Some Indians have a habit of exaggerating events and broad-brushing their opinions across the nation. When a criminal act of lynching an individual was committed in a godforsaken place most have not heard of, so many told 127 cr Indians they were ‘intolerant’. What did the citizens of the Southern, Western or Eastern states have to do with this event? When a few churches were vandalised by criminals along with many temples at the same time, many TV channels and journalists in New Delhi told us, again, that we were growing very ‘intolerant’. When the NDA Government came to power, the same cabal said India was becoming fascist and predicted that the RSS would rule India. Today, when a TV channel in India is penalised by the Government under the code of conduct and suspended for one day, suddenly we are told the situation is like Emergency and the freedom of media is at stake. All for a single day of suspension of a TV channel that reportedly crossed the line.
These were sporadic, isolated events in a large, diverse country, sought to be linked into a grand narrative to charge 127cr Indians with being religiously intolerant, communal, with the image of India projected as an authoritarian people, ruled by tyrants, with civil liberties at peril.
Personally, I would have taken this as par for the course as the outburst of people who have arrogated to themselves, without popular support, to speak for all of us, except when I travel globally, I’m asked: ‘What is happening? Are you losing your freedoms?’
A small set of people, mainly in New Delhi, for ideological reasons have taken it upon themselves to broad-brush all of us as ‘intolerant’, communal and the like.
They seem to forget one important factor: We are a Republic governed by the rule of law and with a written Constitution. We have a highly activist judiciary, an activist media, and a large social media presence with various shades of opinion. Our rights are safe and preserved, though at times the enforcement of the rule of law is weak across India in all States. We have multiple political parties, 29 states many larger than 98 per cent of countries, are ruled by various parties who go their own way and have their own ideologies, many movements, a million mutinies all over. All this is sought by a few to be subsumed into their own narrative to defame us and show us in very bad light globally. No other country has a cabal behaving like this!
No laws have been changed to restrain any of our freedoms. 99.99 per cent of Indians do not experience any reduction in their freedoms nor any change in their lives. It’s time that citizens across India stood up for the truth and countered the small group that have arrogated to themselves the right to speak for all others.
Now look at the irony of it. The family of the victims of the lynching is still struggling to get justice. None of this group now support or speak of them with the same intensity. The vandalism cases are still going through the system. Again radio silence. The ‘Awards Wapsi’ is all but forgotten with all the writers who were dusted out of retirement and resurrected from literary death, gone back to the hills and nothing is to be heard from them because those who put them up as saviours of the nation quietly dumped them now their purpose is served.
Tragically, both the earlier events were timed to perfection for the Delhi elections and the Bihar elections. Now with the UP elections, this new issue of ‘Emergency’ is sought to be built up! Do citizens trust those who do this? I am sure the majority do not, showing itself in the declining credibility of the media which does this. This is a pity as we need a strong, independent media to develop our democracy not a narrow set of people pushing their agenda.
The TV channel that was suspended needs to go to court. Treat this one-day ban as an isolated event and challenge the same. I’m sure no viewer will have missed the channel for that day as we have 450 other ones who are as abrasive and expansive and diverse as they were before. India is a large country and we are better off speaking for it ourselves than in abdicating our responsibility of conveying what it stands for to a small group of self appointed spokespersons who reduce all transactions to a blanket reduction of freedoms, based on their ideology.
The author is Chairman, Aarin Capital Partners.
