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Look Out for Outlook: Faded
Journalism
How
mainstream Indian media treats & trivialises Sikh issues
WSN Bureau
 Indian
media, particularly the so-called mainstream variety, rarely misses
an opportunity to degrade or denigrate Sikh issues and aspirations,
and for a long time Outlook magazine has been a particular culprit.
Instead of
focusing on the 25th anniversary of Operation Bluestar on the
necessity of such an Army attack on the Golden Temple and the Akal
Takht Sahib, and without a single word to mourn the death of
thousands of innocents, the magazine in its latest issue virtually
rubbed salt into the wounds of the community by titling a write up
on Op Bluestar as 'A Faded Star' and tried to project that the
entire plethora of issues that the Sikh aspirational struggle was
waged for have simply vanished.
It reported with
glee not only that "Khalistan passion has withered in Punjab",
called it a "Lost Cause", celebrated that "The 25th anniversary of
Operation Bluestar went unsung in Punjab" and took particular
pleasure in writing that "No mainstream political party, not even
SAD, attended a commemorative function at the Golden Temple".
Instead of
panning the ruling Akali Dal for its dumping of the agenda for which
it exhorted thousands of Sikh youth to join the movement, the
magazine said the "anniversary of Operation Bluestar on June 6
passed without even a murmur in Punjab" and added that "tired
slogans of Khalistan...evok(ed) little response."
The bankruptcy
of Indian mainstream journalism comes out almost in every report,
and its efforts to set the agenda for the last 60 years are
responsible for why India is a land of such huge inequalities where
caste discrimination, unacceptable levels of malnutrition and
continuing atrocities on minorities, tribals, marginalisation of
farmers and the poor never make it to the front pages unless they
die or commit suicide in considerable numbers. Outlook was expected
to be no different, and it isn't, when it comes to reporting on Sikh
affairs. But even such magazines come handy in exposing some
elements.
So courtesy
Outlook, we now understand how our intellectuals articulate their
new somersaults. Quoting those who the magazine said "have moved
on", Outlook reported the new stance of Prof Gurdarshan Singh
Dhillon, who wrote the SGPC's white paper on Operation Bluestar in
the early '90s. To quote: "Minorities like the Sikhs," he says,
"feel more secure with the Congress now because, unlike Indira
Gandhi, the party under Sonia Gandhi has ended its confrontationist
attitude towards minorities."
At a time when
Cynthia K Mehmood talks of the Sikhs as the tall poppies likely to
face state repression because of the beauty of their principles and
their uncompromising stance on universal values, such midgets will
thrive because they never were really the tall poppies and have
learnt the art of lying low to escape being plucked and rather get
themselves featured in Outlook. Look Out for Them, Khalsa ji. Will
ye?
24
June 2009
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