10-09-2006, 12:33 AM
Hindutva-Media Dialogue Kicks off
9/28/2006 10:42:48 AM http://samvada.org/
Bangalore, 24-9-2006: The best of the brains from both the sides were indeed there at a dialogue organized by Vishwa Samvada Kendra to facilitate a smooth dialogue between Hindutva and Media.
While Hindutva ideologue S Gurumurthy explained that there was a communication gap that needed to bridged, Media baron Shantha Kumar claimed that the media was by and large neutral. However, he said that convergence was in the best interest of the society and humanity at large.
About the event: The Key note address was delivered by S Gurumurthy while S Shantha Kumar delivered the inaugural address. The next session saw Udaya TV anchor Deepak Thimmaiah and Prof. Varadesh Hirigange explaining the media version against Hindutva. The third session of the day had senior journalists A Suryaprakash and Tarun Vijay explaining the Hindutva version against the media. Chandan Mitra (Editor of the Pioneer and Rajyasabha Member) delivered the valedictory address summing up the Media-Hindutva dialogue.
What the Speakers said:
S Gurumurthy gave a strong case on why both media and Hindutva have to do a serious introspection for the disconnect that has set in. He criticized the media for the trivialization of serious issues. He also accused the Hindutva camp for not being strategic enough and focused in presenting their point of view. However, he went on to say that the mental disconnect was because of mental blocks on the part of both sides. The Media is still stuck in outdated ideas like Secularism and dialectic materialism. He said both the concepts are irrelevant from the Indian angle. He also accused the media of selective amnesia, in that certain genocides like the Bangla were ignored, while small cases of violences were magnified. He asked the Hindutva camp to emulate Kautilya and Bhishma. Be strategic and learn to control your emotions was his key words to the Hindutva camp.
Shantha Kumar â the proprietor/editor of Deccan Herald and Prajavani â said he was pleasantly surprised for being invited to a talk by the Hindutva camp. However, he maintained that the media was by and large neutral and there was very little truth in the charges that the media was unfair to hindutva forces. His contention was that media was critical of not just hindutva, but it was equally critical about corruption, Congress misrule and any other issues. However, he said that the power of the media has also increased multifold in the recent year and added that the dialogue was welcome if it was really intended to remove any cases of disconnect. He said that any attempts to resolve problems through dialogues was always welcome.
In the second session, Varadesh Hirigange and Deepak Thimmaiah gave out the media version of Hindutva, while Tarun Vijay and A Suryaprakash gave out the Hindutva version against the media.
Summing up the Hindutva Media dynamics
Shri Chandan Mitra summed up the Hindutva Media dynamics in his own inimitable style. He said that the left liberal journalists had created an atmosphere where nationalism and Hindutva were dirty words. He also said that all the journalists had the fear of being branded as pro-hindutva. The fear of losing jobs or being branded is at the center of this relationship. Mutual suspicion is the name of this relationship, he said. He hoped that further dialogues would bridge the disconnect between the powerful forces which cannot be ignored anymore.
There were question and answer sessions after each talk.
It is very good to see that such a seminar has happened. I hope this bridges the gap of media and Hindutva organizations. In my opinion, RSS has to be more professional in presenting themselves. For example, when Ujjain case happened, I searched for the actual facts, or at least press release from ABVP, in all pro-Hindu sites. ABVP, it self did not had the press release in its websites. BJP did not had. This being the case, how can one expect people to know the actual facts. Sangh parivar also has to respond to the news papers on the biased stories that they present. They should create more and more NGOs like communists have. More and more websites has to be there. Media friendliness should be there. I agree that there shakhas may not get any help out of it. But....if sangh gives corrects its image with active participation in media, definitely number of pro-sangh people will increase, which in turn helps in strengthening the sevice projects run by sangh and other things. Other wise, like today, Hindus themselves do not understand what RSS is doing and why they should support it. Good that RSS has realized the importance of media. Better late than never. More of these seminars should happen, so that media understands what is Hindutva and sangh parivar.
A great beginning to bridge gaps between hindutva and our media. I feel during six years rule of BJP-NDA, they failed miserably to work on this area. Result, most mainstream media work against Hindu interests, and promote openly christianism and Islam. When hindus get attacked, these medias try to white-wash the issue and fabricate stories to blame hindus. No other country in the world such situation where majority people treated with contempt. It is our fault. We buy and read the same newspaper, which hate us, bash us. Why not we be aggressive and boycott their papar. Its time for creating Hindu-oriented media and journalists. The Pioneer, under Shri Chandan Mitra is an example. Most educated youths now reads The Pionner. But its not enough. Regional level english papers are quite balanced like The Assam Tribune, The Sentinel, The Statesman, The Tribune, etc. Mainstream english media is rabid anti-hindu, and pro-christian, pro-muslim. But at the end, they sale their papers to hindus and earn money from them. It means we pay to these media to we hindus. We must work to change the attitude of mainstream media.
There are many reasons why Indian media, in general behave as anti-hindu or project hindu way of life and hindu customs in poor light.
Firstly, a wrong impression has been created, since 1947, by vested anti-hindu interests that it is retrograde or shameful to claim to be a hindu!
Further, Pandit Nehru who openly proclaimed that " I am a hindu by accident" sowed the seed of hindu-hatred and hindu bashing and he and his dynasty groomed a flock of pseudo-secular, anti-hindu intellectuals and academia and nutured them with all sorts of incentives and gifts!
This anti-hindu attitude was perpetrated in national text books since 1947 and thus propagated this anti-hindu feeling and shame in sucessive generations of youth and the public.
The media barons and their selected adminsitrators did evey thing possible to project hinduism in bad light whenever possible and minimised the large-scale gigantic onslaughts of other interantional religions and their agents on the all-bearing tolearnt and passive hindus.
Thus while Narendra Modi was protrayed as a hitler by main-stream indian media for past so many months, they have been silent on the genocide of thousands and thousands of hindus at the hands of jehadi terrorists and their masters, in Kashmir and Pakistan and the genocide of hindus that have gone almost unnoticed by the media at the hands of christian terrorists!
What Narendra Modi did was to save his state and majority hindus, from a macabre series of terror and deadly strikes by jehadi elements, both dometsic and imported variety!
It is a pity that indian media portrays hindu faith and way of life,proclaiming welfare for all irrespective of faith, as a fanatic faith while giving good certificate to tow major interantional semitic religions as islam and christianity which preach hatred and terror in the label of exclusivity of heaven and salvation for their own misguided souls and death and hell for the other infidels or kafirs!If hindus, who have a tradition of protecting all persecuted faiths or refugees for thousands of years, believe that they are up against very powerful national and international giants and that their very existence is at stake,they cannot be faulted at all!This is a period in history where if they stand united and fight against their powerful enemies inside their own majority hindustan, they may end up as dinosuars of history!
9/28/2006 10:42:48 AM http://samvada.org/
Bangalore, 24-9-2006: The best of the brains from both the sides were indeed there at a dialogue organized by Vishwa Samvada Kendra to facilitate a smooth dialogue between Hindutva and Media.
While Hindutva ideologue S Gurumurthy explained that there was a communication gap that needed to bridged, Media baron Shantha Kumar claimed that the media was by and large neutral. However, he said that convergence was in the best interest of the society and humanity at large.
About the event: The Key note address was delivered by S Gurumurthy while S Shantha Kumar delivered the inaugural address. The next session saw Udaya TV anchor Deepak Thimmaiah and Prof. Varadesh Hirigange explaining the media version against Hindutva. The third session of the day had senior journalists A Suryaprakash and Tarun Vijay explaining the Hindutva version against the media. Chandan Mitra (Editor of the Pioneer and Rajyasabha Member) delivered the valedictory address summing up the Media-Hindutva dialogue.
What the Speakers said:
S Gurumurthy gave a strong case on why both media and Hindutva have to do a serious introspection for the disconnect that has set in. He criticized the media for the trivialization of serious issues. He also accused the Hindutva camp for not being strategic enough and focused in presenting their point of view. However, he went on to say that the mental disconnect was because of mental blocks on the part of both sides. The Media is still stuck in outdated ideas like Secularism and dialectic materialism. He said both the concepts are irrelevant from the Indian angle. He also accused the media of selective amnesia, in that certain genocides like the Bangla were ignored, while small cases of violences were magnified. He asked the Hindutva camp to emulate Kautilya and Bhishma. Be strategic and learn to control your emotions was his key words to the Hindutva camp.
Shantha Kumar â the proprietor/editor of Deccan Herald and Prajavani â said he was pleasantly surprised for being invited to a talk by the Hindutva camp. However, he maintained that the media was by and large neutral and there was very little truth in the charges that the media was unfair to hindutva forces. His contention was that media was critical of not just hindutva, but it was equally critical about corruption, Congress misrule and any other issues. However, he said that the power of the media has also increased multifold in the recent year and added that the dialogue was welcome if it was really intended to remove any cases of disconnect. He said that any attempts to resolve problems through dialogues was always welcome.
In the second session, Varadesh Hirigange and Deepak Thimmaiah gave out the media version of Hindutva, while Tarun Vijay and A Suryaprakash gave out the Hindutva version against the media.
Summing up the Hindutva Media dynamics
Shri Chandan Mitra summed up the Hindutva Media dynamics in his own inimitable style. He said that the left liberal journalists had created an atmosphere where nationalism and Hindutva were dirty words. He also said that all the journalists had the fear of being branded as pro-hindutva. The fear of losing jobs or being branded is at the center of this relationship. Mutual suspicion is the name of this relationship, he said. He hoped that further dialogues would bridge the disconnect between the powerful forces which cannot be ignored anymore.
There were question and answer sessions after each talk.
It is very good to see that such a seminar has happened. I hope this bridges the gap of media and Hindutva organizations. In my opinion, RSS has to be more professional in presenting themselves. For example, when Ujjain case happened, I searched for the actual facts, or at least press release from ABVP, in all pro-Hindu sites. ABVP, it self did not had the press release in its websites. BJP did not had. This being the case, how can one expect people to know the actual facts. Sangh parivar also has to respond to the news papers on the biased stories that they present. They should create more and more NGOs like communists have. More and more websites has to be there. Media friendliness should be there. I agree that there shakhas may not get any help out of it. But....if sangh gives corrects its image with active participation in media, definitely number of pro-sangh people will increase, which in turn helps in strengthening the sevice projects run by sangh and other things. Other wise, like today, Hindus themselves do not understand what RSS is doing and why they should support it. Good that RSS has realized the importance of media. Better late than never. More of these seminars should happen, so that media understands what is Hindutva and sangh parivar.
A great beginning to bridge gaps between hindutva and our media. I feel during six years rule of BJP-NDA, they failed miserably to work on this area. Result, most mainstream media work against Hindu interests, and promote openly christianism and Islam. When hindus get attacked, these medias try to white-wash the issue and fabricate stories to blame hindus. No other country in the world such situation where majority people treated with contempt. It is our fault. We buy and read the same newspaper, which hate us, bash us. Why not we be aggressive and boycott their papar. Its time for creating Hindu-oriented media and journalists. The Pioneer, under Shri Chandan Mitra is an example. Most educated youths now reads The Pionner. But its not enough. Regional level english papers are quite balanced like The Assam Tribune, The Sentinel, The Statesman, The Tribune, etc. Mainstream english media is rabid anti-hindu, and pro-christian, pro-muslim. But at the end, they sale their papers to hindus and earn money from them. It means we pay to these media to we hindus. We must work to change the attitude of mainstream media.
There are many reasons why Indian media, in general behave as anti-hindu or project hindu way of life and hindu customs in poor light.
Firstly, a wrong impression has been created, since 1947, by vested anti-hindu interests that it is retrograde or shameful to claim to be a hindu!
Further, Pandit Nehru who openly proclaimed that " I am a hindu by accident" sowed the seed of hindu-hatred and hindu bashing and he and his dynasty groomed a flock of pseudo-secular, anti-hindu intellectuals and academia and nutured them with all sorts of incentives and gifts!
This anti-hindu attitude was perpetrated in national text books since 1947 and thus propagated this anti-hindu feeling and shame in sucessive generations of youth and the public.
The media barons and their selected adminsitrators did evey thing possible to project hinduism in bad light whenever possible and minimised the large-scale gigantic onslaughts of other interantional religions and their agents on the all-bearing tolearnt and passive hindus.
Thus while Narendra Modi was protrayed as a hitler by main-stream indian media for past so many months, they have been silent on the genocide of thousands and thousands of hindus at the hands of jehadi terrorists and their masters, in Kashmir and Pakistan and the genocide of hindus that have gone almost unnoticed by the media at the hands of christian terrorists!
What Narendra Modi did was to save his state and majority hindus, from a macabre series of terror and deadly strikes by jehadi elements, both dometsic and imported variety!
It is a pity that indian media portrays hindu faith and way of life,proclaiming welfare for all irrespective of faith, as a fanatic faith while giving good certificate to tow major interantional semitic religions as islam and christianity which preach hatred and terror in the label of exclusivity of heaven and salvation for their own misguided souls and death and hell for the other infidels or kafirs!If hindus, who have a tradition of protecting all persecuted faiths or refugees for thousands of years, believe that they are up against very powerful national and international giants and that their very existence is at stake,they cannot be faulted at all!This is a period in history where if they stand united and fight against their powerful enemies inside their own majority hindustan, they may end up as dinosuars of history!