This blog is an answer to unasked questions indirectly posed by a journalist Mr Varghese K. George in his article featured on the Comment page of a prominent Indian daily The Hindu on 20 December 2014,Saturday.I have always refrained from taking names of journalists while writing an assessment on their ideological viewpoint, keeping myself strictly confined to the tradition of journalistic standards that our nation has seen in the past. This departure from my earlier stand utterly pains me, yet stands as the need of the hour when people in a highly responsible position of journalist, who are supposed to remain neutral and let the reader take a viewpoint have become the self appointed guardians of freedom of speech and every known area of human knowledge. While the journalists in television who have an excellent command over language and inimitable style of presentation examples being Arnab Goswamy, Rajdeep Sardesai, Barkha Dutt, Sagarika Ghose, Rahul Kanwal, Karan Thapar and Rajat Sharma have been tainted with opinionated news supporting a particular political ideology, the news papers have been less vocal. But there have been increasing cases of journalism taking a turn of entertainment as in the case of Times of India. Newspapers like Indian Express and The Hindu have set a standard for what is newsworthy and what is not.
It pains me immensely to see the journalists write supporting a particular political school of thought.
What is even more disturbing is their will to write against the idea of India being a truly Secular democratic republic in which any citizen belonging to any caste, race or religion and gender has the right to become the head of any Indian state no matter who are the majority people in that state namely Muslims or Hindus.
The writer of the artcle Mr Varghese seems disturbed that if BJP comes to power in Jammu and Kashmir, they might have a Hindu installed as the Chief Minister of the state where Muslims are a Majority. In his opinion not expressed directly and understood when read between the lines is a clear displeasure in a section of media on the emergence of BJP in Kashmir.
He goes on to point out the words of a PDP leader Nadeem Akhtar “When Jammu and Kashmir became a part of India in 1947, that was the first time in the 1400-year-old history of Islam that a Muslim nation became part of a secular, democratic country.”
This quoting of a thought is not a departure from journalistic ethic.But what follows is branding of National Conference and People's Democratic Party as pro India parties and the nationalistic cries of BJP in the call for Kashmir being a normal part of India are as communal and call for the development of the valley as Amit Shah- Narendra Modi combine's merchantile approach to Kashmir.
Dear Mr Journalist(not specific here) you have the right to write anything under the sun as proclaimed by the champion of Independence and pre-independent India's foremost nationalist freedom fighter and a torchbearer of fierce journalistic independence Sri Bal Gangadhar Tilak.
But Lokmanya Tilak launched Kesari with a nationalistic outlook and it was one of the foremost newspapers proclaiming Indian nationalism on the lines of Times of India and your own newspaper The Hindu.
Let's not forget that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had in 1932 Lahore declaration called for complete Independence or poorna swaraj from a part which is today's Pakistani Punjab. To the same Nehruvian School of thought initially the idea of poorna swaraj was dear which later faded out due to the advancing age of India's freedom fighters and a lack of clarity in the leadership of Nation's father Mahatma Gandhi in post Jinnah Era.
The founding fathers of this nation wanted the parts from Kashmir to Kanyakumari to be fully integrated in India with equal rights to people of all communities in all states irrespective of the caste and community name displayed in their birth certificate.
It was in the national interest and needs of the time the article 370 and a host of other laws were passed in 1947 and 1950's. The times have changed and people need to move on to a better future which is impossible without the complete integration of Kashmir in to India.
If the revered journalists of the land where God walked do not represent the secular idea of India, where a Hindu has the right to become the chief minister of a state with Muslim majority and a Muslim the right to become the chief minister of a state with Hindu or Sikh majority, I bow before them praying for their speedy recovery in to representing the Right (not right wing) idea of India !
I call it Bharat and do not have a problem with people calling it India. But if they have a problem with a Sampoorna Bharat from Kashmir to Kanyakumari joining Vaishnodevi to Ananta Padmanabha and Rozabel Shrine to Santhome all in one nation I pity them for their ignorance..
End.
