[Reader-list] "Before asking Muslims to introspect, shouldn't the media do so?"

[Shivam Vij शिवम् विज्]

Again you are taking this into tangents that the previous mails on the
thread did not discuss. Attacking Sarai, Shuddha, me - what's that got
to do with Jyoti Punwani's article on thehoot or your suggestion
thehoot is a suspect site just because IM plagiarised from an article
published there?

Also, could you please explain "you know what"?

best
shivam

On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 11:44 PM, Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Shivam,
> I was just suggesting about thehoot and countercurrents. And i am not aware
> that journalism student visit thehooy web site so much as you suggested.
> I can understand that you must have been reading that as well and I am happy
> as most of the "normal " people do not know of thehoot either.
> The way you and you ilk are hell bent on providing so called "intellectual"
> or "liberal" support base for , you know what , you expose yourselves even
> more.
>
> And the reason we are in this SARAI express is just to expose people like
> you and few more, who are bigger problems for emerging India than those who
> try to halt Indian progress.
> There is a silent majority who appreciates us and keeps writing offline all
> the time, and then there are ones like you and Shuddha who feel SARAI has
> got hijacked since you all were not used to confrontation.
> Pawan
>
>
> On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 11:26 PM, Shivam Vij शिवम् विज् <mail at shivamvij.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> Pawan,
>>
>> Just because the "Indian Mujahideen" plagiarise from an article from a
>> website, how does that website become 'suspect'? How does every
>> article, every author on that site become an accused in the blasts?
>> Only in your world can this happen. You are being even more ludicrous
>> than even the utterly unintelligent intelligence bureau which doesn't
>> even seem know that a Google search can and does take you to various
>> article on TheHoot. So it is comical for IB "sources" to say:
>>
>> > since the website is usually only accessed by media professionals and
>> > not the laymen
>>
>> Thehoot is read more by journalism students and aspiring journalists
>> than regular hacks. So maybe the IB should ask Delhi police to start
>> communal profiling of journalism students - or better still, like the
>> IB itself, let's purge the media of all Muslims. Make Modi the I&B
>> minister.
>>
>> Your posts on this list are available on Google. So if "Indian
>> Mujahideen" plagiarise from a post made here by Pawan Durani, god
>> forbid, we'll all be in trouble! "Since the list has a lot of members
>> who are active with Roots in Kashmir," IB sources told the Lie
>> Detector Times, "we are looking into the possibility..." Lord!
>>
>> Your responding to the article by doubting the credentials of TheHoot
>> is a brilliant way of shifting attention from the merits of the
>> article - from what it says, the points it makes, the facts it states.
>> I presume that you are doing so because you don't have substantial,
>> thought-provoking things about the points Jyoti Punwani makes.
>>
>> Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
>>
>> shivam
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 11:11 PM, Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > Hi Shivam,
>> > Previosuly you referred countercurrents and now thehoot. You seem to be
>> > taking refrences with those mediums who , as suggested,are suspected to
>> > have
>> > some connections with the blasts.
>> > What are you trying to prove Shivam ?
>> > http://in.news.yahoo.com/32/20080917/1053/tnl-terror-e-mails.html
>> >
>> > Indian Mujahideen's suspected mastermind Abdus Subhan Qureshi, who is
>> > believed to have authored the five terror e-mails sent to media
>> > before/after
>> > five terror attacks in the past ten months, might have earned a grudging
>> > acknowledgement as an effective prose communicator but he is apparently
>> > not
>> > shy of plagiarising either. Senior Intelligence Bureau officers involved
>> > in
>> > the task of analysing the IM's Saturday e-mail have stumbled upon a
>> > surprising fact: Qureshi, the suspected author of the e-mail, had used
>> > paragraphs that were plagiarised, at times word-by-word, from an article
>> > published a over a week ago on a popular website, www.
>> >
>> > thehoot.org , which reviews media across the subcontinent.
>> >
>> > It has led the IB to suspect that "Qureshi might have 'friends/contacts'
>> > in
>> > the media who have been helping him to compose his terror rhetoric as
>> > contained in the e-mails since the website is usually only accessed by
>> > media
>> > professionals and not the laymen. Such a man could have told him about
>> > this
>> > website's article for use," said an IB officer.
>> >
>> > Several state anti-terror agencies, on cue from the IB, are currently
>> > involved in attempting to zero in on the suspected 'media contacts' of
>> > Qureshi, if any. They already have a few suspects in the scanner,
>> > including
>> > a man working in the electronic media.
>> >
>> > Investigators also suspect that Qureshi might be taking help from others
>> > to
>> > compose e-mails that have increasingly been using impeccable English
>> > with
>> > few or no grammatical, punctuation errors. The 'plagiarised' article had
>> > appeared titled 'Bombs defused in newsrooms' on September 5 on the
>> > website.
>> >
>> > HT tried to speak to Sevanti Ninan, who runs the website, but she was
>> > not in
>> > the city and her cellphone was not reachable.
>> >
>> > On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 10:59 PM, Shivam Vij शिवम् विज्
>> > <mail at shivamvij.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >>
>> >> The trouble with relying on police sources
>> >>
>> >> These days, two kinds of sensational events dominate our media: bomb
>> >> blasts and large scale mob violence. But the difference in the way the
>> >> media has handled them is glaring.  Laziness and deadline pressure are
>> >> at least partly responsible for the communal stereotypes perpetrated
>> >> by the press says JYOTI PUNWANI.
>> >>
>> >> Posted Wednesday, Sep 24 13:03:08, 2008
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> http://thehoot.org/web/home/story.php?storyid=3338&mod=1&pg=1&sectionId=19&valid=true
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> What if Abdus Subhan Qureishi, now known as `Tauqeer', turns out to be
>> >> not India's `Osama', as he is being labeled, but just another young
>> >> fanatic who left home and job to pursue religion, and is now too
>> >> scared to come back?
>> >>
>> >> Does this possibility sound bizarre? Why? Because the ATS can't be
>> >> wrong? After the July 11, 06 blasts, three of the many `masterminds'
>> >> and `key links' arrested by the ATS soon after the blasts – Mumtaz
>> >> Choudhury from Navi Mumbai, Khalid Ahmed from Madhubani and Akhmal
>> >> Hashmi from Srinagar -  were discharged by it within three months for
>> >> lack of evidence.  Their arrests had been announced by the ATS as
>> >> `major breakthroughs'. The media had gone ballistic  the same way they
>> >> are doing now over the `techie bombers' allegedly responsible for all
>> >> the recent blasts.
>> >>
>> >> Like we've forgotten these and other  `desh drohis' who had dominated
>> >> the media just two years back,  `Tauqeer' and the other `new faces of
>> >> jehad'  may also be forgotten by us as some other sensational event
>> >> takes over.  Maybe their families should just have patience and bear
>> >> with the blinding  spotlight till then. (A mail from Azamgarh informs
>> >> us that Atif Ameen's father died three days after his son was killed
>> >> in the Delhi `encounter' that is still creating headlines.)  After
>> >> all, sensationalism is an intrinsic part of the media. And Muslims
>> >> aren't its only targets. Celebrities and crime, for example, make for
>> >> fantastic copy and visuals.  Salman Khan, Maria Susairaj, Manu Sharma,
>> >> Sanjeev Nanda –the list of those who complain of being  `targeted'  is
>> >> endless.
>> >>
>> >> Old-timers will remember the sensational incident in which theatre
>> >> giant B V Karanth allegedly set on fire actress Vibha Mishra in
>> >> Bhopal. The police allowed a few reporters into the room where Karanth
>> >> was about to confess – of course without his knowledge. His confession
>> >> was then flashed in the newspapers. The entire theatre world accused
>> >> the press of "trial by media', of being used by the police, of
>> >> insensitivity… More recently, the Shivani Bhatnagar killing made
>> >> headlines, with the wife of the accused police officer R K Sharma
>> >> calling a media   conference to refute the `confession' the police
>> >> claimed he had made,  and daring  the media to question BJP leader
>> >> Pramod Mahajan on his role in the murder. As she lashed out,
>> >> flashbulbs focused on  Sharma's two teenaged daughters, waiting to
>> >> meet their father in custody.
>> >>
>> >> Sensationalism –not animus against Muslim Personal Law, as Urdu
>> >> journalists allege - also dictated the continuous coverage received by
>> >> the Imrana case. Rape within the family, an outrageous fatwa by
>> >> mullahs (who are, let's admit, the media's favourite whipping boys), a
>> >> woman who fights back – what more do you need for a Page One story? It
>> >> may be recalled that the Roop KAnwar sati episode also dominated the
>> >> front pages for weeks, with editorials and feature pages condemning
>> >> the Hindu leaders who defended the burning alive of an 18-year-old
>> >> bride, as shrilly as they had the maulvis who declared Imrana haraam
>> >> for her husband after her father-in-law raped her.
>> >>
>> >> These days, two kinds of sensational events  dominate our media: bomb
>> >> blasts  and large scale mob violence. But the difference in the way
>> >> the media has handled them is glaring. While the media relays the
>> >> smallest detail about the lives of India's alleged `new  terror
>> >> techies'- down to their Orkut posts, it is deafeningly silent about
>> >> details of those who have been continuously burning churches and
>> >> attacking Christians in Orissa, Karnataka and Kerala. The irony is
>> >> that the church-burners revel in brandishing their weapons in front of
>> >> the camera, while the alleged Muslim bombers operate in secrecy.
>> >>
>> >> The media has chosen instead to focus  on the New Life evangelists
>> >> –the alleged provocation for the attacks on Karnataka's churches.
>> >> While it is important to know what provokes violence, we don't find a
>> >> similar scrutiny of VHP leader Swami Laxmananand Saraswati's record,
>> >> that might help understand what may have led to his killing.
>> >>
>> >> One obvious reason for this skewed emphasis is that the police, who
>> >> tell the media everything about alleged Muslim terrorists, don't do
>> >> the same about violent Hindu extremists - not even about their
>> >> leaders.  Of course the police isn't one homogenous entity, but across
>> >> the country, their behavior is disturbingly similar on this count.
>> >>
>> >> Compare the manner in which the ATS in Mumbai publicly profiled the
>> >> Muslims picked up for the July 11, 2006 train blasts, and its silence
>> >> on the RSS members arrested in the Nanded blasts in 2006, who it has
>> >> also accused of perpetrating blasts outside mosques in Maharashtra
>> >> since 2003.  Again consider this:  the day after any bomb blast, the
>> >> police blame SIMI, LeT, HuJI… but in the charge-sheet filed in the
>> >> Thane blasts case this year, the ATS has not even mentioned the
>> >> organization to which the accused belonged, the Sanatan Sanstha, run
>> >> by the Hindu Janjagruti Samiti.
>> >>
>> >> If the media continues to rely primarily on the police in its bomb
>> >> blasts reportage, Azamgarh will gain notoriety, but Nanded, Kanpur and
>> >> Tenkasi will get no special attention. (Thanks to the media, what
>> >> Azamgarh now symbolizes needs no explanation.  Nanded, Kanpur and
>> >> Tenkasi are all places where RSS members were arrested for making
>> >> and/or planting bombs.) Time and again, the police version of communal
>> >> violence in Mumbai/Maliana/Bhagalpur/Punjab/ Kashmir has been proved
>> >> wrong. The police force of these places has been indicted by sitting
>> >> and retired judges  for communal conduct. Why then does the media
>> >> choose to treat whatever the police say as gospel truth? Is it just
>> >> laziness, and the race for `breaking news'? How much easier –and more
>> >> importantly, quicker - it is to get the story from the police than
>> >> actually go to the place and get as comprehensive a picture as
>> >> possible.
>> >>
>> >> Laziness and deadline pressure are at least partly responsible for the
>> >> communal stereotypes perpetrated by the press. Urdu journalists allege
>> >> that only two kinds of Muslim voices, always of the same persons, get
>> >> heard in the English press:  liberal and conservative. True, the
>> >> ambivalent  views of the average Muslim rarely make it to the
>> >> newspapers because s/he isn't easily available for  `quotes'  on the
>> >> phone! Also, it's mostly the liberal Muslim who writes in English. Who
>> >> will bother to translate? Similarly, if pictures of only burqah-clad
>> >> and topi-wearing Muslims are published, it's often because these are
>> >> immediately identifiable as Muslims and their pictures are always
>> >> available in newspaper libraries. Actually sending a photographer to
>> >> the nearest college or call centre, computer repair office or timber
>> >> mart – places where Muslims abound – is just too much trouble.
>> >>
>> >> Besides, many of the Muslims working there may not fit the popular
>> >> image of a Muslim, and that instant identification appears to be very
>> >> important for the media. So be it Imrana or education, Eid or
>> >> elections, you have the same black burqah, beard and rows of bent
>> >> namazees. Even when the majority of signatories at a street corner
>> >> campaign in Mumbai on the Srikrishna Commission Report were
>> >> non-Muslims, the cameraman  chose to click the only burqah-clad
>> >> signatory, making what was as much a human rights issue into a purely
>> >> Muslim issue.
>> >>
>> >> But what explains the headlines and use of language? It is revealing
>> >> that even after it was clear that Hindu terrorists were responsible
>> >> for the Thane blasts, no newspaper used the word `terrorist' or even
>> >> `extremist' in the headlines to describe them; the most they said was
>> >> `Hindu radicals'.  What makes English journalists use terms of
>> >> endearment for the likes of rabble rousers such as Bal Thackeray and
>> >> Uma Bharti?  When does the Babri Masjid become a `disputed structure'
>> >> and an economic blockade of the Kashmir Valley imposed in the glare of
>> >> cameras, an `alleged blockade'? And what makes them devote more space
>> >> to the violent protests against the mutilation and murder of a Dalit
>> >> teenager and her family in Khairlanji, than to the barbaric act
>> >> itself?
>> >>
>> >> Recent reports revealed that  `reserved category' students have fared
>> >> better than many general category (hence automatically `meritorious')
>> >> students in the IIT entrance exam; that while reserved students who
>> >> score zero in one subject will now get in (thanks to further lowering
>> >> of  cut-off marks for them) , many general students scoring zero have
>> >> already got in. Guess what the headlines were: not the discovery of
>> >> the truly meritorious performance of the SCs/STs/OBCs, but the
>> >> lowering of the cut-off into these `hallowed'' institutes.
>> >>
>> >> So is there truth in the allegations of communal bias that were being
>> >> made long before the `Indian Mujaheedin's emails made them into
>> >> headlines? (They should have added caste bias.) Yet, can we ignore the
>> >> fact that this is the same media that exposed the RSS' violence in
>> >> Gujarat, and that shows its revulsion whenever Hindutva goons act as
>> >> violent censors? In Gujarat 2002, even the Hindi channels went all out
>> >> against the massacre of Muslims.
>> >>
>> >> Nor is the Urdu press free of communal bias and actual rabble rousing.
>> >> The most recent example was the regret expressed by leading Urdu
>> >> dailies that Taslima Nasreen wasn't attacked more brutally, when her
>> >> meeting was disrupted in Hyderabad. If the English press dutifully
>> >> publishes the police version of every bomb blast – that Muslims are
>> >> behind it , the Urdu press is at the other extreme. It attributes the
>> >> blasts to anyone – RSS/security agencies/Naxalites/USA/Mossad – but
>> >> Muslims. Not all Muslims agree; indeed, some were so disgusted by the
>> >> Urdu press' refusal to acknowledge the possibility that Muslims could
>> >> be responsible for the 2006 train blasts, that they switched to the
>> >> `communal' English press.
>> >>
>> >> However, the Urdu press can harm only its readers, which in itself has
>> >> repercussions for everyone. Imagine the  harm done by the English
>> >> media! Before asking Muslims to introspect, shouldn't the media do so?
>> >> _________________________________________
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>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> National Highway - http://shivamvij.com/
>
>



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