A critique of 'The Hindu'

One day a respected gentleman had advised me to stay away from talking about media. The media doesn't forgive its slightest 'contempt' and notes it even more than a court does for a 'contempt of court'!!  But i am compelled to write this article in good faith and out of pain and being let down by this newspaper.

 i think for a country to run smoothly and in the best interest of the people of the land, the role of the Fourth Estate becomes immensely important. This role can be carried best when the media keep themselves away from any sense of attachment (ideological, financial etc) except for the attachment to providing objective news in a honest and unbiased manner.

About 6 months back i had got a chance to talk to an editor with about two decades of journalistic experience with a popular national daily. I was inquisitive about the tools and technologies used in the media world in general and he had obliged by sharing some such tricks of the trade, which i always kept in mind thereon. They mainly pertained to presentation of the news, their positioning in the news-page, ordering, phrasing, paraphrasing, downplaying something and emboldening others, pictures used etc.

Finally, i was advised to think on the articles (and any writing in general) after reading them, what they conveyed on the whole and trying to identify what they aimed to achieve. This would help in taking a valid and considered stand.

It is true that the best decision can be taken by any person when he has access to objective information from all the participants of a story. It is here that The Hindu daily (and its online version) has utterly failed.

Having religiously read this newspaper for last 3 years i found myself utterly biased in my thinking, where some things and people looked always good and others always 'dangerous'. Only when i started comparing news from other sources i saw  how only selected 'suitable' news were covered in the newspaper being discussed. The 'unsuitable' topics were reported at best in the form of their critique. It is a thorough attempt at cultivating a mind with a particular ideology.

I read the newspaper because i was advised that this news paper upholds a high quality and intellectual analysis. Unfortunately, many times, the high standards of quality was limited to writing in a high-sounding language (which even the native English have stopped doing! ) and intellectual analysis was limited to finding far-fetched relations and logic to prove what they always wanted to. Objective analysis was missing and mostly views were passed of as news. It is not that they did not criticize their own 'agenda'. But the style of criticism can best be understood by the example "Clive's problem was that he was full of energy and a risk-taker" as used by Kaplan in his recently published book "Monsoon" while talking about a cunning and corrupt Clive.

One will find profuse usage of words like 'democracy', 'secularism', 'freedom', 'liberalism' etc in this newspaper but it is a thorough travesty of these very ideals which one finds on reading from many more sources. On many occasions i wrote my alternative views on few issues covered by this newspaper and none were allowed by the online version which, unlike in print, does not have any constraint of space etc. You will find this trend in the users' comment section of this newspaper. All the user comments will be endorsement of 'the ideology' and few 'critical comments' drafted in the 'soft sense' as mentioned above. Such is the tolerance for other views by this newspaper. i tried criticising articles in many other newspapers but they published (online) the opposing views after initial scrutiny unlike 'The Hindu'.

Paid news, planted news and package deals etc are in news these days. But i think what is more dangerous is when a newspaper develops its own 'ideology' (like a supercomputer developing its AI) and starts reporting every event from that perspective. it is dangerous for the society because many more would resort to similar tactics and newspapers will be reduced to 'views-paper' only. This leads to a bigoted and polarised society which will only lead to disharmony and clashes, which is already on the rise in all societies. When the reader of a newspaper with ideology-X points out the fault in another, the other reader of newspaper with ideology-Y is also equipped with enough ammo to point out the faults in X. No consensus, because they have been 'cultivated' that way by 'dishonest' newspapers.

'Sensationalism' is somethings which i did not find in this newspaper, however. And that helps it in passing off as an intellectual reporter, perhaps. But that virtue is just too short of off-setting the damage it does in so many other ways.


I have not taken any specific examples in my write-up, nor given any proof, intentionally. It is a very fine but very important issue and every reader can understand this provided he/she diversifies the reading base. It is the most difficult of things to explain, similar to the fact that the angry leaders and mobs (in a colonised India) couldn't understand the 'divide and rule' game being played on a common people for years.

Panditji and the Iron Man of India

15th august 1947. A young India had phoenixed itself from Bharat, in a modern world. This was the beginning of the fall of colonialism and imperialism worldwide. The newborn countries had to gather pieces, which were broken, blackened and contorted for obvious reasons that any colonizer has in doing so.

The relation between the newborn country and its two great executive leaders who took the task of building the country can be best understood by an analogy. Pandit Nehru was the right part and Sardar Patel was the left part of the newborn's brain. Yes. Had it not been for the joint efforts of both together (on independence and onwards) we would not have had a united and free, though struggling, India in the present form.

Pandit Nehru had well taken care of the direction the newborn was to take, the foreign policy, the economic stance and the like. He could do all this because an adept and self-less Sardar (as the deputy PM and the Home Minister) provided him with a country by uniting more than 500 small-and-big independent provinces many of them singing their own song. It was not an easy job. Looking at it in the historical perspective one can easily identify how impossible a task it was. Even when it was done the entire world predicted its doom sooner than later. But the ancient roots of the new sapling kept it alive and growing. Sardar, for various reasons, was not so successful in case of J&K and the country still bleeds. No student of history can say that Pandit Nehru would have been able to achieve this, considering the dynamics involving him till independence.

However one can only guess what the 'Iron Man of India' could have done in the absence of Pandit Nehru in an independent India. With all his energy and focus in keeping the country together he would have found it difficult to play the role that Panditji carried out with elan. Panditji's visionary actions relating to Non Aligned Movement took the country in a leadership position by uniting the newly freed countries who aspired to make it big one day rather than falling an immediate prey in the skirmishes of the big. Taking the country on a path of industrialisation was a huge task. Knowing the pulse of the people well, he called the dams as the "modern temples" of India. Many hearts melted and people gave away their lands for the country's cause. Dams were built, electrification started, industries installed, Science and technology education got a push. But unfortunately, it was assumed that agriculture will automatically be benefited with new industries and technology. In any case the country started growling to protect and promote all its people in a hostile neighborhood.

These leaders were a class apart.

[The miss that Ramachandra Guha gives to Sardar Patel (in light of the present writing) in his book "Makers of Modern India" is conspicuous. The book would have done well being called "Eminent Indians" or "Selected Makers of Modern India". Even then 'Iron Man of India' couldn't have been missed.]

~HarshW

chariot yatra is on; Tagore

A poem by Tagore, roughly translates as:-

“The great chariot yatra is on, amidst fanfare; devotees prostrate on the road in adulation

Road thinks: I am God
Chariot thinks: Me!
The Idol thinks: it is me

God smiles”

just musings

=============================

* 'Pseudoism' - a global pandemic. Prevention is the only Cure.

** Coterie: the strength of the weak, Ego: the weakness of the strong.

*** The way things are today, everyone's freedom is everyone's shackles.

~harshw
=============================

age old study !!

It was near Connaught Place that i saw an old man practicing alphabets religiously. I and a friend stood by and looked at him. He remained unmoved as if we were non-existent to him. Or maybe finishing his chapter was more important to him than caring a hoot for meddlers like us. Well, we sought his permission to click a picture, but he remained unmoved. We went on anyways and clicked the picture (above). He didn't care. My friend wanted to talk to him at which he gave a rare look at us and sank back into his ruled-pages with his natraj pencil once again. Someone in the heart of this capital city was so keen to learn alphabets in the autumn of his life, oblivious of the corruption that the very air carried, was a respectable sight. Respect flows at such people and such moments make your day..