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| India Today, like NDTV, ignores Jammu | | Promoting Secessionism | |
MINCING NO WORDS
NEHA
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Mar 22: A number of leading media houses and private TV news channels have been organizing conclaves for quite some time now. In fact, these have become an annual feature. NDTV, CNN-IBN, India Today and The Hindustan Times are some of them. These conclaves are no more than a platform for the selected few, including a few from foreign countries, who express their views on various issues of national, international and social import.
India is a democratic country. Such conclaves need to be organized at regular intervals, as they do help the media form a definite opinion about those who speak and inform the general public as to what those who matter think about the various problems confronting the country, and even the world as a whole. It is obvious that when they talk about the problems they also talk about ways and mean that could help surmount the problems they hint at. Indeed, a good exercise.
But the organizers of such high profile conclaves do cause a grave alarm when they go extremely selective, even biased, thus making the concerned citizens question the very motive and credentials of the organizers. And, this has been happening since day one. Responsible citizens and objective watchers have on several occasions criticized the organizers of such seminars on the ground that their approach has not been all-inclusive or that they have been also inviting persons whose credentials are extremely doubtful and who do not represent the general will. In fact, they dismiss such conclaves as ill-conceived, ill-designed, ill-motivated, and even pro-separatist and rabidly anti-India. It happened in the case of the just-concluded two-day conclave at New Delhi – conclave organized by India Today on March 18 and 19.
It is neither desirable nor possible to reflect on what transpired during those two days. However, it would be only appropriate if the esteemed readers of Early Times are informed about what was said about Jammu and Kashmir and who said what, what were the implications of what they said and who represented the state in the conclave.
Those who represented the state were Syed Ali Shah Geelani of the Tehrik-e-Hurriyat and Farooq Abdullah of National Conference and the Union Minister. They did not attend the conclave on their own. They were invited and one of the persons who saw to it that they participate in the conclave was M J Akbar, a well-known commentator and columnist. None from Jammu or Ladakh was considered fit to be present in the conclave, obviously, because India Today management, like NDTV management and group editor Barkha Dutt, take Kashmir and the separatist Kashmiri leadership to mean the sole factors in the state’s political situation and others as irrelevant just because they are in the New Delhi’s pocket and just because they have no other option but to look towards New Delhi even if it humiliates and taunts them and accords a preferential treatment to Kashmir and those in Kashmir whose single point agenda is to achieve “independence” and destroy India.
What did Geelani and Farooq Abdullah do and say while addressing the “distinguished” gathering? Geelani abused India and spit venom on it and its institutions like the institution of Army, ridiculed the Indian democracy, accused New Delhi of butchering thousands and thousands of “freedom fighters”, violating human rights and raping Kashmiri women and demanded freedom from the “oppressive” India. So much so that Geelani said, “he represent the people” of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. He said nothing short of Azadi would satisfy him. Farooq Abdullah did not demand complete independence. Nor did he talk in terms of holding a plebiscite in the state to ascertain the people’s views on the state’s ultimate political future. He also didn’t talk high of Pakistan. He only reiterated his stand on autonomy and also declared that he could even go beyond the confines of the autonomy doctrine if that could resolve the Kashmir issue.
Had the organizers of the conclave also invited persons from Jammu and Ladakh to put across their point of view, things in the conclave would have been totally different and an impression would not have gone that Kashmir means Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh and the Kashmiri separatists means the representatives of the people of Jammu and Ladakh as well. In fact, the presence of persons from Jammu and Ladakh in the conclave would have helped the organizers to call the Kashmiri separatists’ and the so-called mainstream Kashmiri leader’s bluff and put thing in right and national perspective.
Will India Today, or for that matter all other Delhi-based media houses and private TV news channels, ensure next time the participation of Jammu and Ladakh in the conclave as and when they organize it? They must. They cannot be selected. It is their fundamental duty to make their effort all-inclusive and present an accurate picture of facts.
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