By Ranjona Banerji
To the horror of the Indian mainstream media, it did not take too long for the Congress Party to decide on the new chief minister of Karnataka. Surely, this is an outrage? The media was building itself into a nice frenzy – who will it be, should be this one or that, who deserves it more, who will be upset, how dare Sonia Gandhi, who do they think they are, so High Command and undemocratic. And sadly, bam. The results came out on May 13, where the Congress trounced the BJP, what a tragedy, and by May 18, decisions had been made public. The media deserved at least another week.
Luckily, there are always juicy Hindu-Muslim violence to stir up. First, blame the Muslims for the defeat of the BJP in Karnataka. After all, the BJP used the Kerala Story – about Indian Muslim women being radicalised in Kerala – to great effect in the Karnataka elections, allowing everyone to attack Muslims. But these pesky Muslims and presumably some other anti-nationals did not take that stupendous work all the way to the polling booths. Some people, really.
Thus, the movement must be taken further by the Indian media. Like, blame various non-BJP governments for not supporting the BJP in its pursuit of Muslims. Some good TV “debates”. Then create a little bit of drama about how Muslims are not allowing a clear BJP propagandist anti-Muslim film to be shown. West Bengal, which refused to elect the BJP and then went and banned the Kerala Story is a favoured target. The Supreme Court is partly responsible for this execrable secularism by forcing the makers of this propagandist film to put in a disclaimer that the film is fiction. Even worse, this Supreme Court even said words to the effect of “you cannot vilify a community”.
This is a novel thought which the Indian media is unfamiliar with, except for special circumstances. Like when some university in a foreign land calls out an Indian Hindu student for being anti-Muslim and/or anti-Dalit. The Indian mainstream media, the Hindutva propagandist machinery and the Hindu American and Hindu British “foundations” get really upset in close collaborative outrage packages.
Within India of course, since being anti everyone who is not a Hindu is fair game, our issues are less dire. No university in India ever objects to stuff like this anyway. Students die because of majoritarian bullying and assaults, but this is par for the course in the world’s largest democracy.
Thankfully, we can be safe in the belief that a close media eye will be kept on Karnataka and every tiny little disagreement within the government will be amplified for our delectation. Some totally shameless commentators even suggested that South India was now “free” on the BJP. Is this a democracy? Can one say stuff like that? Luckily a proper patriotic news site commissioned an opinion piece by a favoured (or maybe looking for favour, I don’t know, many who have been craving favours have been denied) pro-BJP commentator about how it is unfair to say that South India is free of the BJP especially when there is a massive Modi wave in landlocked Telangana. Order has been restored. Phew.
Here are the top subjects to be ignored:
1 Those wrestlers. Still demanding justice. Unbelievable creatures.
2 Manipur, where some traitors from within the BJP say they have no faith in the BJP. What sort of people are these?
3 A nonstop target of environmentalists. They deserve to be targeted because, I mean, what sort of Indian fights to stop India’s natural resources from being destroyed for development? These NGOs! Uff.
https://article-14.com/post/cbi-case-against-environmental-lawyer-has-no-evidence-to-back-allegations-made-but-will-deter-litigation-646442c0bc566
Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She writes on MxMIndia on Tuesdays and Fridays. Her views here are personal.