Title: Our two-faced
media
Author: M.V. Kamath
Publication: The Organiser
Date: January 9, 2000
When the Australian missionary,
Staines, was along with his two young sons torched to gory death while
sleeping in a van in the midst of an Orissa jungle there was understandably
a lot of hue and cry in the country. A Christian missionary who was serving
the sick and the poor in tribal Orissa naturally evoked a great deal of
sympathy. The crime had been compounded by the fact that two innocent young
children had also been mercilessly killed. A wave of shock and disgust
swept over the country. The alleged killer, one Dara Singh, was quickly
identified. It was rumoured that he had links with the Bajrang Dal which
is associated with the Sangh Parivar. The killings soon came to be associated
with the Bharatiya Janata Party and by extension with Hinduism as well.
Word went round that Christians were in danger in India. The issue was
compounded by the killing of another missionary, one Arul Doss, also in
Orissa and this was attributed to tribals. About this time there were reports
that in the tribal areas of Gujarat a few religious balls set up by missionaries
had been set on fire. These reports did a lot of damage to India. One of
the first to condemn the BJP which had nothing to do with these events
was Shri Jyoti Basu, Chief Minister of the Leftist-led Government of West
Bengal. Shri Basu was quick to describe the killings as "barbaric". It
soon transpired that West Bengal-and Shri Basu's own party the CPM-was
no less barbaric. The Calcutta-based The Statesman not long after reported
two killings of no less barbarity. In one case a woman was torched to death
in broad daylight in South 24 Parganas by CPM goons. In another case, also
reported by the same paper, an armed gang of communists barged into the
home of an elderly couple at night, and hacked to death the wife in front
of her frightened husband. A maid who tried to protect her mistress had
her fingers chopped off. There was not a word of protest from the media.
The murderers in both cases were neither identified nor caught. Communist
terrorism in West Bengal has come to be accepted with the same disinterest
as Naxalite killings in Andhra Pradesh or caste killings in Bihar, in circumstances
of even grater cruelty than the Staines murders. The English great media
has remained unmoved. There have been no harsh editorials. Indian lives
are apparently expendable. And equally apparently, the CPM is beyond reproach,
on ideological grounds' The BJP provided an easy target. Charges of anti-minorityism
could easily be tagged on to the BJP even if it was pointed out that Orissa
has a Congress-led government and neither under the earlier Chief Minister
J.B. Patnaik, nor under his successor, the tribal leader Giridhar Gamang,
has Dara Singh been arrested. Now we hear of a series of killings, also
by Communist (CPM) goons in Kerala, also under a Communist-led government
and these killings excel in cruelty the murder of Staines. Not long ago,
a dozen persons armed to the teeth with swords, axes and country bombs
crashed into the class-room of an upper primary school in Kunnoor district
in Kerala in broad daylight. Thereupon they hacked, cut and stabbed the
teacher, K.T. Jayakrishnan, in full view of innocent children. The blood
from his body spattered on the books and dresses of the horrified children
who ran out of the classroom screaming. And what was Jayakrishnan's fault?
He happened to be the Kerala State vice-president of the BJP-affrliated
Yuva Morcha. A few days earlier, the Kunnoor district secretary of the
BJP, one Panniannur Chandran had been similarly "minced" to death right
in the presence of his wife and children. There has not been so much as
a whimper from our media or our leftist intellectuals. Ask anyone who Staines
is and there will be quick identification of the person as a saintly man
serving the poor. Ask anyone in any newspaper office who Jayakrishnan is
or who is Chandran and the likely reply will be Chandran who? That is the
extent of our phony liberalism.
The people charged with
the murder of Staines and his two children are tribals and they were reportedly
upset over the activities, of Christian missionaries in their midst. The
murderers in West Bengal and in Kerala, both Marxist-ruled States could
not possibly have any such excuse. Kerala is 91 per cent literate. The
State has the highest literacy in the country. It earns the highest foreign
remittances and has the lowest level of infant mortality. What Kerala shares
with West Bengal is utter-and ruthless-ideological lawlessness. Industry
is scared to invest either in West Bengal or Kerala. Economic growth is
negative. Terrorism is apparently State-sanctioned. Neither the killers
in West Bengal nor those in Kerala have so far been apprehended. They will
never be. The Left parties will see to that. According to available figures,
the -number of political murders which have taken place in the district
of Kunnoor during the last, say, 20 years alone range between 121 and 127.
Killing in the name of ideology is apparently permissible in the eyes of
our leftist intellectuals. Killing allegedly, in the name of religion is
a crime. Arul Doss might have by his preaching and act of illegal conversion
disturbed tribal unity. What crime could the two ladies in West Bengal
and the two men in Kerala have possibly committed except to fight communism
in one of its strongholds? Why are our intellectuals silent?
According to The Hindustan
Times (10 December) the crisis in Kerala "is exacerbated by the closure
of industries to labour-cheap Tamil Nadu" next door and' the percentage
share of investment proposals received by Kerala in the period 1991-1998
is 1.1 worse than in Bihar and Orissa. Neither domestic nor foreign investors
want to have anything to do with Kerala as they are chary of West Bengal.
And no one apparently is bothered. Leftism is fashionable. BJP's honest
nationalism is not.
The truth of the matter
is that leftism is on its last logs and its days are clearly numbered.
That is the reason why, in West Bengal for instance, the Trinamool Congress
is rapidly growing in popularity. CPM goondaism is now seen for what it
is: plain and simple goondaism without a shred of respectability. But as
yet, our intellectuals are hesitant to call a bloody CPM spade as a spade.
The CPM in Kunnoor does not want BJP intrusion in its stronghold. Kunnoor
is its fief but the CPM is quick to condemn resident Hindus in the tribal
areas whether in Orissa or Gujarat for protesting against missionary intrusions.
The CPM's hypocrisy can be attributed to ideological exclusiveness. But
what about our intellectuals in the media? Is what is right for the CPM
goose wrong for the BJP gander?
The only answer is a
ban on the CPM as a party hell-bent on murderous activities. The RSS was
banned in 1948 without any evidence of its association with the Mahatma
murder. Surely there is enough evidence to ban the CPM and associated leftist
parties for the murder not just of one man but scores of men and women?