drawn any money from the ICHR and that they worked for five years purely in an honorary capacity. When he gets the information, I would normally expect Shourie to tender a public apology. But given the intellectual honesty and cultural level reflected in his article, I do not think it would be forthcoming. The alternative of suing for defamation the likes of Shourie is below one's dignity. But I do expect at least the ministry to make a public statement. Strong stuff, and definitive, one would think. It turns out that on 17 July, 1998, in answer to a question tabled in the Rajya Sabha, the Ministry stated that only one part of the project has been completed and published since the original volume of Dr. P. N. Chopra. This is the volume -- in three parts -- by Dr. Partha Sarthi Gupta covering 1943-44. In answer to another question, the Ministry has reported that "After publication of the Volume he was paid an honorarium of Rs. 25,000/- in September, 1997." ... more |
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The US campaign of bombing erstwhile Taliban positions in Afghanistan had not been on for 10 days, and our experts began pronouncing it a failure: "Osama bin Laden is still at large, the Taliban have just dispersed into the hills, the Northern Alliance is stuck where it was, Bush's Grand Alliance is coming apart... The winter is about to set in," they said. "The Afghan is a hardy fighter, they said. He will just tie an onion and a roti (bread), fling his blanket over his shoulder, and disappear into the nearest mountain; and these American GIs - they cannot fight without their Coca Colas, their hot meals... Just look at them on TV - they are loaded with so much equipment, they have difficulty just walking. These jokers are going to fight the Taliban? Secure on the mountaintop, the Taliban Jehadi will pick them one by one as they try to clamber up the mountain. Remember Kargil? These slopes in the Afghan mountains are even steeper than the ones our soldiers had to scale."... more |
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In painting Goddess Saraswati naked M.F. Hussein, his secularist advocates argue, is merely exercising his Fundamental Right to freedom of expression, he is merely giving form to his artistic, creative urge. The first question is : How come the freedom and creative urge of the thousands and thousands of artists our country has have never led even one of them to ever paint or draw a picture of Prophet Muhammad in which his face is manifest ? I am not on the point of dress or undress, the features could have been made as celestial and handsome as our artists could have imagined -- why is it that they never got the urge to draw or sculpt even the handsomest representation of the Prophet?... more |
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"Dear Arun", writes Mr. Som Benegal, the sharpest of pins to many a baloon, "Why do you always equate the Urdu press with Muslims? I write a 600 word editorial every single day in TEJ which is in Urdu - and which is neither Muslim, nor communal in any way. (I hope I am not pseudo-secular!) There are other Urdu papers which are not Muslim; indeed some are very, very anti-Muslim. May be sometimes you should also read some voices of 'sanity' (or pseudo- sanity!)"... more |
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On the face of it, the report of the Wadhwa Commission on the murder of the Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons should have been very welcome to our secular friends. Justice Wadhwa has concluded that the main person who organised the attack was Rabindra Kumar Pal alias Dara Singh, and that his motive in doing so was "misplaced fundamentalism", namely his conviction that conversions by missionaries were threatening Hinduism. He also records evidence to the effect that Dara Singh had been involved in an activity which, in the eyes of secularists, is as deplorable as an activity can get: protection of cows from slaughter... more |
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