Dear Sirs,
The recent M.F.Hussain controversy has bought out an hitherto unobserved phenomenon back into limelight. The loose use of the word "India" by most of the media.
Many of the media houses ran shows with the headline "Has India failed M.F." or something to that effect. The commonality between all those headlines is that "we" or "India" has failed M.F.Hussain. The unrestricted use of "India" to potray what maybe a small minority of our vast population care about is totally uncalled for.
Whilst I do not wish to get into the M.F.Hussain debate right now, I wish to point out that there are 10's of crores of Indians who don't even know who M.F.Hussain, let alone care for the "injustice" (if any) was done to him. And also there are crores of Indians, who haven't violently protested against the disgusting potrayal of Hindu Gods and Godesses by M.F.Hussain, but have protested through proper constitutional methods (as in discussions, debates, coffee table chats, court petitions etc). While the electronic media so conveniently ignores the opinion or the lack of it by such a large number of Indians, how fair is it for it to take the liberty to blatanly question if "India" has failed him for the actions of a few?
This example is one of many such instances where the electronic media has taken undue liberty in using the word "India", or for that matter names of cities too. The recent MNIK controversy is another one that immediately comes to mind. Just what is it that represents "India" ? We are a large population with such remarkable diversity that the loose use of the word "India" does a whole lot of injustice to many of the real direct problems many of the crores of Indians face. It is seldom that we see the media take up such language to potray or dicuss their problems.
No one is denying that the freedom of speech is something that needs to protected for every Indian, but when not so celebrity authors get arrested for hurting religious sentiments, isn't it a trifle unfair that "India" doesn't rise up to their protection? Please see this report in The Hindu to know what I am referring to.
My suggestion to the Editor's Guild, is to ask the editors to desist from using the word "India", or names of states/cities on such loose terms. It doesn't do real justice to our diversity.
Best Regards,
The recent M.F.Hussain controversy has bought out an hitherto unobserved phenomenon back into limelight. The loose use of the word "India" by most of the media.
Many of the media houses ran shows with the headline "Has India failed M.F." or something to that effect. The commonality between all those headlines is that "we" or "India" has failed M.F.Hussain. The unrestricted use of "India" to potray what maybe a small minority of our vast population care about is totally uncalled for.
Whilst I do not wish to get into the M.F.Hussain debate right now, I wish to point out that there are 10's of crores of Indians who don't even know who M.F.Hussain, let alone care for the "injustice" (if any) was done to him. And also there are crores of Indians, who haven't violently protested against the disgusting potrayal of Hindu Gods and Godesses by M.F.Hussain, but have protested through proper constitutional methods (as in discussions, debates, coffee table chats, court petitions etc). While the electronic media so conveniently ignores the opinion or the lack of it by such a large number of Indians, how fair is it for it to take the liberty to blatanly question if "India" has failed him for the actions of a few?
This example is one of many such instances where the electronic media has taken undue liberty in using the word "India", or for that matter names of cities too. The recent MNIK controversy is another one that immediately comes to mind. Just what is it that represents "India" ? We are a large population with such remarkable diversity that the loose use of the word "India" does a whole lot of injustice to many of the real direct problems many of the crores of Indians face. It is seldom that we see the media take up such language to potray or dicuss their problems.
No one is denying that the freedom of speech is something that needs to protected for every Indian, but when not so celebrity authors get arrested for hurting religious sentiments, isn't it a trifle unfair that "India" doesn't rise up to their protection? Please see this report in The Hindu to know what I am referring to.
My suggestion to the Editor's Guild, is to ask the editors to desist from using the word "India", or names of states/cities on such loose terms. It doesn't do real justice to our diversity.
Best Regards,
Sudhir
PS: Please click on the "editors guild" label below to read the other letters.
1 comments:
Very rightly put in the above letter. No person holding any private office has the right to speak for India on a whole.....this is also defying the very purpose of democracy where the elected representatives are supposed to be the voice of people of the respective areas. This self proclamation is totally uncalled for.
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