Kashmir Times, 2 December 2010
Editorial
Housing communal divide with clandestine official patronage to majoritarian fundamentalism
The slapping of criminal charges against a journalist K.K. Shahina for her expose in the Bengaluru blast case, questioning the official story that seeks to nail Abdul Nasar Madani, illustrates two hardcore realities that are a potential threat to democratic norms in the country. First, that Indian anxieties and prejudices against the Muslims are getting certain legitimacy even as these are constructed on misplaced notions of Islamic fundamentalism and falsehoods doled out officially. Secondly, while embedded journalists continue to enjoy certain amount of impunity and patronage for following the official versions and projecting these as gospels truth, those who act as whistle blowers can easily be penalized. Shahina questions the police version of the Bengaluru blasts on the basis of versions of witnesses including some BJP workers who have no apparent clue about the police claims. She has been charged under IPC of intimidating witnesses. In striking contrast, embedded journalists, now tainted for lobbying for corporate world and politicians, get rewarded with national awards and remain untouched purely because they easily tow the government line. These are dangerous trends for a country that claims to be the biggest democracy of the world, discouraging journalists to act as the much needed watch dogs and act as the fourth pillar of the democracy and pushing them to become stooges of those in power and authority. The consequences do not only eclipse the chances of any accountability, they also dangerously hone the communal divisions with a clandestine official patronage to the majoritarian fundamentalism. The evidence is explicit in the comparisons between the investigations in Bengaluru blasts on one side and the Ajmer and Malegaon blasts on the other. They are equally evident in the comparative role of the media persons in the Madani-Bengaluru case and the 2G Spectrum case.
|
