Author: M.V. Kamath
Publication: Afternoon Despatch
& Courier
Date: January 23, 2004
Introduction: The 'secular' press
is entitled to damn anyone in its editorial columns, but the reader is
entitled to know the truth.
Does anyone remember the Best Bakery
Case and all the hullabulloo that was made over it? The secular media took
the opportunity to call the Gujarat government over the coals, especially
when a lower court discharged the accused.
As The Free Press Journal (Jan.
16) editorially put it: "After the lower court's judgement, the secularists
had launched a shrill campaign in which, unfortunately, even the apex court
of the land too was dragged in. The Supreme Court of India and the National
Human Rights Commission erred on the side of excessive zeal in openly coming
out on the side of the detractors of the lower court's order. Now, no less
than the Gujarat High Court has vindicated the lower court and, presumably,
left these busybodies out to garner sympathy and support from the noisy
secularists, totally speechless".
Word for word
If the so-called secular media had
an sense of self-respect it should have reproduced the Gujarat High Court's
judgement word for word. That, it didn't. Indeed most newspapers maintained
a highly undignified silence. The only party to cover the case in the Gujarat
High Court was the Press Trust of India - or so it seems. Exactly how well
and at what length the case was covered is hard to say. Very few newspapers
published the PTI report.
Short accounts were published by
two newspapers, The Statesman (Jan. 14) and The Telegraph (Jan. 13). To
its credit The Statesman published the report on the front page, indicating
the importance of the event and the significance of the judgement. It will
be remembered that the key witness in the Best Bakery Case, 19-year-old
Zaheera Sheikh, had turned hostile during the first trial. Commenting on
this the Gujarat High Court said: "There seems to be a definite conspiracy
to malign people by misusing her".
Said the Division Bench of Mr. Justice
B.J. Sethna and Mr. Justice J.R. Vohra: "We are not prepared to believe
that she (Zaheera) turned hostile because she was threatened for deposing
before the Court on June 27, 2003, Zaheera is hardly 19- years-old and
can play into the dirty hands of anti-social and anti-national elements".
On Zaheera's affidavit in the Supreme
Court, the Bench observed: "She came out with the case that she was threatened
and therefore could not speak the truth only after an English daily approached
her following the acquittal judgement".
Zaheera had been given shelter by
a Mumbai-based NGO a few days after the acquittal. She had also addressed
a press conference in Mumbai. Observed the Bench: "We've a reasonable apprehension
that there is a deep-rooted conspiracy to misuse Zaheera".
The Telegraph report was a little
bit more specific. According to the paper the Bench had added that "An
attempt has been made by journalists, Human Rights activist Teesta Setalvad
and Advocate Mihir Desai to have a parallel investigating agency. We do
not know how far it is proper, but we can state that it is not permissible
under the law." Let it be said that the reporting of the case has been,
to say the least, extraordinarily poor. The media has shown an extraordinary
sense of irresponsibility in glossing over the High Court judgement.
As The Free Press Journal noted
"The judgement of the Gujarat High Court in the Best Bakery case, whereby
it rejected the appeal of the state government against the acquittal of
all the 21 accused by the lower court, ought to be made compulsory reading
for the secularists and the self-serving NGO industry run by them. That
the High Court's decision has to found favour with these self-appointed
guardians of public morals is proved beyond doubt by the scant notice given
to it in the media under their control. While the acquittal by the fast-track
trial judge was played up in screaming headlines, as if the court had committed
a huge crime in finding the accused not guilty, the High Court judgement
endorsing the same court's acquittal of all the 21 accused as correct in
law and dismissed as a filler in some obscure corner of the secularist
press".
In a biting editorial entitled "A
welcome rebuff to secularists" The Free Press Journal, in confirmation
of its long tradition of being "free and fearless", gave the secularists
the long-delayed slap in the face. It said - and the entire editorial,
incidentally, is worth repeating - in the end: "For sure, there are moves
afoot to pin holes in the Gujarat High Court judgement in order to ensure
its reversal. For, the secularists having concluded in their mind that
the 21 accused in the case were guilty, wanted the courts to do nothing
other than to endorse their view regardless of whether there existed the
required evidence to convict them. Such intolerance reveals a fascist streak
in the mental make-up of secularists. A truly open society provides space
for all manner of thought processes to compete, but our secularists, and
the media controlled by them, are so authoritarian that they seek to bar
all voices from being heard, other than their own. Hopefully, the Gujarat
High Court verdict will act as a sobering influence on them, at least for
some time till they latch on to another Zaheera to exploit for their own
partisan ends". Brave words. And only The Free Press Journal has had the
courage to expose the cowardice of the secularists.
The Hindustan Times (January 14),
no friend of the Gujarat government, conceded, somewhat uncomfortably,
it seems, that "as the High Court has said, the possibility exists that
witnesses such as Zaheera Sheikh lay themselves open to manipulation by
unhealthy interests and that could very well be the reason for their first
turning hostile and subsequently offering intimidation by pogrom perpetrators
as the reason for doing so".
Several questions arise: Considering
the importance of the Best Bakery Case and the way it was used to damn
the Gujarat Government, why didn't every important newspaper cover the
trial in the Gujarat High Court and its judgement, fully? Why, for God's
sake, aren't our High Courts covered adequately? News coverage has become
so one-sided that many of our so-called 'national' newspapers are rapidly
losing their credibility.
Is opinion free?
As the cliche goes, news is sacred,
opinion free. The 'secular' press is entitled to damn anyone in its editorial
columns, but the reader is entitled to know the truth. The 90-page judgement
of the Gujarat High Court received very poor coverage. If our secular press
had any sense of social responsibility, it would have covered the trial
and judgement in full. To its eternal shame it failed to do so. This is
ducking responsibility and should be strongly condemned.
The reader does not have to be exposed
to pictures of bikini-clad teenagers day after day, or to the doings of
society dames at parties. What he needs is responsible journalism and that
is increasingly becoming a rarity. Secular media seems bent only on spreading
hatred - and not the truth. Isn't there any end to it?
What is contemporary journalism
up to?