Monday, February 28, 2011

Internet Hindus

After the popularity of Twitter and the Twitterati bringing down some of the media guys by a peg or hundred, one of them, Sagarika Ghose, called the more vocal supporters of the religions native to the soil of India, Internet Hindus! What distinguishes the Internet Hindus from the others, presumably plain vanilla Hindus (am sure this is what the secular mob must be thinking of the unquestioning others as)? For one thing, they are generally articulate and educated, and thirsting for knowledge of all things bright and beautiful that the Govt. of India chooses to bring forth their way. They are also always watching the media for articles that appear to be biased, which means almost all articles from the mainstream press, given the state of the fourth estate in India and the way the world is seeing a rash of 'liberals'.

A picture is worth a thousand words, and here is one that describes the IH phenomenon better than my limited abilities with the written word. This is courtesy Swathi Pradeep, a brave lady on Twitter, whose current avatar is Archer_2011. You can see more of her comics on swathipradeep-comics.blogspot.com.



So what is it about the IH that frightens the Seculars, that calls them Lynch Mob, Trolls, Internet Hindus etc. ? It is the realisation that there exists a vast and intelligent group outside their limited reach, that shuns the partisan spin imparted by them to events, and seeks independent information from more credible sources. Also growth of this group could jeopardise positions of privilege held by the stars of the media. The global reach of Twitter has made lead time a thing of the past. When following my twitter timeline on the day of a World Cup cricket match last Sunday, comments flowed thick and fast. It was possible to follow the match just by seeing the twitter feed. Also, the comments were instantaneous so much so, often one knew about a wicket falling, even before it fell (just kidding about that last one!). Newspapers are obsolete for most of the younger generation, with such people preferring to get news online. How long before blogs also fall by the wayside? The phenomenon of instant comments that are seen across the globe and the barrage of comments and retweets that follow, renders the former purveyors of news and the opinion makers totally powerless. Further, while emails are a more private form of communication, tweets are public and are seen by many, the more followers you have the more eyeballs your tweets have. These tweets are retweeted, if they are of some substance, and several followers of followers see them. Thus what took a day or few days for an event to become public knowledge, can become that in a matter of minutes.

Tweeters are unforgiving and will go straight for the jugular in 140 characters. So the IH phenomenon has the media worried. A couple of days ago there was the news of the Supreme Court striking down the CVC appointment. When the news of Sushma Swaraj having been the lone dissenter in the appointments Committee came up, it did not take long for the image of the relevant paper to come up, with her cryptic words "I do not agree" or something to that effect. The truth was right there in black and white (or blue) and there was no escape for the Govt and their spinmeisters of the media. The PM had to apologise and take responsibility for his lapse, after the Supreme Court rapped the Govt. on its knuckles.

With the relentless deluge of news flowing through cyberspace, the Media is running scared, as the cyber journalists debunk their spin even before revolutions can be imparted to the ball! And suddenly, the much derided Internet Hindu has become a feared object. He is, in the eyes of the media, part of the Trishulati brigade, the saffron information terrorist, the purveyor of communal news to the lay secular public. But the phenomenon is here to stay and as the Americans say, will keep the media and press honest.

The hubris of TRPs and general God complex is followed by nemesis. And all of a sudden nemesis is haunting the dishonest portions of the media, people who thought that they were above God. Suddenly, some of the dominoes are falling and credibility is at an all time low, the IH phenomenon having done them in.

The fact is that several factors have contributed to the relatively sudden change in the atmosphere in the country. There is a theory that I have which is available in a book written by a person who is a financial trader and thinker. With that intriguing thought I shall leave you. More about that in my next post.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Left, Right and Center After Godhra Judgement

Much Sabarmathi water has flown after the incidents took place in Godhra on the 27th of February 2002 and the riots that followed in Gujarat. One would think that, nine years on, the country would have moved on, but this does not appear to be the case.

Everyday one sees at least one mention of the post Godhra riots, without mentioning that there was an incident in Godhra where 59 people, including women and children, were burnt in coach no. S-6 of the Sabarmathi Express on its way to Ahmedabad from Ayodhya. The incidents were the subject of several enquiries and finally, after almost nine years, a special court produced a verdict where, of 94 accused, 31 were found guilty and 63 acquitted. Sadly, the persons acquitted had to wait 9 years only because there were several petitions filed in the Supreme court seeking to stay the proceedings of the special court. These were the products of numerous NGOs that thought they were assisting the persons under trial. Be that as it may, the special court could finally proceed with its business around a couple of years ago and reached its conclusions and passed judgement in this month, viz. February 2011.

Only a day back I watched Left Right and Center, a programme on NDTV, one of the well known news channels in India. This channel has a key role in shaping opinions in India and, while I have never been comfortable with its uncanny ability to mix news and (its)views in a seamless manner, the proclivity for which exists in the mainstream English language press of my dear country as well, I do not have any criticism of the channel in regard to its conduct of this programme.

Nidhi Razdan, the anchor, did a good job of conducting the discussions. The participants were Shoma Choudhary of Tehelka, Kanchan Gupta from The Pioneer, Ashis Nandy, a well known sociologist and Kiron Kher, a well known actor of Bollywood. I caught the discussions only after Kanchan had finished saying his piece on the Godhra train burning judgement. The others, with the exception of Ms Choudhary, were not overly critical of the judgement, but Prof. Nandy was critical of the BJP. This is only to be expected from a member of the Secular Left that controls the discourse in the country and is no lover of the BJP. They remind me of Animal Farm of George Orwell, where pigs are taught "Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad", this being a general critique of all homo sapiens, who were considered the enemy. In the case of the Left and some of their fellow travellers, "Congress Good, BJP Bad!"

What really made me feel more than just a bit perturbed was the view of Ms Choudhary. She agreed to the following: -

1. There was a mob of Muslims at Godhra station
2. They set fire to the train bogey S-6

However, she differed with the judgement passed by the esteemed court in regard to there being a conspiracy to do so. To put it in simpler terms, there was no premeditation and all evidence relating to this aspect rests on the testimony of two persons in regard to selling 140 or so litres of petrol, on the previous day, to a few persons who were part of the mob. What Ms Shoma said was that there was no premeditation and that the mob was suddenly provoked into burning the coach. Let us assume that Tehelka and Shoma have done more research than the Court that spent so many years investigating the case.

As per Ms Shoma, we have the following: -

1. There was a mob of Muslims at Godhra station
2. For some reason they were provoked suddenly when the train happened to be passing by
3. They were angered by the very presence of the people in that particular bogey, including some women and children
4. They set fire to the train bogey S-6

Here are my questions.

1. How does a mob of around 1000 to 2000 'like-minded'people gather all of a sudden in a small town like Godhra, and that too early in the morning?
2. If they were not properly organised, how did they go inside, douse the bogey with petrol, pull the chain, get out, set fire to the petrol from the outside and join the mob?

The mob did not allow a single person to escape from the bogey as they kept pelting it with stones. The persons inside were forced to keep the shutters closed for fear of getting hurt by the stones. Sadly, there was no escape from the flames.

And here's my last question to Shomaji. Even assuming this kind of behaviour is not a result of conspiracy, something which has been debunked by the Court, does it condone a crime that resulted in a gruesome death of so many people, including women and children, whom nobody could accuse of 'provoking' or 'hurting sentiments' unless of course, their very existence was provocative.

Next, if that provocation was justifiable, why not the riots that followed? Not my view, just logical progression. Thankfully, we have a Government in Gujarat that has ensured that several cases have been lodged, tried and sentences pronounced. While cause always precedes effect, neither is pardonable, if both are murderous in nature.

Murder is Murder, regardless of who commits it, whether as an individual or in a mob. To think that a murder, that occurs because a mob suddenly sets itself upon a small number of people of another religion, is justified is completely indefensible. What does that tell you about the person with such an attitude?

Introduction to this Blog

Having been reasonably active on Twitter and finding 140 characters a bit limiting for my thoughts I have commenced this blog to provide a vehicle for my thoughts on subjects such as Hindutva, its distortion by the media, the state of my country and what impacts it.

For the moment am in Bahrain and have been in the Arab world for the past two years or so. Am a consultant in the field of banking and finance as also IT related aspects of these. The internet is a wonderful resource for learning and disseminating ones thoughts to all those who are inclined to see what one has to offer.

The first post will see me covering the media treatment of Godhra carnage and the riots that followed.