The English language media (ELM) in India is dominated by leftists, liberals and secularists. The right-wing commentator is a rare species in this country. There are very few writers* who can put forward the Hindu / nationalist / conservative / right-wing view on a subject in an intelligent manner. As a result, educated urban middle class Indians – who get their news and views only from the ELM – are exposed to only one side of the story (the wrong side). So the country's elite is being fed a steady diet of anti-national arguments and assumptions. The long-term effects of this phenomenon are worrisome, to say the least. Articulate spokesmen for nationalism are badly needed.
*The few I can think of are Arun Shourie, Swapan Dasgupta, Tavleen Singh, S Gurumurthy, Sudheendra Kulkarni and Tarun Vijay. Have I missed out anybody?
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3 comments:
Dheeraj,
I agree with you when you say that the ELM in India is dominated by the left. But when you say that the side of the story that the ELM/ Leftists cover 'IS' the wrong one, I have trouble trusting your stance on everything else.
Like you mentioned - what the ELM has is a viewpoint. It's wrong sometimes. It's right at times. For you to generalize their side of the story as the wrong one always blurs any distinction that I could make between you and the Islamic fundamentalists/ Christian evangelicals.
Afterall isn't the ability to think about and analyze issues based on their merit one of the strong points of Hinduism (as opposed to toeing the line set by some cleric/ preacher or some other authoritative figure?)
Every person feels that his viewpoint is right, and the opposing one is wrong. I am no different :-) Obviously, it is upto the reader to make up his/her own mind.
Ideally a person should be exposed to both/all sides of a story. Then he/she can evaluate them and arrive at a considered opinion. The problem in India is the jukebox is playing only one tune, so there is no scope for this 'evaluation' and 'considered opinion'.
More to the point - if I don't believe in what I say, then why should anybody listen to me?
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