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Namaste Ashok and Lata,

Thank you for your responses to my message. Both of your responses

were excellent. (Their responses are below)

In short, using the Mahabharat as an example again, I wanted to

comment that Ashokji seems to be saying that Duryodhan&Co. have

unjustly taken control of the media/kingdom. Rather than starting

another media/kingdom , we should continue our efforts to disempower

the opposition and eventually replace them. I understand this concept

but I have a couple of concerns.

 

1) First and foremost, I am very concerned that the incredible

practicality that Hinduism represents,both in spiritual and mundane

issues, can solve every problem faced by humanity. Yet this knowledge

is still exclusive and only available to those who dedicate

themselves. My main focus on media is not to only combat the

opposition, but to allow the applicable wisdom of India be made

availabe to the masses.

 

As long as we battle the opposition for a voice in the media, rather

than broadcast the 'REAL GOOD NEWS THAT IS VEDIC/HINDU INDIA' the

average person will continue being denied valid information. I am

convinced that once we can begin presenting authentic representations

of Hindu Dharma to the world, these very presentations themselves

will be enough to discredit the opposition.

 

In fact, the continual onslaught against Hindus is designed to keep

the masses from even considering Hinduism as a relevant source of

information. So we can continue the tit-for-tat, which is enough to

maintain our pride, sense of dignity and unity, but I dont think its

effective in turning hearts and minds our way. Or we can create our

own platform that is readily available to the public.

 

2)My other concern is regarding the concept that internet activism is

enough. One of my personal disappointments regarding my meetings with

the Sangh and other Vedic/Hindu activists is that most seem

comfortable with maintaining the barrier of exclusivism.

 

In other words, many of my colleagues have written books, organized

conferences and mass pujas, maintained newsgroups etc yet everyone of

these efforts require the participation of interested seekers or

supporters. In this sense it is therefore exclusive.

 

The real challenge is to create strategies that involve the

participation of average citizens. We need to create an environment

where people can access the fountainhead of solutions that is

Vedic/Hinduism without actually having to belong to this or that org

or society. Most of the books written, conferences organized etc are

only read or attended by those already interested or active in the

culture. So we have yet to break that barrier of exclusivity. A

global TV sattelite channel would be a good start. Perhaps a

Vedic/Hindu al-jazeera type operation.

 

3)In one of Lata's messages, she mentioned her experiance writing for

a hindu org. This kind of experiance seems to be common in Hindu

groups. Meanwhile, Islamic/christian orgs will take the smallest

spark of potential in a supporter and fan it into a forest fire of

recognition in a frenzy of promotion.

 

For example, on a Dec 2002 trip to Nagaland, Yvette Rosser and I were

briefly featured on the frontpage of Nagaland Post. Next to our

feature, was a frontpage article detailing a Rock concert by a

Christain group called Petra, that took place all the way in

Bangalore. As Americans, neither of us had ever heard of these

supposed popular superstars from America, yet here they were being

presented to the innocent Nagaland community as very important and

successful entertainers. Meanwhile everything we said was either

ignored or miscontrued by the media to the point that our hosts were

concerned for our safety.

 

So the support structure for Hindu activists is very amatuer compared

to the opposition. Our efforts are taken for granted and there is no

real support structure. Again I am convinced a solid support platform

can be developed if we had our own independent media voice. Activists

and Writers like Lata could be promoted and compensated accordingly,

and her opinions will be broadcast globally. Of course this would be

accompanied by attractive promotional campaigns that convey a sense

of positivity. Positivity is the essence of this issue because the

message of Hinduism is positive and life affirming. Once we can rise

above the mud of accusations, this fact will easily be recognized by

a majority of people.

 

So thanks for hearing me out.

Namaste, Vrndavan

 

 

 

 

This is a long message, about 2100 words, and I crave your indulgence

at

the outset.

 

The thread was started by Vrindavanji Parker where he made a plea for

the parivar organisation to get $1 from each of its members which will

enable it to buy a global TV satelite to propagate its views. He has

quoted the late Pope John Paul II as saying: ,"Unless an event is

broadcast on TV, it never happened."

 

Lataji Jagtiani has supported this perspective and has added her own

comments on the subject.

 

I fully agree that the media with respect to current affairs is very

largely anti-Hindu. The issue is whether this media was started by

anti-Hindu forces, or whether those within it have captured the

opportunity that was given to them by a person who is looking at it

purely as a business venture to project an anti-Hindu view. My opinion

is that it is the latter.

 

The Pope, for example, gets a reverential treatment by nearly the

whole

of the media, particularly the electronic one. This does not mean that

the Vatican has invested in the media, and so influenced the editorial

content.

 

If this contention of mine is correct then the next question is why do

those who project the news, etc., take an anti-Hindu perspective. I

strongly believe that for a democracy to function well, there is a

need

to have an unbiased news channels, which act as a link between what

the

people think and what the leaders want to do. If this media is on an

anti-Hindu programme, then it is clear that they are not unbiased. The

society, therefore, has a major problem, since the terms of debate are

now perverted, and the media is taking sides. They will then project a

view point, not on the basis of whether it is right or wrong, but on

the

basis of whether the 'secularists' will benefit or not.

 

People who have made efforts of bringing the discussions to the

rational

level are always damned if they do not take the hard secular line.

Thus

we have the following statement in a publication in India: "An

unstoppable Tully soon found himself mouthing the RSS mantra that

Hindus

should declare with pride that they are Hindu that Indian civilisation

has a Hindu base. Much as he protested that he was by no means a

Hindutva ideologue, he still could not quite explain the logic of his

stand considering his long-held belief in a pluralistic India."

(Gopinath, Vrinda, "Sir Mark, Tully Sahib", The Indian Express,

January

6, 2002.)

 

So, if Sir Mark Tully finds something that the RSS is saying has

merit,

then he has essentially become a RSS member. Sir Mark has been

constrained to say: "I don't want it to sound as if my attacking

secularists implies that I am supporting the RSS."

 

I wrote to him, asking if he has ever felt the need to say: "I don't

want it to sound as if my attacking the RSS implies that I am

supporting

the secularists." ("No full stops for Mark Tully", Nina Martyris, The

Times of India, June 2, 2002.)

 

There was, of course, no answer from him.

 

Sir Mark is not the only victim of this type of intellectual

terrorism.

The sad part is that most of these alleged intellectuals are unable to

face up to this type of terrorism, and soon they are forced to take

the

fundamentalist secular line and project themselves as a more virulent

anti-Hindu than any of their other colleagues.

 

So, what we have is argument by labels, and NOT on the basis of logic.

For example, even publications like The Times (UK) and The New York

Times list the demand for a uniform civil code as one of the grounds

for

accusing the Sangh as being anti-Muslim. Now, if this be correct, then

surely the two publications are anti-Muslim on this ground. The proper

argument that they should be making is to say that on this ground the

Sangh cannot be accused as anti-Muslim. And then we can have an

informed discussion on the other subjects.

 

This malice also exists in the academics, in India and abroad.

Yvetteji

Rosser wrote: "Several years ago, I was told by a leading professor of

"South Asian Studies" at a major University that I "should never

report

anything positive about the BJP" (Sangh Parivar combine) or I "would

never find a job in American academia". A colleague of mine submitted

a

manuscript for publication to Oxford University Press, Delhi and the

then editor of OUP informed her that it was a good manuscript but

since

it had passages that reflected positively on the Sangh Parivar they

could not publish it. He said if she would remove the passages that

were

not critical of the Hindu Mahasabha and the BJP then OUP would

consider

publishing her book - otherwise it was against their policy. Amazing

isn't it? Scholars are told not to report their findings unless they

are

negative... we are told by publishers to take out parts of our

research

that do not jive with the anti-Hindu-Revivalist discourse required in

academia." ("Puzzling Dimensions and Theoretical Knots in my Graduate

School Research",

http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/s_es/s_es_rosse_puzzle_frame

set.htm)

 

To the credit of Yvetteji, she stood up to the intellectual terrorism!

 

The issue now becomes how to combat this terrorism. The first thing to

understand is that the regular reader/viewer of the media and the

student in the academics does not know that the information that he is

being fed is with an agenda, and so can be easily swayed. The next

question to be asked is whether the person is actually easily swayed.

My opinion is that a person has some inherent intelligence and he can

sift the wheat from the chaff. He may not be able to articulate his

opinion, and he may appear confused. And this is the biggest harm that

the unbiased media does - creation of the confusion. All over the USA,

the people are bombarded with the programme that "Islam means peace",

and then they are confronted with all sorts of Islamic terrorism.

However, despite the apparently well organised campaign, people at

large

look at Islam and Muslim negatively. A recent survey in the UK

confirms

this fact. (The Independent, UK, April 2, 200,

http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?

story=625569&host=3&dir=65)

 

I am told that Fox News is the most influential channel in the USA,

and

that it has a viewership of more than all the other news channels put

together. I am also told that the number of viewers of Fox News is

1.8mn, which means that the total number of people watching the news

is

only 3.6mn. Even if the decimal place should have been one place to

the

right, the number is still around 7.5% of the people of the USA watch

Fox News. If it is 1.8mn, then the figure is 0.75%.

 

(Does someone know the correct figures?)

 

India Today claims a readership of around 4mn people. This forms 0.4%

of the Indian population. Yes, one can say that these are influential

people, and that their views do count. In that case, one needs to

explain the phenomenon of someone like Sir Vidiadhar Naipaul, whose

written source of information would be English, and most of it would

be

anti-Hindu. And it is my opinion that Sir Vidiadhar is not alone in

holding on to such opinions.

 

The issue that I would next like to deal with in this message is the

issue of cost of owning and operating a media. I have no knowledge

about what a TV channel costs, so will not comment on it. I also would

like to know from experts about the effectiveness of the various

channels, given the huge crowd that already exists.

 

What I can say is about the print media. An English paper is going to

be launched in Mumbai. They have been undertaking a big campaign to

generate the necessary hype. The figure for the cost is projected to

be

more than Rs 25 crores. This is for launching the paper only in one

city. And the cost of sustaining it for one year, when the advertising

support is going to be limited, will be three or four times that

figure.

Now, project it to the whole country, and the figure will surely be

staggering.

 

So far what I have said is in disagreement with what Vrindavanji and

Lataji have said. I would like to make some suggestions about what I

see to be the solution.

 

To being with, I start with an optimistic premise - namely that the

secularist programme of anti-Hinduism is NOT working. I see a lot of

positive things happening all over the world. The Hindus are getting

better and better organised. Twenty years ago when Prof Paulji

Courtright came out with his perverted book on Ganesh, the Hindus did

not react. When the Indian edition hit the stand, we all know what

happened. In fact, Prof Paulji has admitted that there is now much

more

reaction from the Hindus to what the academics write and say. This is

a

new situation for them, and they do not know how to react. Because in

this new situation they find themselves to be in a minority. They had

THOUGHT that they had succeeded in their programme of abusing the

Hindu

mind into thinking bad about themselves. When they find that they have

not succeeded, they have no response. They cannot engage with the

Hindus, because they know that they will be even further exposed. So

they engage in what Sita Ramji Goel called argument by labels. I think

I posted the following on this forum some time back:

 

"Even if you are everything your critics say you are - an infidel,

blaspheming, self-hating, mind-poisoning, money-grubbing, Zionist dyke

(have I omitted anything?) -- it would still not follow that your

ideas

have no merit. It is much easier to engage in character assassination,

and to imagine that by doing so one has comfortably disposed of the

contrary argument, than to take a good hard look in the mirror or to

deal seriously with non-mainstream thinking. Many people prefer the

comforts and self-satisfactions of a closed system to the challenges

of

intellectual daring, creativity and self-criticism." (Comment on

http://www.muslim-refusenik.com/)

 

This adequately explains what the intellectual terrorists are doing.

 

I think it is necessary for us to expose these terrorists and present

our arguments in a logical manner. They will ignore our arguments, and

pretend that they have not been exposed to them. But it does not

matter. More than the media, it is the internet that will rule the

flow

of thoughts in the future. And here the Hindus have excelled, and are

reaching out to a huge audience. And it is this effort that is

counteracting the evil programme of the intellectual terrorists. One

should read the number of letters that are written to the media to

understand that the intellectual terrorists are losing their battle.

 

This has happened even before the advent of internet. A Hindutvavadi

in

Mumbai had analysed the content of the editorial pages of The Times of

India's Mumbai edition. He found that editorials to be entirely

anti-Hindu, the articles to be 90% anti-Hindu, but the letters to be

50%

pro-Hindu!

 

I also think that the reason why people are seeing the falsehoods in

the

"Islam means peace" also because of the internet. And the words like

Dhimmitude, etc., are now part of the general vocabulary.

 

Does this mean that I am suggesting that we should ignore the media?

No, this is not my intention. I think all of you are doing a wonderful

and forecful job in projecting Hinduism in its right perspective. What

I think is happening with the internet is that you are able to bypass

the censorship that is applied by the media in giving the appropriate

coverage to your views, and reach out to their viewers/readers, who

appreciate the logic in your argument. So, what is needed is that you

should do more of it.

 

This task is not that of the leaders of the mass based organisations

or

the sants. They have to use emotions since they are addressing the

masses. They will always use the phrase "Gaurav se kaho hum Hindu

hain". The intellectual will use the words of Swami Vivekanand, namely

"I am proud to call myself a Hindu, I am proud that I am one of your

unworthy servants. I am proud that I am a countryman of yours, you the

descendants of the most glorious Rishis the world ever saw."

 

Both mean exactly the same thing - the different audiences will relate

to the different idiom.

 

Namaste.

Ashok Chowgule

 

Hi Ashok,

 

I read your response with interest and thought, yes, I agree with

most of the issues you have clarified. Just a couple of points:

I quote you:

 

The issue is whether this media was started by

anti-Hindu forces, or whether those within it have captured the

opportunity that was given to them by a person who is looking at it

purely as a business venture to project an anti-Hindu view.

 

 

My response:

 

To my mind it is possible that the root of this issue might be

mercenary. The flip side of the question is, why is there no money in

projecting the Hindu point of view? Is it because most people don't

yet see things from that point of view? In that case, the mercenary

one is only giving the public what it will pay for and keeping out

the stuff it avoids or has an allergy to. Why does the public not

want to pay to read the other point of view?

 

Something to chew on.

If we get that answer then the next question will be: How can we undo

this?

 

I have often said at various meetings that you and I have, this is

not the case. To my mind the trouble lies in the packaging. The

chocolates inside the box are superb, the box, on the other hand, is

another matter. Our journalistic standard is often pendantic and

formal while there needs to be a happy, confident air about our

writing. Happiness is a great magnet. Sometimes I find it difficult

myself to read through many of the Sangh articles because they appear

to be so heavy and verbose, coming from somebody who has a lot of

material but doesn't know quite how to present it. On the other hand

we can be extremely passionate and illogical as well. Both make for

poor quality journalism.

 

Secondly on the issue of the Pope you said:

 

The Pope, for example, gets a reverential treatment by nearly the

whole of the media, particularly the electronic one. This does not

mean that the Vatican has invested in the media, and so influenced

the editorial content. Unquote.

 

 

This is exactly where I feel we are missing the issue.

 

Let me quote Osho from his book, Yakusan", he is commenting on the

power of the Christian church in America and how he was treated

because of it:

I quote:

Just in America, Christianity has more land than the five biggest

corporations, which are almost empires in themselves. The five

biggest corporations of America have not as much money or as much

land as the Christian Church. And the American government, against

its own constitution, protects Christianity. You cannot find out how

much money the church has got. Nobody can explore or research into

the matter; the government secures its secrecy.

But still a few things leak out.

Every year in different ways the American government goes on giving

the Christian church one hundred billion dollars. And the

constitution of America says that state and religion should be

separate!

The churches-not only the Christians, but all the churches of the

world belonging in different religions have more power than any

government, more money, more people supporting them. But their work

is absloutely underground, you don't see it on the surface. .....

.....

Churches own one hundred and two billion dollars worth of land. The

governemnt subsidizes the church with at least one hundred billion

dollars a year. And this is only America. The case is similar in

every country-while the people are dying of starvation. These

churches talk about charity and they are accumulating billions and

trillions of dollars."

Unquote.

 

Where does this money go? Why should the Press not be the recipient

of this money when its always doing Hallelujahs to the Pope? Don't

you think that the press must be softened up by the Church? Don't you

believe that their pockets might be lined in advance of an issue or

even during a controversial issue? My feeling is that this is like

denying the role of the casting-couch in the film industry until you

actually see it on camera. It exists, I am quite sure of it.

 

Then you said:

They(the media) will then project a

view point, not on the basis of whether it is right or wrong, but on

the

basis of whether the 'secularists' will benefit or not.

 

The question begging to be answered is: why does the media side with

the secularists? What does it have to gain? One of the three

possibilities exist:

1. we have failed to deliver the power of our message to the media

although the message is good and truthful.

2. We have not played the game by its rules. And you know what that

means.

3. Because the publis does not want to hear this message even though

it is good and truthful.

 

 

Either the press is paid by a public that does not want to hear this

point of view, or the Press is pid by powerful lobbyists through the

owners of the media channels, or our packaging is wrong, or we

haven't understood the psycholgy of the reader and failed to address

its psyche.

 

About Mark Tully, I would like to read the exact wording of your

message to him. Did you try to win him over through your words? Or

did you want to score points over him and expose his double

standards? Was the tone friendly rather than angry?

Please don't misunderstand this. Gurcharan Das once said something

about the Gita in his TOI column and I wrote back to him, and we

succeeded in respecting each other although we were on opposite sides

of the argument. That is essential. He didn't know me from Adam and

yet he emailed me back and forth very politely and firmly. As did I.

 

I wonder if Mark might have replied had the tone been less accusatory

and more friendly. Just a thought. Do put it aside if I am in error.

 

I agree with you that the internet being a freer zone is more fair to

the Hindutva point of view.

Having read the various supporters of the Parivar on the internet,

what work as been done to get the writers together under one roof?

Not to support the writers who are the hottest headed but the ones

who can most dispassionately and yet breezily disporve the other

point of view? Have the strategists even thought that they need to be

wined and dined? Have they concerned themselves with what are their

needs and what will make them keep expressing themselves in that way?

 

As an aside I was taken on as a Hindutva writer by an internet

company and guess why I stoped writing? They had promised to pay me

for each column and when push came to shove they held back. I was not

paid for perhaps ten columns. I stopped writing. Nobody missed me, no

cheque was in the mail. I am still waiting. But I do have my dignity

and I will not ask for the third time.

This is how the cookie crumbles. This is how the Hindu voice is

silenced. Sometimes even by its greatest supporters.

 

You commented:

I also would like to know from experts about the effectiveness of the

various channels, given the huge crowd that already exists. Unquote.

 

If Ndtv can do it, why can't we? They are hugely successful, Aaj tak

is also very successful then why can't there be room for another

channel? If the matter we offer the public is already black-balled by

the rest of the Press why would the public not want to pay for what

it is missing?

 

I am sorry my response is lengthy but I did want to address the

subjects you raised.

I look forward to your inputs.

Cheers!

Lata