New Delhi: From how Subhas Chandra Bose termed the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) the “Bluff and Bluster Corporation” to accusing it of being a “serial offender” with an “anti-India agenda” – RSS-affiliated weekly journal Organiser came down heavily on the broadcaster for its documentary titled ‘India: The Modi Question’.
Modi government’s “pro-middle class” budget, the row over Ramcharitmanas, Ladakh-based educationist Sonam Wangchuk’s ‘climate fast’ and alleged religious conversion in the Banjara community were some of the other key issues found space in the Hindu Right press this past week.
An editorial in the Organiser by its editor Prafulla Ketkar said former UK home secretary Jack Straw — who he termed a person with “such low credibility” — is being used to resurrect the “anti-Modi campaign” when India is holding the G20 presidency, and ahead of the 2024 general election. Straw was among those quoted in the documentary which examined PM Narendra Modi’s handling of the 2002 Gujarat riots as then CM of the state.
“Many people and organisations in Bharat have operated a racket on the theme of Godhra and earned money from it in the name of secularism and minority rights. They unsuccessfully fought the legal battles in the courts with the open support of the Congress party and the Communist-Islamist cabal. Together, they tried to tarnish Bharat’s image internationally for selfish political interests. Despite all these efforts, Prime Minister Modi came out clean in the legal and public courts,” said the editorial.
The editorial added that “having an ideological tilt is not an issue but covering it under the garb of impartiality is problematic”.
“According to a study, between March 2019 and March 2021, BBC grew by 173 per cent in India, in contrast to 35 per cent of its global growth. Fear-mongering, targeting faultlines and peddling misinformation over issues like the Citizenship Act and Jammu-Kashmir are the critical ingredients of BBC‘s growth story in Bharat.
“Like other foreign media, for this socialistic media house, Bharat is just a media market. Their supremacist ego gets hurt after seeing the rise of Bharat on its ancient roots. The Government’s sharp reaction to the documentary should be seen in this light,” the editorial said.
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BBC gave platform to ‘Khalistani terrorists’
An opinion piece by Organiser’s Ravi Mishra accused the BBC of “glorifying terrorists” by giving a platform to “hard-core Khalistani terrorists” when Indira Gandhi was assassinated. In 2016, the BBC referred to militant leader Burhan Wani as a “charismatic young militant”, Mishra wrote.
Another article in the Organiser titled ‘BBC is a serial offender; its hate for India is widely known‘ by one Shwetank Bhushan Singh suggests that the BBC documentary was meant to “absolve the role of Islamist extremists who set fire to the Sabarmati Express in Godhra”.
Writing for his website and The Indian Express, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) national executive member Ram Madhav termed the BBC documentary a “hit job that is a damp squib”.
“There is a realisation in the political establishment in the West today that the propaganda by certain vested interests about Gujarat riots and Modi’s involvement was exaggerated and opinionated. That’s why the BBC’s latest documentary didn’t receive any major traction in British or other European capitals. British PM Rishi Sunak dismissed it, while other EU leaders simply ignored it. The Indian reaction did draw some attention, but in the end the documentary remained just a damp squib,” he wrote.
Arguing that the BBC’s decline picked up pace in the last two decades, Madhav said it was a “major source of information” in the days of the Emergency (June 1975 – March 1977). The broadcaster, he wrote, reported “fearlessly about the dictatorial actions of the Indira Gandhi government”.
“This wokeism is behind the BBC’s hit job against Modi. Woke theory is that the “minority opinion” is of greater value than that of the “majority”. For the BBC, Indian investigating agencies, law and order establishment and judiciary, all constituted “majority opinion”, which need not be given much importance as against the grievance of an alleged minority victim of the Gujarat riots. The Modi documentary does precisely that,” he wrote.
‘Infiltration & conversion’
Vijay Shankar Tiwari, editor of Hindu Vishwa — monthly magazine of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) — wrote in an editorial that “conversion and intrusion” are the two biggest challenges facing India, adding that population imbalance is hindering development.
“Infiltration and conversion have blocked the development of many Muslim- and Christian-majority states including Assam. Many divisions have taken place in India due to religious conversion. All must remember the partition in 1947. Now, there is a need for all of society to stand together and speed up the return of converts.”
“Hindu society should not get trapped in the vicious cycle of conversion and the process of conversion should be stopped. Speeding up the process of ‘Ghar Vapsi’ (return of converts) will strengthen the nation, its sovereignty and borders will be safe, internal security of the country will be ensured, and development will get new momentum,” read the editorial.
Broaching the topic of religious conversions, an article by the ‘Web Desk’ in Organiser quoted a “venerated saint” of the Banjara community as saying that a “conversion racket is active in 3000 Tandas (Banjara colonies)” and that a “large number” of Banjaras have been “converted to Christianity”.
The article was referring to the saint’s address at the week-long Banjara Samaj Kumbh (large gathering) organised in Maharashtra’s Jalgaon district in the last week of January. It also quoted Akhil Bharatiya Dharma Jagaran Pramukh Sharadrao Dhole, saying, “This conversion was not confined to the way of worship but resulted in the demand for a separate State and separate country. In the North East, four out of seven States have been Christianised. Now, conversion has taken place in 3,000 tandas.”
Alluding to the issue, author Pankaj Jagannath Jayswal wrote in another article for Organiser, “Banjara Kumbh serves the same function to unite everyone for greater good. Two major challenges have emerged in Banjara society in the last 15 to 20 years. The first is the spread of Christianity, and the second is the ill intentional propagation of paganism.”
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Declare Himalayas eco-sensitive zone
At a time when the Joshimath crisis is unfolding and social entrepreneur Sonam Wangchuk just concluded his ‘climate fast’ to raise awareness about Ladakh’s vulnerability to climate change, Ashwani Mahajan — national co-convener of the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch (SJM) — called for the Himalayas to be declared an “eco-sensitive region” in a blog post.
“In view of this type of rapid destruction in the past, it has become necessary to consider that the so-called development driven by human greed cannot be continued in this way. Uncontrolled construction work on such dilapidated and fragile mountain is the reason for the collapse of Joshi Math.
“It is worth mentioning that the way the mountain was cut at the foothills of Joshi Math for the construction of Char Dham Marg and NTPC dug a tunnel in the middle of the mountain for its hydro project, due to which this fragile mountain was destroyed,” he wrote.
MOTN poll & ‘Ramcharitmanas’ row
Right-leaning journalist and author Minhaz Merchant wrote an opinion piece for Dainik Bhaskar on the India Today Mood of the Nation (MOTN) poll which pegged the BJP’s tally in the 2024 general election at 284 seats.
Modi has shown himself to be a formidable competitor and though Rahul Gandhi’s political brand has benefitted from the Bharat Jodo Yatra, Modi’s popularity is not declining, he wrote. Merchant also noted that while Amit Shah’s rating as Modi’s successor declined compared to last year, that of Yogi Adityanath surged to 26 per cent from 21 per cent.
“There are a few red flags, however, for the Modi government. Its handling of the economy was rated “outstanding” by over 70 per cent of respondents in August 2019 polls; that has fallen to 54 per cent. Despite that, Modi (51 per cent) beats Manmohan Singh (36 per cent) on who has managed the economy better,” the piece read.
Meanwhile, journalist and former Uttar Pradesh Assembly speaker Hriday Narayan Dixit wrote an opinion piece in Dainik Jagran on Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Swami Prasad Maurya’s remarks about the 16th-century poem, the ‘Ramcharitmanas’, that triggered a political controversy last month. In the piece, he drew comparisons between ‘Ram Rajya’ and ‘Samajwad’ (socialism) to underline the irony behind Maurya’s statement.
“Some politicians are aggressively attacking Ramcharitmanas, a beautiful mediaeval work of hope. They talk about socialism, but do not study the Ram Rajya described in the epic,” he wrote.
Dixit added, “There is no discrimination in his Ram Rajya. Ram rejoices in the sub-atoms of India and Indian culture. In no other country in the world is there such a widespread poetic work as Ram Katha. Those who comment on it despite knowing the sense and meaning of Ramcharitmanas, are doing slanderous deeds for cheap publicity.”
‘Pro-middle class’ Budget
In a column for Gulf News, professor and right-leaning author Makarand Paranjape declared the Modi government’s 2023 Union Budget “pro-middle class”.
“The tax slabs have been altered so that those with incomes up to Rs. 7 lakhs will have to pay no income tax. This is very unusual given that India’s average per capita income is not much more than Rs 1,00,000 a year, depending on which source you go to,” he wrote.
Paranjape added, “No wonder, the budget is perceived as clearly pro-middle class. Also because it has raised the benefits to senior citizens, doubling special interest rates for them on deposits upto 30 lakhs (3 million rupees). The Indian super-rich are happy too. The income tax rates of those with taxable incomes of over 1 crore have come down from 41% to 39%.”
Those praising the Budget, especially from the treasury benches, hail it as another milestone in “Modinomics” which is Prime Minister Modi’s own brand of economics, he wrote.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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