Editor,
This letter can be taken as an apropos to all the letters that have been flowing in and being printed here at The Shillong Times. To start with, I am appalled and disgusted at the level of ignorance some readers have and also feel sorry for the general public for the misguidance they are receiving at the hands of Indian Media. Firstly I believe that most readers of your paper are pretty well informed, educated and connected via the new news media & the social media. However it is disgusting that none, barring a few genuinely informed citizens, actually took pains in understanding, investigating and then coming to conclusions on what they saw and heard in the media. Then came the charade of lies followed by insults on the Govt and right wing groups instantly branding them “Anti-Minority”. Beef festivals were organized and the church also took out a procession with children (of a particular religion only) pleading for a halt on atrocities on minorities in the country. By the way let’s not go into the past, especially on the minorities issue in Meghalaya.
I don’t blame all for being a part of wilder-beastness but as educated individuals each and every one of us must be informed. There is something called the social media especially Twitter which actually was at the forefront in calling out the lies spread by bigoted media channels with nefarious agenda. To begin with, the lies that were fed to people at large started with the fire at the St Sebastian Church in Delhi’s Dilshad Garden on December 1, 2014. National media went to town on this and was raging internationally by February. The narrative was the same: Minorities are under siege in India, churches are being attacked, nuns raped.
Narendra Modi’s critics asserted on social media that their dark clairvoyance had come true: With him heading the government, the violent Hindu right wing fringe had become the mainstream. “Church leaders have speculated that the Hindu far right might also be behind the church attacks,” the New York Times wrote. US President Barack Obama too swiftly took to the pulpit: “India will succeed so long as it is not splintered along the lines of religious faith.” Ex-cop Julio Ribeiro to boxer Mary Kom to former Navy chief Sushil Kumar spoke about growing fear and insecurity among Indian Christians. And then, it all started unravelling. While a special investigative team is looking into the Dilshad garden church fire, pesky children were found behind the Jasola church stone-throwing, short circuit behind Rohini crib burning, a drunken dare behind Vikaspuri vandalising, and a burglary at Vasant Kunj church.
A church which was attacked in Hissar was an illegal construction. However, it was perhaps the only communal one among recent church attacks, with the accused planting a Lord Hanuman idol inside it and blaming the priest of dodgy conversion attempts. The Navi Mumbai church attack grabbed headlines till it was found to be the handiwork of gamblers exacting revenge for church authorities setting the police after them.
In West Bengal, mainstream and social media suspected Hindu fundamentalists behind the rape of a 72-year-old nun till the accused, Bangladeshi Muslims, were tracked down and arrested. And now, a jilted Muslim lover has been arrested for the attack on an Agra church, belying earlier claims that it was a communal incident. Disbelievingly, almost disappointedly, those who strung together a neat narrative of intolerant India watched each bead of untruth explode. Ribeiro even admitted to exaggerating the threat to Christians.
But the mainstream media, which so enthusiastically spotted and reported a trend, did not report a fraction as comprehensively how it was never a trend in the first place. The meltdown of the great church attack story was reported in trickles — a single-column story here and there, a passing byte. No channel had a debate on it or stood corrected. Nobody asked who jumped the gun, who tarred the nation’s image, or who created the communal discourse in the first place. International media, too, seemed to be a part of this collusion of silence. Apart from creating baseless fear among minorities, what the media and intelligentsia have achieved is to further erode their own credibility.
Social media has time and again shown the mirror to the mainstream in the last couple of years on matters of biased reportage and poor fact-checking. One can’t shrug it all off as trolling. But here is the real danger: If a communal attack actually takes place (we know what happened to Graham Staines or Arul Das), mainstream media reports could be taken with extreme scepticism. The truth could get buried in the ashes of past lies. The bigger danger to the minorities is not from their perceived enemies but their irresponsible champions.
Bias and lies breed anger, and often harden the stance of otherwise liberal, tolerant people. And it is never wise to keep announcing the arrival of the wolf.
Yours etc.,
Name withheld on request
Eligibility for participation
Editor,
After reading your editorial, ‘Populist Resistance’ ( April 25, 2015), the lines ‘a youth who is participating in Asia’s Got Talent – an activity that Luddites hold in scorn because they see it as bourgeoisie’ caught my eye. First of all, singling out a youth who took part in the movement is unnecessary. Has the writer studied all the people who protested to comment on this one youth? The youth participated in the movement to show his sense of solidarity. I may not be a farmer but I can support a farmer’s movement. Is it wrong if I take part in it? Secondly, claiming the youth’s endeavour to follow or join a particular institution or competition as an insult to the poor is obnoxious. What bars the youth from participating in the protest? Such statement(s) discourage(s) and silence(s) brave youths and instead encourages them to embrace cowardice. I am a youth too who aspires to join hands in any activity which can improve the society in any way possible. Can you please clarify as to which such movements are then right for us to join?
Yours etc.,
Emmanuel Martin Marbaniang
Shillong –3