[Reader-list] Sri Ram Sene & Pakistani Journalists at IIC Seminar & Indian Media Reportage

Tue Apr 21 19:20:04 IST 2009

Dear Venugopalan

It was already known from Indian Media reports that (to use your words)  "the sinister efforts of sri ram sene to disrupt the deliberations were buffed."

What I found interesting were Rahimullah Yusufzai's comments on the reportage by the (upper caste dominated) Indian Media. 

Some excerpts:

- Within minutes, the Indian TV channels were flashing 'breaking news' about an attack by activists of the radical Hindu group, Sri Rama Sene, on Pakistani journalists at the IIC. Soon the news was picked up by the Pakistani TV channels and sections of the world media. 

- Explaining the episode to concerned well-wishers wasn't easy because most of the media, as usual, had misreported the incident. 

- Reporters not present at the IIC were getting bits of information from secondary sources and passing it on unverified to their news organisations. 

- The end-product comprised half-truths. A Sri Rama Sene member being pushed out of the auditorium was identified as a Pakistani journalist and so on.

- Contrary to the headlines, none of us was manhandled. In fact, we were sitting on the stage in the large auditorium of the IIC while the Sri Rama Sene members, their numbers ranging from four to 10 to 30 according to different accounts, were seated in the back and in no position to harm us. 

Kshmendra

--- On Tue, 4/21/09, Venugopalan K M <kmvenuannur at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Venugopalan K M <kmvenuannur at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Sri Ram Sene & Pakistani Journalists at IIC Seminar & Indian Media Reportage
To: kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com
Date: Tuesday, April 21, 2009, 6:12 PM

Fine to hear that the sinister efforts of sri ram sene to disrupt the deliberations were buffed.

On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 3:24 PM, Kshmendra Kaul <kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:

Rahimullah Yusufzai, the author of the piece reproduced below was the first journalist to interview Osama Bin Ladin. He is very highly respected and especially as an expert analyst on Afghanistan and the NWFP (North West Frontier Province) and FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) in Pakistan.

Kshmendra

"The good, the bad and the ugly" 

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

By Rahimullah Yusufzai

"Is media jingoism fanning Indo-Pak tensions?" was the topic of a panel discussion at the sprawling India International Centre (IIC) in New Delhi on April 15. Indian and Pakistani journalists, along with celebrated writer Arundhati Roy, were discussing the issue in a cordial and friendly atmosphere when a small group of Hindu extremists decided to disrupt the proceedings. This was the kind of intolerance that scribes from the two neighbouring countries were hoping to confront in the media and in society at large.

But the media, particularly the electronic one, has its own dynamics. Within minutes, the Indian TV channels were flashing 'breaking news' about an attack by activists of the radical Hindu group, Sri Rama Sene, on Pakistani journalists at the IIC. Soon the news was picked up by the Pakistani TV channels and sections of the world media. Before long, worried family members and friends started calling me and the other three Pakistani journalists – Beena Sarwar, Saeed Minhas and Muniba Kamal -- attending the seminar. Explaining the episode to concerned well-wishers wasn't easy because most of the media, as usual, had misreported the incident. Reporters not present at the IIC were getting bits of information from secondary sources and passing it on unverified to their news organisations. The end-product comprised half-truths. A Sri Rama Sene member being pushed out of the auditorium was identified as a Pakistani journalist and so on.

Contrary to the headlines, none of us was manhandled. In fact, we were sitting on the stage in the large auditorium of the IIC while the Sri Rama Sene members, their numbers ranging from four to 10 to 30 according to different accounts, were seated in the back and in no position to harm us. All they could do was to shout slogans like 'Pakistan Hai Hai' and 'Pakistan Murdabad' before the organisers and IIC security personnel threw them out of the auditorium. They had sneaked or forced their way into the hall because participation was by invitation and the invitees had to register themselves before entering the auditorium. The disruption caused was brief and the seminar proceeded as per schedule. The Sri Rama Sene activists were later pushed out of the IIC premises but none was detained by the over 50 policemen guarding the place. As happens so often in the Indo-Pak subcontinent, extra security was provided to us after the incident and cops were present in
 strength at The Indian Express and The Hindustan Times offices that we subsequently visited.

Members of the Sri Rama Sene, one of the several Hindu extremist groups that operate in India, failed to disrupt the Delhi seminar. Almost all those present at the packed IIC auditorium were Indians but none appeared to sympathise with the tactics used by the group. They wanted the panel discussion to continue and since I was speaking at the time, the organisers urged me to keep talking. It soon dawned on me that the Sri Rama Sene activists had started clapping in delight when I mentioned the kind of rabid anti-Pakistan articles and comments appearing in the Indian media following the November 26, 2008, Mumbai attacks. Some of the Indian writers and commentators had asked their government to attack and dismember Pakistan and end once and for all the source of terrorism directed against India. This had obviously delighted the handful of the uninvited Sri Rama Sene members in the auditorium and prompted them to do some clapping. However, they weren't
 pleased when one referred to comments appearing in sections of the Pakistani media regarding joint Indo-US plans to harm Pakistan. The mention of strong anti-India comments in the Pakistani print and electronic media wasn't to their liking and they responded by shouting anti-Pakistan and pro-India slogans.

The protest by the Sri Rama Sene activists was pre-planned. This was conceded by the group's national general secretary, Vinay Kumar Singh, who said they wanted the seminar to be wrapped up. Apart from the Pakistani journalists, their anger was also directed at writer Arundhati Roy, the author of the award-winning book, The God of Small Things. The diminutive young lady from Kerala has emerged as a conscientious social activist who is brave enough to take up the cause of the poor and the dispossessed. She has been speaking her mind against Hindu fundamentalists and the exploitative classes. She isn't afraid of talking about the need to resolve the Kashmir issue in keeping with the aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. This line of thinking is obviously unpopular in India. Even at the Delhi seminar at the IIC, she was the only speaker to make a mention of the unresolved Kashmir conflict. Indian colleagues said members of the Hindu extremist
 groups often follow her at events that she is attending so that they could heckle and disrupt her speeches. India no doubt is a great democracy where there is freedom of speech but certain intolerant sections of the Indian society are threatening to silence those who think and speak differently.

Despite the rising intolerance and threats, enlightened Indians continue their efforts to be heard and to let others, including Pakistanis, speak their mind. The panel discussion in Delhi was organised by a new organisation of dedicated journalists known as the Foundation of Media Professionals with collaboration from the Indian branch of the oldest German foundation, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. Veteran journalist Madhur Trehan is president of the Foundation of Media Professionals which, in the past year, has held four events on diverse and important media-related issues. Anirudha Behl, Srinivasan and their colleagues in the media are determined to provide a platform to people with diverse opinions.

The Sri Rama Sene people also have the right to be heard but one wished they had waited for the question-answer session after the presentations to put across their viewpoint and to put the speakers in the dock. True to their reputation, they showed intolerance just one day before India went to polls in an amazing democratic spectacle that has been rightly described as a miracle of democracy. Imagine 714 million voters taking part in the month-long, five-stage voting exercise that would end on May 13 and could be a logistics and security nightmare for even the most developed countries. India manages to regularly accomplish such a massive electoral exercise without fail. It is democracy that has kept India intact because its people, impoverished or otherwise, know that they could change their governments with the force of a ballot. And such is the power of the vote that even a Dalit woman, Mayawati, from the country's Untouchable Hindu caste could become
 the chief minister of India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, and now aspire for the office of the prime minister. The Hindu extremist groups clamouring for Hindutva would do well to embrace tolerance so that India could continue to march on the path of secularism and democracy.

The writer is resident editor of The News in Peshawar. Email: rahimyusufzai at yahoo.com

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=173478

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