The Hindu continues its rattle

The following article has been written for Niti Central. Posting it here for reference. 

Over the past one week, three articles in The Hindu have caught my attention – one of them was on expected lines but the other two simply blew me away!

On November 6, I woke to this highlight on page 1 of The Hindu.

Though not surprised, I was keen to see if N Ram would have any new points to discuss. Or perhaps, he is bringing something new to light, because they are quite emphatic and confident that “Narendra Modi cannot be the PM”. Turns out that the article was just a rehash of the same old arguments/lies that an entire industry tried to grill into the minds of unsuspecting citizens of the country.

Sample this: “For one thing, there is plenty of evidence of the continuing immiseration and ghettoisation of Gujarat’s Muslims, who constitute a little over nine per cent of the State’s population.

A sweeping generalisation that has now become the hallmark of those who want to put up an argument against Narendra Modi. I didn’t know what ‘immiseration’ meant, so looked it up on Google – it means to make miserable; impoverished. Quite a serious charge this – an elected Chief Minister is deliberately making Muslim’s miserable and impoverished? Leave aside the “plenty of evidence” – this article does not even give a ‘single evidence’ of this sweeping charge.

Or sample this: “… the deliberate instigation of communal violence, reminiscent of the July 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom in Sri Lanka, through allowing the display of the bodies of kar sevaks.” As if there is no single riot in the country to compare it with, N Ram compares this to the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom in Sri Lanka! But that’s aside the point. The lie that is being repeated here is “through allowing the display of the bodies of kar sevaks”.

The Supreme Court SIT has tron and shred this argument to pieces in its detailed report on the incident. In its detailed report, explains clearly and precisely (pages 59-64) the entire timeline of how and why the bodies were transported (including the truck numbers) to Ahmedabad. The Amicus Curaie agreed with the extensive investigation of the SIT.

And then another sweeping generalisation:

“The politically aware also know where true accountability for 2002 lies. They know that, in sum, the role played by Chief Minister Modi and his Government was to enable the worst communal carnage India has suffered in the past quarter-century.” 

“Politically aware’? I am a reader of The Hindu for 20 years now. I totally disagree with these blatant conclusions by N Ram. Would he classify me as ‘politically unaware’? After all, my views have been shaped by reading his paper too – wonder where they picked up this habit of concluding that those who agree with them are ‘politically aware’? Notice how the benchmark of riots is now the ‘past quarter-century” !

N Ram harps on “Modi did not apologise” whilst the awesome Manmohan Singh has done so, for 1984 Sikh pogrom. This argument is the most pitiful of all – if N Ram and his ilk believe that  Modi is guilty of all that they accuse him of, why are they settling with an apology? Why don’t they demand proper justice? Why don’t they demand a jail term for him?

And then on Saturday, November 9, Praveen Swami made a comeback to The Hindu. The article’s headline screamed – Rahul Gandhi is right on Indian jihadists. Surely, if the intent was to catch everyone’s attention, the intent succeeded well. So, I started reading to find out what is that Rahul Gandhi said about ‘Indian jihadists’ that an astute commentator like Praveen Swami got inspired to write about. Rahul Gandhi spoke about ISI contacting individuals in Muzaffarnagar to become terrorists. Praveen Swami wrote about the rise of Indian Mujahideen.

“…while Mr. Gandhi might be guilty of all of these things, the story he is telling is the unvarnished truth..”

Praveen Swami first summarised all the things that RG was accused of, by uttering that statement, and then tells us that the ‘story’ he told is the truth. Rahul Gandhi told no story. He merely said ‘those parties’ fan communal tensions and ISI has contacted Muslim youth in Muzaffarnagar after the recent riots. Swami used this line to tell us his story of how the Indian Mujahideen has evolved – even reminding us that “Indian Mujahideen never dropped its national identification”. The IM has been claiming that’s all its acts of violence are a revenge. What great truth has Rahul Gandhi revealed about IM that Praveen Swami wants us to take him seriously? In Swami’s own words, RG’s intervention was ‘incoherent and fumbling’ – yet we are take his ‘story’ so seriously that we ‘ought to be grateful’ to him?! Rahul Gandhi made serious allegations that need to be investigated, not complimented. Yet again, the establishment has failed in its duty but hey, we “ought to be grateful” you see!

However, what takes the cake is the front page story on Monday, November 11. Titled, “Gujarat Chief Minister in fresh history battle”, the report explains to us how he messed up the history of Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, the founder of Bharatiya Jana Sangh. Reading the first few paras, I was shocked – how can Modi get such basic facts so wrong? I continued to read and was even more shocked. This time – at this shameless attempt by The Hindu to cast aspersions on Modi, for what clearly was a genuine slip of tongue. Modi was talking about Shyamji Krishna Varma. And quite inadvertently mixed up his name with Shyama Prasad Mukherjee. He corrected that slip within a minute – as soon as it was pointed out to him. The Hindu’s cheap attempts at showing that Modi does not know history is belittling to its stature, to say the least.

The report also says that the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh responded, “Over-excited BJP leaders change history and geography of the country.” Really? The PM responded to this particular speech of Modi? And the report published the response of Manish Tewari – incoherent and meaningless as always. Newly appointed editor of The Hindu, Malini P, claimed on twitter:

“PM aspirants have to be vigorously scrutinised by the media. A minimum knowledge of Indian history is critical if they want to lead India.” In isolation, there is nothing to disagree with this statement. But what Malini and The Hindu did today is totally unwarranted. To equate a slip of tongue to not knowing history is a cheap tactic – goes on to show that the industry that despises Narendra Modi will go to any extent to defame him – facts be damned!