Within the last 24 hours:
BJP activists attack Arundhati Roy’s house (and broke a flower pot belonging to Ms. Roy).
BJP threatens actor who plays gay lover (by entering his residence).
The BJP scares me. I’m not so scared by political outsiders like Ram Sene as I am by BJP. It is the second largest national party in India, and has no respect for property rights. It is expected that party minions don’t know what property rights are, but with BJP, I doubt if its leaders know and respect it either.
I’ll take a socialist dynasty and debate it on issues of governance any day, instead of a fundamentalist party and debate it on whether Ram was born in a 15 sq. ft. area in Ayodhya.
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October 31, 2010 at 3:06 pm
Manan dedhia
Totally agree on the last para….. about the property rights, well, those were obviously written in crayon on a paper and then thrown away cause they were deemed too ugly……
November 1, 2010 at 4:42 am
Lưới chống muỗi
http://caobaby.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=55&action=edit
November 1, 2010 at 5:30 pm
AD
Looks like the the link from ‘The Hindu’ that you posted might have exaggerated what happened at Roy’s house a bit. It says protesters numbered ‘as many as a hundred’. This is a video from the event: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JH-DbuNKeRg . From the looks of it it seems like there were 20-30 shouting middle aged women none of whom entered the premises but they broke a flower pot belonging to Arundhati Roy kept on a public street outside her gate.
Now I am not trying to defend vandalism and I feel that the BJP Mahila Morcha should pay to replace the flower pot, a peaceful protest while not getting the same media coverage with words like ‘attacked’ would have obviously been a better option. At the same time I think we should call something for what it is without trying to embellish it. Exaggeration just plays into the hands of extremists of all colours. The BJP can now point to these articles in the media as an example of media bias against them.
November 1, 2010 at 5:41 pm
Deepak Iyer
I agree, the headline was misleading.
BTW, the breaking of flower pot might be vandalism, but it is disrespecting property rights. It is an incorrect application of private/public property rights to say that they only broke a flower pot kept on a public street.
We all park cars on public streets. The car is still our private property, as are we when walking on streets.
This was a great opportunity for the BJP to corner the Congress on issues like free speech, because the Congress was thinking of invoking sedition laws against her. The BJP, however, chose to be crazier.
November 1, 2010 at 5:45 pm
Deepak Iyer
As for BJP’s anti-media bias, I’m sure they’ll use instances such as these to further self-victimization.
The reality, however, is the media thrives on sensationalist headlines. Even during CWG, when the media was the corruption/mismanagement trail, there were sensationalist headlines that had nothing to do with the article. That wasn’t anti-congress bias as much as it was media trying to be sensationalist.
November 1, 2010 at 6:03 pm
AD
By pointing out that it was a flower pot on a public street, I did not mean to say that it was not private property or that anything on public property is a valid target. I merely mentioned it to correct the impression conveyed by the Hindu article of servants bravely battling hordes of protesters who had entered her house.
Also, by the standards of Indian politics (including the BJP) we have all definitely seen worse, not that it excuses the BJP in any way in this case.
I agree that sensationalism feeds the media. In fact looking at the video clip it seemed to me that the protesters exactly knew this fact and were trying to do at least some damage just to get into the headlines.
As far as free speech goes, from the removing Jaswant Singh episode we all know that the BJP is no great defender of free speech. Even that was an opportunity for them to come out and say that they may not agree with his views but they are his views and he is free to say whatever he wants.
November 1, 2010 at 7:26 pm
Deepak Iyer
I agree : the protestors seemed like attention seekers and the media happily lapped it up. It is a win-win situation: The protestors got attention they wanted, the media got a sensationalist headline, and the news helps the confirmation bias for BJP’s self-victimization by media.
As for private/public, I just put it out there [:)]