Arun Shourie on how the Indian media lies

Here is a brilliant article from Arun Shourie, I found on the hindu vivek kendra website on showing how the Indian media fabricates lies and twists the truth to fit their nefarious designs. Willing collaborators are the Indian communists who hate anything indigeneous.

Title: Fabrications On The Way To The Funeral
Author: Arun Shourie
Publication: India Connect website
Date: June 27, 1998.

"Rational vs. National," screams the headline of the new pall-bearer of secularism, the magazine Outlook. "Fresh evidence available with Outlook," the story announces, "reveals that not only has the ICHR [the Indian Council of Historical Research] been packed with 'sympathizers' but a new statement of objectives or resolution [sic.] has been added, changing certain keywords from the original Memorandum of Association of1972, legitimised by an Act of Parliament. While the original Memorandum of Association states that ICHR's aims would be to give 'rational' direction to historical research and foster 'an objective and scientific writing ofhistory', the new resolution, which will be included in the Gazette of India, states that ICHR now seeks to give a 'national' direction to an 'objective and national presentation of history'. So, 'rational' has been changed to 'national', and 'scientific' too has been changed to 'national'...."

"Tampering with history," proclaims the old pall-bearer, The Hindu. "Apprehensions of this kind [that the fabled 'Sangh parivar' is out to rewrite history] have been substantiated by a related decision. The resolution by the Ministry of Human Resource Development -- nodal Ministry under which the ICHR comes -- that details the new nominations carries with it an amendment to the Memorandum of Association by which the ICHR was setup; while the institution was set up 'to foster objective and scientific writing of history such as will inculcate an informed appreciation of the country's national and cultural heritage,' the new Government's mandate is that the ICHRwill give a 'national direction' to an objective and national presentation and interpretation of history'. This amendment is certainly not just a matter of semantics. Instead, one can clearly see in this an intention on the part of the BJP-led Government to rewrite history...."

The next issue of the CPI(M) mouthpiece, Peoples Democracy, reproduces this editorial ! And carries with it an article by one of the ring-leaders, K. N. Panicker."Saffronization of historical research," proclaims the heading. Panicker repeats the charge of the word "rational" having been replaced by "national". He adds another : the Memorandum of Association of the ICHR mentions five objectives, he says, but the Resolution put out by theSaffron-brigade mentions only two.

Thus, the charge rests on three bits of "evidence" :that the Memorandum of Association of the ICHR has been changed; second, that a word -- "rational" -- in the Resolution announcing the new members of the ICHR hasbeen surreptitiously replaced by another word -- "national"; third, that while the original Memorandum of Association specifies five objectives for the ICHR, the new Resolution cuts out three of these.

Having been educated by The Hindu that the "nodal ministry" for the matter is the Ministry of Human ResourceDevelopment, I ring up the Secretary of that Ministry. Has the Memorandum of Association of the ICHR been changed?, I ask. No, he says. It has not been changed, he says.

And then about the Resolution announcing the new members. The allegation, you will recall, is that the aim which in the Memorandum of Association is, "to give a national direction to an objective and RATIONAL presentation and interpretation of history....," has been altered in the Resolution to read, "to give a national direction to an objective and NATIONAL presentation and interpretation of history...."

I have before me the statement of the Ministry ofHuman Resources Development [No. F 30-28/86-U3] dated 6th October, 1987, that is of eleven years ago. It gives the text of the Resolution of the Government of India announcing the new members -- announcing, among otherthings, that Irfan Habib is being appointed as Chairman with retrospective effect from 9 September, 1986. Thecorresponding expression in it is, "to give a national direction to an objective and NATIONAL presentation and interpretation of history...."

I have before me the statement of the Ministry of Human Resources Development [No. F. 30-13/89-U3] dated15th May, 1991. It gives the text of the Resolution of the Government of India announcing the new members --announcing, among other things, that Irfan Habib is being re-appointed as Chairman with retrospective effect from 12 March, 1990. The corresponding expression in it is, "to give a national direction to an objective and NATIONAL presentation and interpretation of history...."

To test my hypothesis yet again, I look for and obtainthe immediately preceding statement of the Ministry. It bears the number F. 30-3/94-U.3, and is dated 8th September, 1994. Like the others, it furnishes the text of the Resolution of the Government of India announcing the new members -- announcing, among other things, thatRavinder Kumar, another "historian" of the same hue, is being appointed as Chairman with retrospective effect from 8 September, 1990. The corresponding expression in it is,"to give a national direction to an objective and NATIONAL presentation and interpretation of history...."

That is how far I am able to get on my own. I request the Secretary of the Ministry : can he please request someone to look up the Resolutions of the earlier years, and see whether they contain anything different ? Can he help me trace when this "alteration" got made ?

Till the time of my dispatching this article, the Secretary has been able to trace Resolutions going back upto 1978 -- that is, twenty years. Each of them carries the very same words !

The research of the Secretary and his colleagues establishes that -- to reproduce the word the Secretary uses-- the whole mystery has arisen from a "typographical error" : some typist banging away on his typewriter sometwenty-odd years ago typed "rational" as "national". As each typist, when asked to type out the subsequent Resolution, copied the preceding one, that word continued to be typed as "national" year after year. The leftists inferred no conspiracy. But, lo and behold, now that a BJP Government is in power, inferring conspiracies -- to use their favourite phrase -- is a historical necessity. It is objective history ! It is progressive methodology ! Perhaps they will put on their Sherlock Holmes caps again, and establish that the Governments of Mrs. Indira Gandhi, of Rajiv Gandhi, of V. P. Singh, of Narasimha Rao have all been in league with the RSS, and therefore parties to this grave conspiracy !

I then ring up Mr. Vinod Mehta, the editor of Outlook. "But the reporter says she has the text and everything," he says. I narrate what I have found. He promises to check and get back to me. When we talk again he says he has sent me the text of the Resolution. But that is the current one. My point was that the "change" which Outlook had built its story on has existed in all Resolutions for at least twenty years. He says he will get back to me.That is where matters stand.

The exact same thing holds for that fabrication of K.N. Panicker : about five objectives having become two. In every single one of the Resolutions -- including the 1994 Resolution under which this man was himself nominated tothe ICHR, a Resolution he can find printed at page 342 ofThe Gazette of India, October 22, 1994 -- the exact samesentences are used : only those objectives are mentioned as are mentioned in the Resolution issued this year ! And another thing : if an RSS publication publishes even an interview with me, that is further proof of my being communal; but so tough are the hymen of these progressives that, even when they contribute signed articles to publications of the Communist Party, their virginity remains in tact !

RSS smartening up!

It was so good to see the RSS finally waking up and doing something sensible. Hopefully they will follow this through instead of just stopping with a warning. It should send a good message to the rest so they will avoid maligning the RSS without any basis!

http://www.indopia.in/India-usa-uk-news/latest-news/536514/National/1/20/1

"The RSS may take legal action against NCP chief Sharad Pawar for levelling "false" allegations against it in connection with various terror strikes, VHP spokesman Surendra Jain today said. Accusing the RSS of being involved in the Nanded explosions, Pawar had yesterday hit out saffron outfits, alleging that they might have links with other terror attacks, including Malegaon blast.
"False allegation have been levelled against Sangh (by Sharad Pawar). Sangh will give its reply. It will take the required legal action," Jain told reporters here adding that Pawar's provocative statement was a "fit case" to invoke provisions of NSA against him.
He alleged that Pawar made such statement only to gain Muslim vote.
"By saying that there has not been a single blast in the country after the Maharashtra Government arrested those behind the Malegaon blast, he tried to provoke them," Jain charged.
Addressing a joint campaign rally of Congress, NCP and RPI in suburban Bandra yesterday, Pawar had alleged that RSS was involved in Nanded blast three years ago and"these forces were also involved in Purna, Parbhani and Ajmer blasts".

An interview with Ram Madhav

Ram Madhav is the RSS spokesman. This is a good interview of him by the usually anti-hindu tehelka,

http://tehelka.com/story_main41.asp?filename=Ne040409rss_members.asp

An important point to note here is the following

"After the post-Godhra violence, there was propaganda the world over that the RSS is anti-Muslim and a violent organisation. The whole case was presented wrongly by a section of the media as if Hindus were butchering Christians and Muslims, which is not the reality. The ground situation is totally different, both in Gujarat as well as in Kandhamal.
A report telecast on a reputed English TV channel had sound-bites from some people accusing the RSS and the Hindu groups of the violence against Christians. Later, I saw a documentary by a filmmaker in Kolkata in which the same people were speaking against the Christians! Last week, a story on [Gujarat Chief Minister] Narendra Modi in The Atlantic magazine of the US devoted one full paragraph to abusing us."

RSS-A secret organization?

A brilliant article on a report carried by the Times of India (becoming better known as TOIlet paper of India)

The Secretive RSS
24/03/2009 13:49:38
Article by Ratan Sharda

( A comment by Times of India in today's (23 Mar 2009) report about the new Sarsanghchalakof RSS, triggered off this article.)

My morning began as usual with freshening up myself with No. 1 newspaper of the world, Times of India accompanying to the wash room. I was stumped to find the RSS change of guard as the lead story. What’s gone wrong with the guys? Where had my familiar and comforting news about IPL and incest and violence related staple news?And how come a communal outfit got the top billing? I am yet to fathom this secret. But, I was surprised by the expert comment of TOI that RSS was a secretive organization. I reflected very hard on these comments by the most responsible newspaper of India (or the world). It won’t make a comment lightly on such an issue of national importance. I went back over my years or rather decades of association with RSS and tried to make sense of this comment. As a hapless citizen of India ensnared by RSS in his tender young age secretly through simple Indian games which were on the verge of extinction and a secret to our west educated elite intellectuals, maybe I never realized the secretive nature of RSS. So, I tried to day past regression analysis of self vis a vis RSS. I remembered the dubiousness of RSS recruitment. The simple looking fun loving teacher in RSS shakha had never told me that I was being initiated to a Hindu outfit which believed in Hindu consolidation and nor did he tell me that I would be taught the virtues (liabilities in today’s world) of high moral values and discipline without me realizing all this. All this happened so unknowingly to me.

Yes, now I could slowly comprehend the import of the wise words of TOI.May be the commands were designed in Sanskrit – an archaic and communal language so they could be kept a secret from people who wanted to study RSS?Why ofcourse, even the daily prayer the motherland was in Sanskrit. Naturally, our journalists couldn’t understand it and thought it was a Nazi exhortation to kill non-Hindus and talk of superiority of Hindus? Luckily, I was explained the meaning of this prayer. A simple booklet about it was available off the shelf from RSS promoted book shop. As it turns out the prayer glorified our motherland and reminds us of doing our best to work hard for the motherland for its all round progress.

Why this secretiveness I wonder now? Perhaps, we could have had it in English.I realize now that we had quaint names for simple activities. Like calling snacking together in team as ‘Chandan’. I am told, that the police got fooled by this secretiveness and went hunting for this guy ‘Chandan’ to arrest him after the first RSS ban in 1948. I had my own experience of this secretiveness when the police came calling to arrest my elder brother, who had been active years back in his youth and had moved to Surat by then, after the ban in 1975 during the glory days of emergency but failed to arrest me though I was a young activist giving trouble to police by being part of a team that organized ‘satyagrah’ every week in our college! Yes, we should have updated the volunteer list of police regularly.

As I grew up and got some responsible positions in RSS, I tried to remove the veil of secrecy by inviting press to various programmes of RSS. I used to feel quite let down when hardly any press person turned up for our programmes like festivals and camps etc. Generally, the English press reporters would simply forget the event by the evening probably with more interesting evening activities and the news would never get printed. If at all it got covered the inspiring speeches would be missing and so would be the stirring photographs of massive disciplined drills and parades.

I remember seeing a single photograph of RSS swayamsevaks taking bath on common taps in a camp with a cryptic line describing this chore, without any reference to the fact that the camp was being attended by nearly 10,000 RSS volunteers and had such a meticulous planning and organization that it would be envy of any organization. No indiscipline, no looting of stalls on way etc. etc.! Who is interested in such a boring organization.

Same fate awaited massive rallies of RSS or its associate organizations anywhere in India . I recall a massive Hindu mahasammelan that RSS associated organizations held in Mangalore just last week. Ofcourse it escaped the eyes of the so called National press as no one was beaten up nor was there any arson. May be if the volunteers had behaved abominably with some people the veil of secrecy over RSS could be ripped off.

I am aware, as a part of the young team of RSS workers during emergency, that the majority of people arrested during emergency were RSS workers. Not only that, but nearly 90% of satyagrahis who fought against emergency were from Sangh parivar. ( COMMENT: OF COURSE!! THE 'SECULARISTS' WERE COWERING IN THEIR RAT-HOLES!! THAT'S NEHRUVIAN SECULARISM!!).

But, all this was done so diabolically secretively that our thought leaders never got to know about this secret. They didn’t even study police records to find who were arrested and kept in jails for months, spoiling careers and businesses of thousands of RSS and associated activists. When new born Janata Party had no cadres or organization, RSS provided a readymade organization and cadres to fight elections and defeat the fascist Congress ideology. This secret was unraveled when our dear socialist friends tasted the fruits of power on the shoulders of young people like us and then tore apart the dreams of venerable leaders like Jai Prakash.

May be, what upsets the critics is the secret of the success of RSS. How does it manage to organize such massive numbers without any publicity machinery or media relations? May be, RSS should share the biggest secret of this success. May be it is mutual love and trust and bonding between its members, the nurturing of young workers by sheer love and training by seniors by examples of their own selfless and simple lives, rather than by lectures, the selfless love for the motherland, burning desire to do something for the society.

I am still thinking all this over and trying to unravel the secret.As I think over, I realized that the veil of secrecy has been thrown around RSS by the press itself. It thinks that by closing its eyes to the biggest voluntary organization in the world and not letting people know about its contributions to the society. May be in its own judgemental wisdom it has decided to be the prosecutor and the jury and decided that RSS work must be kept a secret from the society so the harm can be kept to the minimum.

Understanding Indian Media - Tehelka & TOI

A brilliant article on how reporters twist the truth and modify statements to suit their views. These people more or less decide what the outcome of the interview is going to be before even meeting the interviewee. This one shows how people at Tehelka subvert the truth to satisfy their ulterior motives.

http://www.hvk.org/specialarts/tehelka/tehelka.html

"India's No.1 sting operators Tehelka decided to have a go at Sangh. On scanning the galaxy of Sangh leaders they zeroed on Shri Madhavrao G. Vaidya, who was a spokesperson of Sangh. He has retired 16 months back from this responsibility and has gone back to Nagpur. He has some land at a nearby village Taroda and sometimes he also stays there to attend his personal work. Shri Vijay Simha, a journalist from Tehelka met him and asked for an interview. Shri Vaidya refused to give any interview regarding Sangh and asked him to contact the present spokesperson Shri Ram Madhav for that purpose. After much persuasion, he agreed, but insisted that Tehelka must send him a written questionnaire and he will send his written replies.
The technique of a personal interview is varied. But the main weapon to confuse an interviewee is to put a question and if he/she is giving a correct answer, put him another question before he finishes his reply. This technique is used by even an old reporter of BBC was interviewing Netanyahu, once the PM of Israel. The same was used against Shri Narendra Modi by a TV channel. But he pointedly completed the answer to his first question and then went on to the next. Shri Vaidya is dedicated Swayamsevak since 40s. He was a Sanskrit professor in a Nagpur College. Later he was the editor of Tarun Bharat Nagpur for years, which he ran successfully. Thus he has a long experience of journalism and has seen the thin and thick in the prime years of Sangh, was an ideologue and formed an important member of the core body deciding the policy matters of Sangh.

His answers are lucid, clear and pointed. He analyses the questions and separate the husk from grain and points out the inconsistencies in the questions. If they are loaded and asked with a prejudice, he understands them and says so. Most importantly, he does not try to answer such questions with the false basis on which the question is asked, but first demolishes the basis which the interviewer has taken for granted and then gives his answer straight and to the point. Shri Simha has used all the techniques in asking the questions. But Vaidya was not trapped.
Tehelka could not twist the answers given by Shri Vaidya as they were in writing. But what it has done is to misuse its prerogative of editors to:

1. Change the order of questions instead of printing them in the same order as in their questionnaire
2. Doctor the text by just dropping inconvenient portions and lastly,
3. Not printing some important questions and answers. They asked 25 questions and printed only 14.

We obtained the text of questions and answers from Shri M. G. Vaidya and are reproducing it in the annexure. It is printed in the same order in which the questions were asked and answered by Shri Vaidya with the following features:

At the end of the question the number at which it is printed is given in bracket. The question which was answered but was not printed or the portion, which was not printed, is given in italics. It will be noticed that the dropped portions are inconvenient for Tehelka to print and do not go with the aim of the article which was written by Simha. Many of them were prejudiced and asked with the intention of creating confusion. But the answers are very clear and in fact satisfactory and beyond criticism."

http://www.rediff.com/money/2009/mar/03indias-pre-poll-sop-spree.htm

"Newspaper readers I have met over the weekend are laughing rather than taking the messages seriously.
So maybe the main aim is simply to reward loyal newspapers by boosting their advertising incomes - and to keep them loyal with the increased rates and reduced commissions that apply till the election is over.
Unsurprisingly, the Times of India and Economic Times get most advertisements - there were 12 in the Times yesterday, some repeating ones that appeared in the paper the day before."

Congress Hypocrisy

"......when Congressmen did not object to the Jamiat-ul-Ulema's members joining the Congress despite the former's declaration to safegaurd Islamic culture and welcomed those ex-Muslim leaguers who played an important role in the countries tragic partition into the Congress fold, then why should they oppose the Sangh members entry into the Congress organization."

-Pandit Dwarka Prasad Mishra, (In the 1950's)
(Then home minister of Madhya Pradesh)

from - "The Jana Sangh" by Craig Baxter, pg 57