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IT is virtually impossible to divine a rumour from belief in India, and television makes the task more forbidding. It is a Goebbelsian rumour that the Taj Mahal is a refurbished Shiva temple, but the claim is also a belief held sacred by many who have been brainwashed by Hindutva’s historiography.
You may have heard of the persistent rumours a few years ago that a monkey-like apparition had been scratching and lacerating people’s faces in a populous district across the Yamuna River in Delhi. Many still believe the incident happened though neither they nor TV channels that promoted the story, offer any proof let alone a bleeding face to suggest an assault.
In the insecure society that India is being moulded into, rumours can and do find political utility. Almost a year ahead of the 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, a canard went careening through several Indian cities that the 16th-century mosque had been destroyed by a Hindutva mob.
This was a tester before the real event, and to give the nonsensical claim instant credence, authors and carriers of the rumour falsely quoted the BBC as the source of the ‘news’. Rumours trigger and fuel communal riots, and they can also destroy political opponents.
They clearly had a hand in Gujarat in whipping up the anti-Muslim pogroms of 2002 though the enormity of the massacre continues to be played down by the mainstream media as ‘Godhra riots’ or ‘post-Godhra violence’, implicitly justifying the action-reaction canard. The death of 65 Hindutva activists in a train coach that was allegedly set on fire by a Muslim mob had invited retribution. I wonder if Indian anchors would equally readily describe the Jewish Holocaust as Post-Reichstag-Fire violence by Germanys majority community? They dare not.
Television in India has spawned a large number of private channels that vend religious beliefs, political rumours, Bollywood gossip, and punter-friendly real-time data from the bourses, the last one being bread and butter of the country’s casino economy.
In a strange turnaround, serious viewers are tuning into state-run channels they had once discarded. Two of them, ironically enough, are sponsored by parliament’s two houses that offer meaningful and relatively unbiased, informed news.
Take a recent example of how a rumour is manufactured on television. An anchor, known to model his right-wing stance on Fox News-style biliousness, pilloried Rahul Gandhi in the Congress scion’s first major TV interview the other day. He hectored the nervous and inexperienced quarry about his party’s hand in the anti-Sikh pogroms of 1984.
As a stand-alone charge there couldn’t be an iota of doubt about the Congress’ overt or covert role in the mass lynching of innocent Sikhs in Delhi and elsewhere in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination. However, the interviewer was persistent on ruling out any role of Narendra Modi in the Gujarat pogroms of Muslims. He kept reminding the viewers that Modi had been given a clean chit by the SIT, the special investigation team set up by Indias apex court to investigate the 2002 massacres.
The fact is that the SIT did no such thing. Its 2010 report clearly said: “In spite of the fact that ghastly and violent attacks had taken place on Muslims at Gulberg Society and elsewhere, the reaction of the government was not the type that would have been expected by anyone. The chief minister had tried to water down the seriousness of the situation at Gulberg Society, Naroda Patiya and other places by saying that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”
The fact is that the chief minister’s supporters including a woman minister are serving prison terms for 95 murders in Naroda Patiya, her constituency. Maya Kondnani was an MLA when she was charged with the massacre of Muslims. Modi knowingly elevated her to become minister.
Repeat a lie till it becomes a successful rumour. There was another subtle lie the interviewer pushed along, and Rahul Gandhi foolishly had no answer for it. The fact is that the Congress party was in cahoots with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (and not with the UK alone) in the army’s invasion of the Golden Temple, and it also played a hand in the mass murder of Sikhs, which followed Indira Gandhi’s assassination.
Nanaji Deshmukh, a senior RSS leader wrote around that time about the massacres and the army raid on the Golden Temple. Deshmukh’s letter published by George Fernandes reads like some reaction of a Congress leader who was caught heading the mob.
“Explosion of sudden arson and violent hysteria throughout the country was probably a direction-less and improper expression of the hurt, anger and feeling of loss of her followers. Lakhs of her followers used to see her as the only defender, powerful protector, and a symbol of united India ... Barring a few exceptions, the Sikh community observed silence for a long time on the barbaric massacres and heinous killings of innocent people, but they condemned the long-pending army action with anger and dangerous explosiveness. The country was stunned at their attitude.”
A report from The Hindustan Times of Feb 3, 2002, has surfaced to support the claim that members of the quasi-fascist RSS played a role in the anti-Sikh violence. It quotes FIRs lodged against some of the suspects to make the claim. However, the Indian rumour-mill grinds on, riding as it does the growing popularity its Goebbelsian anchors enjoy.
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
