Recently, three young men were arrested in Karnataka’s
Hubli and Honnali towns on charges of vehicle theft. Since all of them
happened to belong to the Muslim community, within a day of their arrests
police sources leaked to the media that they suspected the trio might be
involved in planning terrorist attacks all over the country.
This was enough to trigger a series of speculative stories
in the state’s media. Every publication and television channel, without
exception, went into a competitive frenzy, all of them clamouring for a
first shot at the most ‘horrifying’ story about the ‘terrorist trio’.
Almost every reporter with imaginative talent wrote reams of articles
quoting unnamed ‘reliable police sources’ or ‘police sources who did not
want to be named’ and narrated how the three young men were planning to
blow to smithereens most of Karnataka’s key buildings, such as the Vidhana
Soudha, place bombs on (predictably) the premises of IT giants Infosys and
IBM, detonate bombs in public places, destroy Hindu places of worship and
so on.
What was remarkable about these reports was their
contention that the three young men had links right up to Osama bin Laden
and down to the local ‘sleeper cells’ of various outfits such as the
Lashkar-e-Toiba and the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).
The men were also suspected of conducting arms training in nearby forests,
of flying the Pakistani flag, of possessing RDX, of having already
distributed arms and weapons to various ‘sleeper cells’ across the state,
of recruiting hundreds of youth to terrorist organisations, of possessing
AK-47s, of having procured Israeli manufactured arms, etc, etc, etc.
But how much of the content of these reports, well laced
with the terms ‘suspected’ and ‘alleged’, had unsubstantiated and
un-sourced ‘facts’ attributed to ‘reliable sources’? As citizens and
discerning readers, can we merely accept in good faith that these reports
were genuine? How much of the information carried (leaked) in these
reports was a product of the imaginative powers of local reporters? How
much was fed by our increasingly inefficient police force? How much
‘spiced’ up by senior journalists who are forever looking to increase
their TRP ratings or circulation figures?
Having already said that all these reports on the
‘terrorist trio’, without exception, were sourced to ‘police officials who
did not want to be named’, let us look at one such report to assess how
genuine the overall media reports were.
The Mangalore edition of the Kannada daily Udayavani,
which adopts a marked pro-Hindutva stance, carried a front page report
that read: "last December Riazuddin Ghouse, Mohammed Asif, Abubakkar and
Hafees held a secret meeting where they condemned America’s treatment of
people imprisoned at Cuba’s Montessori (!) jail. A copy of the resolutions
taken at the meeting has been seized by investigating officers."
Udayavani is a leading Kannada daily with several
senior journalists on its rolls. What is surprising is that not one of
them could tell the difference between the word Montessori, used to
describe a system of education, and Guantánamo Bay, the name of the prison
run by the American government in Cuba. Apparently, in the race for
‘exclusive’ reports, none of them could be bothered with such minor
factual details.
Even if one were willing to overlook this rather glaring
slip-up by the reporter who filed the story and the senior journalists who
okayed it, giving it prime space on the front page, other important
questions remain. For example, since when has condemning American
atrocities at Guantánamo Bay become a crime? Does this assumption by the
police mean that anyone who condemns the unjust imprisonment of people at
Guantánamo Bay is a terror suspect?
Are such questions of no importance to the local media?
Apparently not, for instead of raising these valid and significant issues,
they carried on blissfully with their ‘exclusive reportage’ based entirely
on police sources. One report, which appeared in The Hindu,
can be summed up thus: The fact that one of the arrested youth claimed
before the magistrate that his human rights had been violated by the
police made the magistrate suspect that he was no ordinary youth. (Does
this mean that knowledge of the Constitution, fundamental rights and human
rights are not for ordinary Indian men and women?) On the basis of this
assumption, the magistrate instructed the police to subject him to a
thorough interrogation. And that was when the terrorist links were
revealed.
Another report, this one in The Times of India,
stated: A warden at the jail became suspicious of Riazuddin Ghouse and
Mohammad Abubakkar’s behaviour in the prison where they were jailed on
charges of vehicle theft. The duo spoke to each other in low voices, did
namaaz five times a day, spoke to one another in English and did
not seem to show respect for the national flag when it was hoisted in the
morning. The jail warden conveyed his suspicions to senior police
officials and they subjected the duo to interrogation. That was when the
youth spilled the beans about their terrorist plans. Had the warden not
been such a keen observer of their behaviour the men could well have been
let off by the police.
These reports raise a few fundamental questions. Since
when has it become a crime to speak of human rights violations? Or speak
in a low voice? Or communicate in English? Since when has offering
namaaz five times a day become a suspect activity?
As if this were not enough, most or all of the media
reported that "religious books and material" were found in the trio’s
possession. The media also ‘arrested’ a number of students in its reports
even when the police had not in fact done so! Reporters also labelled as
"having terrorist links" people who were total strangers to the arrested
trio. The list is endless. The end result of all this ‘hyperactivity’ in
the media was that the three arrested men were depicted as the most
dreaded terrorists this part of the world has seen in recent times.
This reportage took place even as a senior police officer,
additional director general of police Shankar Bidri told a television
channel that "So far no proof has been unearthed to label these youths as
terrorists. The media is indulging in blatant fabrication of news. What if
their case too turns out to be another Dr Haneef case? (Haneef, who worked
in Australia, was mistakenly arrested by the Australian police after being
wrongly accused of links to a failed UK terror plot.) Let us not turn into
terrorists those who are innocent." Sadly, his words of caution fell on
deaf ears as the media made merry about Muslim terrorists.
Surely the police need to interrogate the arrested youth
and the courts have to pass their judgements before such serious
conclusions are drawn? This is why such institutions exist, why the
machinery exists in our democracy. It is their job to catch and
punish the guilty. But the media seemed to have no time for such
‘niceties’ of democracy or its institutions. It chose to sidestep the
process of law altogether and took it upon itself to ‘investigate’ the
so-called crime and then pronounced ‘judgement’.
With the media in the grip of this ‘terrorist’ mania, can
the saffron brigade be far behind?
This time their chosen targets were noted litterateur UR
Ananthamurthy and chairman of the State Backward Classes Commission, CS
Dwarakanath.
When UR Ananthamurthy wrote his path-breaking novel,
Samskara, more than 40 years ago, there were some who considered it
‘anti-Brahmin’ and sought a ban on it. But since most intellectuals
dismissed the allegations, no action was taken against it at the time. In
the years since, the novel has not only been made into an award winning
Kannada film (the first Kannada film, in fact, to win a national award)
but has also been translated into several languages across the globe.
Samskara was also listed as a prescribed textbook at many universities
in India and abroad. This includes the Mangalore University, which chose
the novel’s Hindi version as part of its syllabus for second year degree
students and where Samskara is currently being taught in its
colleges.
It must be mentioned here that last year the sangh parivar
actively promoted a novel called Aavarana, written by Kannada
novelist SL Bhairappa. There have been claims that nearly 20,000 copies of
the book were sold, a record breaking figure in the history of Kannada
publishing for a work of fiction. (The claims, however, have not been
verified.)
For long an ardent supporter of the sangh parivar’s
Hindutva agenda, in Aavarana, Bhairappa conveniently interweaves
half-truths with blatant falsehoods and presents this as a work of
fiction. Given his claims that the book was based on evidence proved by
historical researchers (all of whom belong to the sangh parivar caucus),
upon reading the book the lay reader could quite easily form a biased
opinion of the Muslim community. The book portrays the Muslim community as
bigoted and out to out-populate the Hindus. It appears to hold the Muslim
community responsible for all the sins that Muslim rulers may have
perpetrated on Hindus in times past and identifies them as the cause of
all the problems the country faces today. In the process, the book aims to
whip up Hindu sentiments against the Muslim populace in the country.
Apart from the Muslim community in general and Muslim
clerics, writers, filmmakers, etc in particular, the book also targets
leftists, secularists and historians who do not agree with the saffron
brigade’s version of events past; they are dubbed anti-Hindu. When the
book was released, supporters of the sangh parivar hailed it as a great
work of fiction while progressive forces denounced it as sheer
pamphleteering on behalf of Hindutva forces under the guise of literature.
As this debate raged, UR Ananthamurthy publicly derided
Bhairappa, calling him a "college level debater’’ which, in fact, is
exactly what he is. This roused the ire of the rightist forces so much
that the leading Kannada daily, Vijaya Karnataka, actually launched
an SMS campaign against Ananthamurthy. Vijaya Karnataka (now owned
by Bennett, Coleman and Co Ltd of The Times of India group) is
another sangh parivar mouthpiece that calls itself a newspaper. It came as
no great surprise therefore when the paper carried two pages filled with
anti-Ananthamurthy opinions sent in by its saffron brigade readers.
Protesting this vociferous attack on Ananthamurthy, some
of us got together and published a selection of essays critiquing
Aavarana, a selection that was fairly well received. The reason why
Aavarana has been dealt with in such detail here is its growing
presence on the Hindutva map. So far 15 novels by Bhairappa have already
been translated from the Kannada into other Indian languages and today
work is afoot to bring out Aavarana in Hindi and other languages.
Considering the amount of unadulterated venom it spews at a segment of our
population, it is necessary that intellectuals and progressives in other
states counter the half-truths and blatant lies contained in the book to
prevent further damage to the fabric of our society.
Since Ananthamurthy is opposed to the Hindutva agenda and
has spoken out against it vociferously in the recent past, and since he
attacked the sangh parivar’s favourite writer, Bhairappa, the parivar were
looking for a way to get back at him. To do this they chose to falsely
claim that some portions of Ananthamurthy’s most famous novel, Samskara,
were ‘vulgar’. Aware that it would be difficult, in the current context,
to label the work ‘anti-Brahmin’, they made the specious claim that the
‘vulgar’ portions in the book made it difficult for teachers to teach it
to ‘children’! The sangh parivar even managed to get some lecturers who
were sympathetic to its agenda to sign a memorandum claiming as much and
submitted this to the university authorities with a plea that the book be
withdrawn as a textbook.
The saffron brigade’s attempt to target Ananthamurthy
using Samskara as a pretext came under scathing attack from
intellectuals and progressives in the state. For the moment, any move to
withdraw the novel from university syllabi has been put in abeyance. But
in reality the sangh parivar has merely set the wheels in motion. For, in
coming years, universities will no doubt be wary of recommending the works
of any progressive writer as a prescribed textbook. And from that point
onwards a conscious attempt will be made to avoid introducing any writer
who is critical of the sangh parivar to the next generation of students.
Meanwhile, as one section of the sangh parivar was busy
trying to tarnish Ananthamurthy’s image, another found it necessary to
attack CS Dwarakanath, chairman of the State Backward Classes Commission.
Earlier this month Dwarakanath and other members of the
commission visited the district of Mercara (Coorg) in order to inspect
existing facilities for the backward classes there. While in Coorg, some
commission members visited the ‘religious site’ of Talacauvery – the
source of the Cauvery river. According to reports, the priest at
Talacauvery asked them to bring Dwarakanath along so he could also receive
the ‘holy water’. In response, one of them told the priest, "He (Dwarakanath)
is an atheist who does not believe in such things. He thinks the entire
Cauvery river is holy."
While Dwarakanath himself was blissfully unaware of the
incident, word soon spread to local sangh parivar activists. The next
morning, when Dwarakanath was alone with just two police constables on
guard duty, more than a hundred ‘saffronites’ high on local hooch laid
siege to his room. Led by a former BJP MLA from the area, the drunken
crowd surrounded Dwarakanath and demanded why he was "insulting the
Cauvery river, insulting Hindu sentiments and being anti-Karnataka".
Notwithstanding several attempts to reason with them when
Dwarakanath tried repeatedly to explain that he considered all of
nature holy, the mob remained unconvinced. Apart from pushing and shoving
him around, they forced him to drink the ‘Cauvery water’ they had brought
with them in an empty Coca Cola (!) bottle and forcibly applied tilak on
his forehead. Ever conscious of the big picture, the sangh activists took
a cameraman and a reporter from a local TV channel along on their drunken
crusade. Having forced a defenceless Dwarakanath to meekly receive the
‘holy water’ and suffer their tilak application, the saffronites made sure
that the entire incident was then telecast across the state. As if that
were not enough, they also issued a press note to all publications,
falsely claiming that "Dwarakanath had apologised to them for having
insulted Hindu sentiments and the Cauvery".
These three instances only emphasise the obvious. It is
abundantly clear that much of the media in Karnataka today has been
saffronised, that Karnataka’s universities are now being made to bow to
the sangh parivar’s unreasonable demands and that the Hindutva brigade,
despite its claims that all Hindus are one, will brazenly attack even the
head of the Backward Classes Commission in the name of Hindu sentiments.
These developments could perhaps be expected, thought
‘natural’, in a state ruled by the BJP. But as of now Karnataka is under
president’s rule. Yet it is the saffron brigade’s aggressive agenda that
dominates the political and public discourse. This pointed shift in
Karnataka’s polity is the legacy of a BJP-Janata Dal (Secular) coalition
that was in power for all of 20 months.
During this short span of time, a systemic infiltration of
the system inflicted grievous damage. Today Hindu progressives are
labelled ‘Naxalites’ even as Muslim progressives are targeted as ‘Islamic
terrorists’. The same holds true for many pro-people, pro-secularism
organisations as well.
It is no wonder then that the police gleefully entertain
complaints by saffronites falsely alleging that secularists like Prof
Nagari Babaiah of the People’s Democratic Forum ‘insult Hindu gods’ in
their public speeches, that Kalkuli Vittal Hegde, leader of the Adivasis
living in Kudremukh forest, has insulted Dalits, that Hegde’s wife is
indulging in prostitution, that volunteers working for the rights of the
Adivasi people are abetting Naxalites in the area and so on.
Not long ago, the local administration and police rounded
up local Muslims, at random, on the basis of specious complaints filed by
sangh parivar activists. The same police force turns a blind eye when
sangh parivar activists assault Muslims on charges of transporting cattle
to slaughterhouses. The same police force coolly releases RSS activists
accused of setting a bus on fire and causing the death of two people over
the Ram Sethu issue without even a thorough investigation. The list goes
on.
Thanks to the police and the administration’s active
encouragement of such violent and unlawful behaviour, activists of the
sangh parivar enjoy complete immunity and it is they who systematically
file innumerable complaints against Muslims and progressive Hindus.
Recently, Pramod Mutalik, leader of the Sri Rama Sena, had the gumption to
say, "We have given a list of suspect Muslims to the police at Hubli. It
is unfortunate that they have arrested only one person. If the police do
not immediately arrest the rest of the people on our list, we will take up
widespread protests."
The sangh parivar has always considered Karnataka its
gateway to the south. The last time they were in power, the gates were
only partially opened to them but a foothold was all they needed. It was
more than enough for them to sow their seeds of hatred. Those seeds have
sprouted now and with the elections only a few months away, the BJP will
no doubt be reaping a rich harvest.
With the Janata Dal(S) having committed political
hara-kiri by supporting the BJP, and the Congress party’s perennial
indecision on if and how to counter the sangh parivar, Karnataka, it
seems, is unfortunately and irreversibly hurtling towards its new position
as the Gujarat of the south.