I will have to note a very curious phenomenon in the media (mainstream as well as social) regarding the Western Ghat protests. There is an eagerness to pain the protests as if coming from the Catholic church.
I happened to watch a news channel in which the reporter was asking a priest about the position of the Church in this whole thing. The priest corrected him saying, "it is not the Church; it is the farmers. Just because I am a priest does not mean that I am talking for Church right now". The reporter meekly nodded and quickly moved away.
I find this obsession to communalize this whole thing very nauseating, especially coming from those quarters who allegedly uphold the secular tradition of India. In every protest, you can see people from every community gathered together. But the media do not want to see it. They want to project as if it is a communal issue. Same case even with social media.
What could be the reason? In my mind, there is only one thing behind it - divide and conquer. The same tactic that British used against Indians during the freedom struggle. The hope is that, by discrediting the protests as communal, it would die down. Nobody wants to acknowledge the most obvious fact that the most organized community in that area is the Christians, hence it is very natural to see them leading the whole thing.
I can only say, how pathetic the media & pro-report forces have become. Once this whole episode ends, I hope they will sit back, think over this ugly game they played and at least feel shameful. So that they won't repeat this for another issue.
I happened to watch a news channel in which the reporter was asking a priest about the position of the Church in this whole thing. The priest corrected him saying, "it is not the Church; it is the farmers. Just because I am a priest does not mean that I am talking for Church right now". The reporter meekly nodded and quickly moved away.
I find this obsession to communalize this whole thing very nauseating, especially coming from those quarters who allegedly uphold the secular tradition of India. In every protest, you can see people from every community gathered together. But the media do not want to see it. They want to project as if it is a communal issue. Same case even with social media.
What could be the reason? In my mind, there is only one thing behind it - divide and conquer. The same tactic that British used against Indians during the freedom struggle. The hope is that, by discrediting the protests as communal, it would die down. Nobody wants to acknowledge the most obvious fact that the most organized community in that area is the Christians, hence it is very natural to see them leading the whole thing.
I can only say, how pathetic the media & pro-report forces have become. Once this whole episode ends, I hope they will sit back, think over this ugly game they played and at least feel shameful. So that they won't repeat this for another issue.
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