"Look how Indian journalism is slanted, devious and dishonest :
A few days ago I received an email from Himanshi Dhawan of The Times of India, asking for an interview by email :
De: Himanshi Dhawan <himanshi.dhawan@gmail.com>
Objet: regarding an interview
Date: 5 avril 2017 17:05:25 UTC+5:30
À: fgautier@rediffmail.com
Dear Mr Gautier
I would like to interview you for an article that I am writing. Will it be possible for me to send you some questions on how you developed the passion for India and your work in the field? My contact details are below, in case you have some clarifications. Regards.
--
Himanshi Dhawan
Senior Assistant Editor
Times of India
Phone: 9811427263
Twitter: @himanshidTOI
@dhawan_himanshi
Her questions immediately made me suspicious, so I wrote to her :
On 06-Apr-2017 9:39 AM, "François Gautier" <fgautier@rediffmail.com>
Hi, are you going to write a slanted article, that twists my answers so that it fits your ideas?
fg
François Gautier
And she replied very innocently:
<himanshi.dhawan@gmail.com>
Objet: Rép : regarding an interview
Date: 6 avril 2017 11:32:08 UTC+5:30
À: François Gautier <fgautier@rediffmail.com>
Hello Sir,
I have no intention to "twist" your responses. The article is about academics/intellectuals/ thinkers who find a resonance in BJP's ideas and philosophy without any value judgement. Would appreciate it if you could answer my questions. Thanks.
So I trusted her and sent my answers, here below:
#You have written widely in praise of PM Narendra Modi , his political accomplishments and his work. When did you begin to feel an affinity towards the BJP and Mr Modi's idealogies and work?
A. I did not know Mr Modi. But I have a Foundation FACT (Foundation Against Continuing Terrorism) that does exhibitions on Indian History, as well as great heroes and heroines. We have such one based on Aurangzeb’s firmans or edicts, which are preserved in the Bikaner archives (https://factmuseum.com/aurangzeb-as-he-was-according-to-mughal-records/), it was attacked in Chennai by goons of the nawab of Arcot, whose ancestors was nominated by Aurangzeb, with the support of the Chennai police then under the DMK’s Karunanidhi and closed down. This was widely reported in the Media and Mr Modi who was chief minister of Gujarat, heard about it and contacted me. He subsequently came to Mumbai to inaugurate our exhibition on Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Vinod Khanna and Gopinath Munde. Subsequently, I met Mr Modi quite a few times in Gujarat. What particularly impressed me was that when I first went to his office, there were no hangers on, no sycophants, only people who came for work. I found the same thing when I visited his culture minister row of chairs and people waiting, while the minister with one secretary taking notes gives 5 mnts to each applicant. This is totally contrary to the Congress policy of most people to meet ministers and MP’s are for favours not work. I also found that Mr Modi was a great ecologist and had a genuine interest in that field, making of Gujarat the greenest, most investor friendly state of India. So I started praising him in my articles, though at that time nobody thought he could become PM of India
#What drew you to the Hindutva idealogy?
A. You have to give me some credit: most journalists in India are mostly their father’s children or their teachers pupils, that is they repeat more or less brilliantly what their atavism has grooved into them from early childhood. I had an upper class catholic education in France and when I came to India, I did not know the difference between a Hindu or a Muslim. In fact, I had many of the ideas that are politically correct today about India – Congress is the best party to unite it; Hindus can be fundamentalists too; or the RSS is a dangerous outfit.. But then I covered extensively Kashmir from the late 80’s till 2000 for Le Figaro, France’s largest circ paper and saw the Hindu leaders I had interviewed earlier such as Dr Tikoo, savagely assassinated by Kashmir Muslims separatists and then was 350.000 kashmiri Pandits flee the Valley under terror, for no other fault than being Hindus, without firing a single shot in self-defense, becoming refugees in their own country, a first in this already sad world. I also witnessed how Kashmir, once a more gentle sufi place (I witnessed the burning by Muslim of the last sufi shrine in Kashmir the Shrahr-e-Sharif), became so easily radicalized by Sunni influences from Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The truth is I don’t know about Hindutva, I only know what Francois gautier saw first hand and now believes in.
#You have listed enemies of "Hindus" including Sonia & Rahul Gandhi, CPI, Aamir & Shah Rukh Khan, the Pope and even Hindus themselves. These appear more like the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) party's list of political opponents. Would you comment?
A. Once more, your question is slanted, because it contains an indication of what you or your newspaper thinks, without bothering to verify my point of view. Let me say that my experience in 40 years in India as a journalist is that Hindus are the least intolerant of all communities. In fact, it is because they are the only ones in the world who till today recognize that God manifests himself or Herself at different times of humanity’s history, with different names, using different scriptures. This is why a Hindu is able to enter a church or even a mosque andfthe reverse is not true. This is why all persecuted religious minorities found refuge in India all over the ages from the Syrian christians to the Parsis, from the Jews to the Tibetans today. The irony is that Hindus have been the most persecuted in the world. If a proper tally of how many have died at the hand of Muslims invasions was done, it would easily reach a hundred millions
#Your critics feel you are a spokesperson for the BJP. How do you feel about that?
A. Well, the BJP never asked me to be a spokesperson and I would not be one for I speak for Francois gautier. Nevertheless I asked Mr Modi to conduct workshops for his MP’s/Spokespersons so that they know how to answer coherently and efficiently accusations of fundamentalism, speak about conversions, respond to western correspondents’s accusations, but never got an answer. It would be fun to have a westerner working for an Indian Govt, whereas Indians worked so long for their western masters and are still queuing like mad in western embassies to get visas, no?
#Would you join the BJP or RSS?
A. No, though I am an OCI married to an Indian for 30 years. Anyway they never asked me. In fact, since it has come to power at the center, the BJP in many ways resembles other political parties except a few exceptions. That is because they have to function in a system put in place by decades of Indian National rule, where every minister or PM for that matter, has a ring of at least 15 PA’s PS’, peons and security, and also the fact that Delhi is a big bubble far away from the rest of India, which suited the British, who wanted to to control acces to North India, but shoud be decentralized today
#Do you feel #Hindus and Hinduism is misunderstood and a victim of poor image building (the perception of being a polytheist, poor country continues to prevail)?
A. See, the biggest enemies of Hindus are Hindus themselves. No country would have been able to invade India if Hindus had not betrayed Hindus, from Alexander the Great who used the King of Taxila against Porus to the Vijaynagar kingdom, the last great Hindu empire, of beauty justice and Dharma, that was betrayed to the Muslims by the Lingayats. Today some of the most venomous anti-Hindus, particularly in American universities, or even in India, are Hindus themselves. And are not members of the Congress 90% Hindus? I defend Hindus, but I am not blind to their faults…
End of Interview….
….And look how they twisted everything out of context, putting their own slanted views instead of faithfully reflecting what I said. The title itself is demeaning: the word ‘Hindutva’ – when I expressly said that I am foreign born and catholic educated and that my ideas are garnered from on the ground reporting and coming to my own conclusions – for God sake, when I started reporting nobody spoke about Hindutva and nobody thought the BJP or Narendra Modi would come to power. And the word ‘cheerleaders’, which is employed contemptuously in this case. And then she used that discredited historian Irfan Habib who for decades, with the Congress blessings, distorted Indian history books and curriculum without any shame, glorifying monsters like Aurangzeb and putting in cupboards Maharana Pratap or Shivaji Maharaj as mere chieftains or plunderers, just because they were Hindu heroes, yet a million times more secular than Aurangzeb, Ghazni or Teimur as they never harmed the children, daughters and wives of their enemies and never touched a mosque.
My sad conclusion is that Indian journalism has not only not changed, but it has become WORSE. Before it was only the Marxist intelligentsia putting forth their Hinduphobia, now there is the added element of commercialism and paid journalism. Shame on Himanshi Dhawan. If you feel, you can mail her what you think at : himanshi.dhawan@gmail.com, or you can tweet @timesofindia
Francois Gautier"
Shared with permission, Fracois Gautier,
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1284136831685198&id=196507487114810
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