“Bias” in Indian Media – an Insider’s view

207 thoughts on ““Bias” in Indian Media – an Insider’s view”

1. III.

   But why corruptions still persists (if one acknowledges that it persists):

   1. Corruption benefits everyone in the 'food chain'. In fact, if not for this 'fringe' benefits, there would be little incentive for most to join politics/administration.
   2. Those who enter politics or administration have an inkling that their jobs would entail corruption. I might go as far as to say that many who aspire to enter politics/administration do so only because of the lure of the money and power.
   3. Those who do not fall in line (are honest/conscientious) are taken care of – not given party ticket/dismissed/(bureaucrats) are transferred. And sometimes, killed. Yes, of course, there must be few who are not prepared for this kind of immorality that politics and administration might require. So, either they quietly leave upon becoming wiser, or because they would have sacrificed too much to enter the field, fearing they cannot do anything else in terms of source of income, they 'compromise' (human mind is great at rationalizing things). After all, everyone wants bread-butter and few material comforts.
   4. Even if caught, Indian judiciary is too lax to act on most occasions, so the *risk-benefit ratio* is too much skewed in favor of being corrupt. Remember, not everyone in India is a person of impeccable integrity. In fact, many would like the money/power that politicians/criminals/bureaucrats enjoy, but they do not have the courage to get dirty and caught. So, entering politics/crime, requires a certain kind of *disposition*.

   Now I think it is possible to draw the quite similar parallels with people who enter media.

   Reply

2. IV.

   Now returning to the points your raised to reject the idea that the Nehru-Gandhi family influences the media houses to their advantage:

   1. "It will have to be a massive conspiracy on an impressive scale covering all the big media houses"

   It will have to be a massive conspiracy, no doubt. But the mere scale of the conspiracy would deter people from trying it is not a very valid argument. The most important point here is that there is little deterrence simply because even if something gets detected about one media house, and if another media house tries to expose it, there would would be a 'war of revelations' – every single media house coming up with revelations about each other.

   2. "It has to be so well concealed that no one gets any proof whatsoever"

   Hypothetically, if some reporter of media house is sued for libel or misinformation, how is anyone of us going to come to know?! Say, someone reveals it through twitter or blog, such information would anyway be dismissed as "unreliable testimony" as they would not be originating from the 'verifiable', 'trusted' sources like any of the media houses.

   3. "I find it impossible to believe that other well funded parties like the BJP would not have exposed such a conspiracy by now if there was any truth in it"

   The fact is even BJP must be paying to get the news influenced. Some of the articles praising Narendra Modi's efforts seem to be sourced in such payments/favors. But comparing the time for which the two rival parties (i.e., the Nehru-Gandhi family) got to serve the country, it should come as no surprise that the resources at their disposal are vastly disparate.

   4. "It means that all editors, associated bloggers and correspondents are involved. Meaning that every single reporter and writer is dishonest"

   No, of course, not all the media employees are dishonest. E.g, as I said (in one of my comments on my post) that the print media is much less monolithic than the visual media. There are some people who put up relatively sensible arguments, which are contrarian in tone to the that of better known bloggers (I say this in context of the Narendra Modi-Gujarat riots issue). An example of what I consider a much more logical analysis of the Ehsaan Jafri case than what I usually get to see is this – Unchoose this man (click) by Ashok Malik. But how much prominence do articles like these get? I have unfortunately never heard these kinds of arguments in any of the news debates they show on the TV. Of course, do let me know if you find what he writes insensible.

   Reply

3. VI.

   2. "over 2000 muslimes [sic] died in a near-genocide where they were targeted so thats the answer"
   "200 vs 2000"

   I'm not sure Bhagwad whether your responding in "Hmm" amounted to your buying the argument. But please do consider the following. Do let me know the conclusions I indicate in squared brackets are biased, or if you would like to modify them in any way.

   2.a. "2000 Muslims died (zero/near-zero Hindus killed)" –> [It was a systematic genocide, where Muslims were so helpless and the entire state machinery tried to kill off Muslims]
   2.b. "2000 Muslims died; 200 Hindus killed" –> [Erm… looks like state government might have helped in killing of Muslims, but it did not try or could not save Hindus]
   2.c. "800 Muslims died; 200 Hindus killed" (this was the official figure before 280 missing persons were declared dead 3 years back, which your friend did not quote, perhaps because he automatically assumed that Narendra Modi got thousands of Gujarat police personnel, that of other forces, doctors, clerks – all of which including a few Muslims and those of other religions, and perhaps a few conscientious Hindus – if any exist – would not contradict the figures? Or is it that he did not know of the official figures?) –> [Hindus killed Muslims, Muslims killed Hindus; the damage inflicted by both communities corresponds almost exactly with the breakup of two religions in general population. But it seems unlikely that the government actively sided with people of any of the two religions, though it is possible it might have acted passively as the toll is so high. Whether the forces actually were passive or not would depend on degree of violence showed by the people of two communities]
   2.d. "800 Muslims killed; 200 Hindus killed; shoot-at-sight orders; 170 shot dead by the police (~95 Muslims; ~75 Hindus); Preventative arrests over 30,000 (~7,000 Muslims; ~25,000 Hindus)" –> [Looks like the police and other forces did a god job in trying to prevent the riots. At least the allegation that they stood mute seems untenable].

   Reply

4. VII.

   There is a reason I have underlined the figures of number of Muslims and Hindus killed by the police. For in my analysis that is the only piece of statistic that points at a partisan attitude. Why it would seem so is obvious – that there were more Hindus indulging in violence, so obviously more Hindus should have got killed by the police. There was an explanation for that also, but I am not going into it. It ought to suffice that I am skeptical of that explanation.

   You have mentioned above that your friend is knowledgeable and intelligent. It must surely have not escaped his mind that different aspects of statistic give rise to drastically different inferences? Moreover, he is in the business of media and by extension an insider. If the figures he knows deviate so drastically from the official figures, what is expected of the laypersons? Then it needs to be asked how did he reach a figure of 2000 dead Hindus? He might also, like many, argue on the lines of it being a huge conspiracy theory and that obviously Gujarat government would release wrong figures! Now, if we turn this argument on its head and claim that obviously, your friend has to survive in the media industry, he cannot speak a word against the media in general (lest he meet that fate where employees are fired and would be seen as a liability by any other media house and would thus become unemployable)?

   Around more than a year back I had gone through many links that had confirmed for me that the above figures were true, but I have noticed that since 2002 riots a lot that I had read in newspapers (especially, ToI) has been mysteriously disappearing from the servers or that google is not returning them as search results. Though, this might sound like another huge insane conspiracy theory, coincidentally at least, in one instance the ToI did not cover its tracks properly. It is mind boggling why a news piece with heading like this – More fall prey to police firings in Gujarat (click) should return an empty page, and that too something that had been dated 28th April (Godhra had happened on 27th February)! But any way, just so that the figure of 170 shot dead by police does not seem inordinately high, here is an article from 'The Hindu', which states that police firing had caused 47 deaths in just one single day (i.e., 3rd March). Till that point the total official death toll was 290 (and unconfirmed figure was around 350). Which implies of all those who had died in the violence, ~15% had died in police action in just one day. On 3rd March, totally 86 people had died, so that means at least on that day, more than 50% people who had died were because of police action. That link is here – 86 killed in fresh incidents in Gujarat (click). In wake of these facts how can this theory (let alone perception) be ever sustained the the Gujarat police was passive?

   Reply

5. VIII.

   In your argument with Abhilash, you have dismissed Gujarat riots reporting as one off case. But I am afraid, I do not look at it that way. If you take a look at Gujarat riots reporting, I doubt if any other incident in last two decades must have received as much coverage. Moreover, in terms of what it means to the urban electorate, there is very little that separates the two major parties if one removes the Gujarat riots factor.

   I next examine two things that your friend said and juxtapose them:

   "in streets where some muslims had houses and shops; only those were targeted – based on electoral rolls supplied by the admin – this has been proven in courts" AND "many muslims do not ‘integrate’ into the larger mainstream across the world; even in India 14"

   1. The immediate corollary of "do not integrate" is that Muslims are conspicuous. A few bloggers had argued that to know that certain residence is of Muslim or a shop is owned by person belonging to which community does not "need" any documentary support. Many Muslims live in almost 'Muslim-only' residences (e.g., the 'Gulbarg sociecty'; "Gul" means 'flower' in Persian/Urdu). Moreover, in a mob of 50, even if one says that "I had seen the shop owner with skull cap, or seen him do 'namaaz' or had seen a picture of some verses in the shop", it is sufficient to convince the rest that the person would be a Muslim. So, I personally don't see the need for electoral rolls or any such list to spot persons of any religious community. Counter question: Many Hindus were killed by Muslims in the same riots; who supplied them with electoral rolls or whatever it required to identify Hindus and their property?

   Reply

6. X.

   You have explicitly stated that you trust your friend's view as he is an insider, moreover, because of your acquaintance with him. But I do not believe that the points I raised in response to his arguments could not have been thought by you. If you did think (and if you find my arguments as valid), would you still trust your friend's opinion more than the logic and stats that lead us to certain kinds of arguments presented here?

   Lastly, as I mentioned in the beginning of my comments, it is entirely up to you as to who you believe in, to what degree, and on what bases. I have argued with lot of people on the Gujarat riots issue. I just about bring in the testimony of my relatives (all of who had lived in Ahmedabad and areas surrounding Godhra at that time). Their version totally contradicts what the media portrays. According to them, the police had tried their best to protect the Muslims to escape the label of being anti-Muslim. One of my cousins had told me that a police station had been torched by the Muslim mobs using women as shield. Anyway, many more such things were told, but there are two points I am trying to make with this point. First, for me my relatives are "insiders" (just like your friend is to media), yet that is not the sole reason I believe their version. Though I must confess here that having read about Kausar Bano case and other things, my feelings about Narendra Modi's role were exactly as that of many others, so what my cousin told me had shocked me, but most important sensitized me for the very first time, that media (including prominent houses like 'The Bennett and Coleman') could lie. But the second point is that despite what my relatives told me, I never took them on mere faith – I examined the merits in their statements and tried to correlate them with available data as well as how I understood the world to be. As you might acknowledge, if you do, that is, that though Gujarat riots have been always in so much discussion in the media, any kind of exact figures are so difficult to find! Why is it so, despite the fact that they could be readily known?

   I repeat, one might dismiss media's handling of the Gujarat riots as one-off case, but to be honest, it reeks of a huge orchestrated conspiracy, considering how much has been spoken on the issue. In fact, as I explained earlier, had it not been for the partisan and what I consider devious manner of presenting the Gujarat riots, I might have never looked carefully into the sloppiness, lack of reliability and biases of the media.

   Reply

   • In reply to Ketan

     Thanks for the considered reply Ketan. I think we must refine what it is we're discussing. I'm quite willing to believe that journalists inject their own viewpoints into reporting news.

     After all, we can go back and forth exchanging facts forever. I just had another discussion with my friend, and he gave me more names, dates etc which support his view that the killings were deliberate, but which I see no use in posting here because you can then point out other facts and so on and so forth…

     So as I said, I don't see a problem with journalists reporting something with a tilt. It happens everywhere and I doubt if it's even possible for a passionate journalist to be unbiased. Whether or not Modi is actually guilty is irrelevant to me for this discussion…but I'm quite willing to admit that lots of journalists think he is. And of course, it goes without saying that lots of people all over the country feel that as well. The media reporting will reflect that – no doubt about it. Just like the media lampooned Rathore in the Ruchika molestation and suicide case even before the final verdict.

     So what are discussing exactly? In my view, the important point is whether or not the said journalists are paid to favor one party over the other. And this is where I feel we disagree. Personal bias I am ok with because in the long term it should even out. Paid bias I am not ok with and this is what we're actually discussing. Let me know if you agree with this assessment of mine.

     Coming to your initial points about the conspiracy issue. If indeed the Godhra riots were a conspiracy on a large scale etc, it's a very poorly concealed conspiracy. The whole country has been talking about it for almost a decade, court cases have been filed. In fact, it has been anything but a shadowy conspiracy…and so this bolsters my theory that a massive conspiracy like this can't be kept silent for long.

     Regarding corruption, it's not the same thing at all. For a conspiracy to exist, there has to be a conspirer. It's not a conspiracy if there's not central authority directing events for their own personal gain. Corruption in India can be called a conspiracy only if it can be shown that some entity in the past planned it out and ensured that India would become corrupt for their own purposes.

     It's like tipping in the US. Every damn waiter here demands a tip and you're almost forced to give it – very much like a bribe in fact. But I'm sure there's no central commanding authority that tells waiters to demand tips – it just happened that way. A way of life or a culture isn't deemed a conspiracy unless there's an intelligent will behind it.

     So coming back to the main point, I still feel that massive conspiracies can't be concealed for long. As Tolkien said in LOTR "When a plot is ripe, it is no longer secret." There are too many exit points for a massive conspiracy theory to remain silent. One way or the other, the truth will out. With the Internet providing a safe outlet for the dissemination of the Internet, all it would take is one anonymous tip off to a site like Wikileaks. I myself have used Wikileaks to anonymously and safely release information I don't want tied to me.

     In my opinion, the very concept of massive conspiracy theories involving hundreds of people is defunct in the Internet age. But even before the Internet age, Abraham Lincoln famously said "You can fool some people all the time, and all people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time."

     Reply

     • In reply to Bhagwad Jal Park

       Bhagwad,

       Thanks! You raise an important issue – refining what we are discussing. Let me try to come up with definitions (actually, illustrations), which are essentially mine (so that of course you are free to differ on them :) ).

       Case is that over some argument Krishna slapped Shyam, and Shyam slapped back Krishna equally hard, and following that both go about their work, without doing anything else to each other (whether a situation like this can occur in real life is a different issue).

       1. "Krishna and Shyam argued and then slapped each other equally hard in that sequence and went about doing there work" [Perhaps, the most truthful way to present this].

       2. "Krishna slapped Shyam" [This is dishonest in that a significant fact that would have a bearing on what the reader understands of the issue is being suppressed. Tending to favor Shyam and going against Krishna]

       3. "Shyam slapped Krishna" [This is dishonest in that a significant fact that would have a bearing on what the reader understands of the issue is being suppressed. Tending to favor Krishna and going against Shyam]

       4. "Shyam slapped Krishna unprovoked" [This is more dishonest than above, because "unprovoked" is PoV insertion, apart from suppressing an important fact that Krishna had indeed slapped Shyam first. I call that PoV insertion because, the reporter can claim that he did not think of Krishna's slapping as justified provocation to incite slapping back.]

       5. "Krishna slapped Shyam, and Shyam slapped him back and also spat on his face" [This is invention of a fact, and is being more dishonest than 2 & 3]

       6. "Krishna slapped Shyam, and Shyam slapped him back, but Shyam did so more forcefully" [This is a bias owing to subjectivity in interpretation and has resulted in a misguiding PoV-insertion. But again, imagine if there were some mechanism to *measure* the force/pressure of the slap and they would be found to be equal, and despite that if one suggests that Shyam slapped more forcefully, then I wold again call this dishonesty].

       My contention is that to sustain conscious dishonesty a requires some incentive rather than mere bias. When objective facts like discrete events and criteria like statistics of any sorts are available, suppressing any component of them in my opinion is dishonesty and not mere bias. Let the statistics be dry, after all they take much lesser space than reams of rhetoric!

       Reply

     • In reply to Ketan

       In your example Ketan, there are just two events – one person slaps. The other person slaps back. Just two events more or less describe the entire situation.

       In the real life scenario of the Gujarat riots kind there are shall we say 5 Lakh individual instances of such "slaps?" It's probably more than that, but it's irrelevant what the actual number is. Let's agree that it's large.

       Now no one can report all the incidents in the newspaper even if they're all known. It would take a court to sort everything out once and for all. And as I mentioned, each side has their own statistics. I told you that my friend gave me some of his own examples which proved his point which I don't want to give since then even more facts will come out and then it just doesn't end.

       I am yet to see issues of this nature get sorted out by a recounting of facts because there are too many facts and in no single discussion or newspaper can they all be accounted for. So my point is that no newspaper is just going to give a list of boring facts filling up many pages. No one will read it.

       I want interpretation of facts which help me make sense of the mess. I wanted to know what the newspapers thought of Rathore even before the courts had formally convicted him. I didn't want to hear everything his defense had to say. Sometimes they speak for hours! I neither had that much interest in the case, nor the time. It's not my job, but that of the court.

       But I wanted an informed opinion, and the newspapers give me that. By definition they are biased. And a newspaper like the TOI is openly liberal and favors a certain viewpoint. Which is why I read it. I choose to read that newspaper which is aligned most with the way I think.

       In your slapping example, it's easy to level a charge of dishonesty since the case is easy to talk about. But in a complex situation I'm not so eager to apply that epithet. In fact, I myself may not have been able to do a better job. And as we've discussed in the comments below this one, if lots of people feel that the media is biased, they can start their own companies. I know you feel this isn't possible, but I've replied to you below on that matter as well.

       So in the end, bias != dishonest. And bias != paid to be biased

       Reply

     • In reply to Bhagwad Jal Park

       Bhagwad,

       Certainly I have not demanded, nor expected that each and every individual instance of violence against Hindus and Muslims be recounted! Have I stated that anywhere? My point is simple, and that being studiously trying to conceal over 20% of deaths cannot be attributed to simple sampling error! Moreover, concealing the number of people claimed to have been killed by the police, and those arrested is another major lacuna in reporting. I do not buy the argument that readers would be overburdened by the kind of statistics I expect reported after every instance of violence. If people did not get bored of reading/hearing "over 2000 Muslims were butchered", there is no reason to believe that people would get bored of "800 Muslims and 200 Hindus died, of which 95 Muslims and 75 of police bullets, and 25,000 Hindus and 7,000 Muslims were arrested". These were some of the first lines written in the Wikipedia article and I did not get bored reading it. Almost everyday papers are filled with surveys and their presentation in graphics, with pie charts and bar diagrams and histograms, nobody has complained that they are boring. And if they were boring and were discouraging the readers from reading, then papers and news channels would have stopped publishing them (going by the idea that exactly that, which readers want is presented).

       Reply

     • In reply to Bhagwad Jal Park

       Bhagwad,

       There is an important difference between tipping and bribing – latter is illegal. So, the waiter's superior may or may not reprimand for tipping depending on how it affects the business. But in case of bribing, if the superior is not taking action despite the knowledge of the act, then not acting is again criminal. So, why would such a culture persist (assuming it exists in India), where something illegal is so rampant? It is for this reason I called corruption a 'food chain'. It is a bit like feudalism. One at the base of the (food) pyramid passes on certain percent of their bribe-earning to the one higher up in the hierarchy, which in turn ensures that the one down below is not harmed or removed from a position where bribes could be demanded. So, in this case the central authority is the one at the 'top', especially if he/she allows someone corrupt to continue despite an obligation and resources (information about corruption and authority) to have him/her removed. Well, this would satisfy your definition of 'conspiracy'. But I would not be averse to consider what occurs more clandestinely also as a conspiracy! Clandestine is NOT = 'small scale'.

       The debate is whether something large scale can be done clandestinely? Of course, it can be if the only agency that can report on this sort of conspiracy itself is one of the conspirators and benefactors! Assuming, there was a larger conspiracy in how Gujarat riots were handled, it could come out simply because of an information-disseminating agency, viz., the media. But why would the media make public those means of earning that would damn itself?!

       You mention the internet, but isn't it using only resources available on the net that I am question the media, its methods and motives?

       Lastly, what you say of "you can't fool all the people all the time", does it ensure that no one will attempt this kind of fooling – that is the question. Of course, look at the responses on this page itself , it is very few (only you and Hari) who feel that media is not being manipulated in a big way. I am one of the last person to appeal using popularity of an opinion as its validity, but which begs the question, do you really feel that significant number of people are not feeling that they are being fooled by the media?

       Reply

     • In reply to Ketan

       Your point on corruption is well taken Ketan. But surely you agree that corruption is more of a societal thing in India than a conspiracy by a few people? No one sat down decades ago and said "I'm going to make India a corrupt place for my own personal gain ha ha ha!"

       Moreover, many corrupt people have been punished. They chose to be corrupt even though they knew the risk of being found out, and they paid the price. You can't keep something like that hidden for long. And that's my point. If indeed the Gandhi Nehru family is paying the media houses and involving hundreds of editors, bloggers and journalists where's the smoke? The fact that I haven't had even a shred of proof or even a serious public accusation till now makes me almost certain that there isn't anything of the sort going on.

       Yes, you're able to question the media using Internet resources. But we haven't had any leaks from disgruntled employees saying the Gandhi Nehru family has been paying the media. No evidence showing bank transactions to the media or its fronts. I would have expected to see something like that by now.

       About the number of people who feel it's not being manipulated, it brings out an interesting point. There are eight commentors. And three have said there is no systematic bias. Five say there is. Almost half the people agree with me :) Moreover, most of my regular commenters haven't chosen to comment on this topic, but from what I know of them I can guess their opinions.

       The reason you feel that there is no support for "no bias" is because some people get very vocal about it to a passionate level. And the vocal people tend to drown out those who don't feel so passionately about it and don't care to raise their voices.

       If you visit some of the hardcore hindutva type blogs, you'll be surprised to find that 100% of the comments there agree with the idea that Muslims are evil with horns and that Hindus must re establish their supremacy. Blogs are like that. They tend to polarize, and yet lots of people who agree with me would not like to really comment on this issue since they don't want to "get into a fight."

       Reply

     • In reply to Bhagwad Jal Park

       Bhagwad,

       I never said the primary purpose of media houses is to be corrupt. Their primary purpose is to make profits, and accepting funds for influencing public opinion in certain way is merely incidental in its pursuit. I’m not even saying that they have special affinity for the Nehru-Gandhi family. Had the BJP got more money than them, perhaps they would have influenced the media to a degree greater than the family is able to.

       What you are asking for, that is, details of bank transactions would not be seeing the smoke, but the fire itself! As I see it, so many instances of media misrepresentations & P Sainath’s evidence are smoky enough. Even WikiLeaks is not against the media, perhaps, it’s been more against the US government and army (though I must admit, I don’t know about all their revelations).

       India does not provide sufficient sanctuary to whistle blowers. E.g., one RTI-activist had been killed in Gujarat (allegedly by a relative of a BJP MP), and some similar activist with surname Shetty had been killed a few months back in Mumbai (there are no further details on it).

       And moreover, it would be not very wise to believe that details of transactions made at highest level would known to all the employees. All they would know is this is what I am supposed to make the reader/viewer feel if I have to keep my job, and they need not even necessarily feel disgruntled by that!

       Yes, you’re right that there can be a selection bias in who responds on your posts, but I was reacting only against the “all” part of Lincoln’s assertion. At least the number who believe that the media is fooling them is (significantly) greater than zero. :)

       But more than just responding to my opinion, I believe some of your readers would have tried to counter the specific points I had made. :) Moreover, hasn’t it been a case in the past that readers simply express their agreement through comments even when they have nothing to add? But anyway, as I said, I am not using popularity or unpopularity of an opinion as an index to its validity.

       Moreover, when you factor in Lincoln’s idea, one has to talk of a time-frame. Many corruption cases get exposed, only when the governments change or they are not in power. Let us see when the media companies lose their monopoly in being able to form opinions on a large scale, and then perhaps we will see the kind of revelations you demand.

       Reply

7. Bhagwad,

   I agree with you. The charges leveled against the Indian media that you pointed out are very similar to the charges leveled against the American media by right wing Christian organizations. There is very little substance to these criticisms. News organizations are there to make money and feed into what their viewers want. It is as simple as that. There is nothing that prohibits Hindu or other religious organizations or groups from starting their own news organizations and presenting news from their angle.

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   • In reply to Hari

     That's a good point Hari – I didn't think of that. If enough people feel there is a need for unbiased reporting, it's only a matter of time before someone creates their own "unbiased" news channel that will address the perceived shortcomings of that segment. So everything should come out right in the end.

     Reply

8. Hari & Bhagwad,

   I’m afraid things are not that simple. As I have already contended in my original post, news channels by default are not a profit making entity. Perhaps, the only thing that sustains them are covert funds (be that from politicians, industrialists, celebrities, movie producers, etc.). So, an unbiased channel is doomed to fail financially, because it will have to rely only on legitimate funds from advertising & subscribers.

   Moreover, its news will be sedate as they would not try to sensationalize, in essence, their news would start appearing like Doordarshan news, which few will watch!

   Lastly, it will face an immense crisis of confidence. Imagine, it says, “800 Muslims killed, 200 Hindus, police kills 170 rioteers, arrests 27,000” whereas most other national channels keep on harping on “over 2000 Muslims mercilessly butchered under BJP rule”, people will anyway level charges against such balanced channel of being biased.

   But as I said earlier, profit-making would be a concern. So, such a channel would be difficult to start.

   ………

   Bhagwad,

   In that hand-chopping news reporting one of the two versions is dishonest. Either the four media houses omitted ‘BJP-RSS’ from the original news or the NDTV inserted ‘BJP-RSS’. What precise harms do you think these media houses will incur for their dishonesty in this instance? Am I to stay agnostic of possible causes for such omission/insertion as I have no ‘evidence’?

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   • In reply to Ketan

     Ketan, I don't agree that media houses cannot make a profit without covert funds. After all, the media industry is one that is tried and tested all over the world. Moreover, I have have some perspective on this issue since I actually owned a newspaper in Madhya Pradesh for over a year. It was a failure, but I know how the financials work out.

     It's a pretty big claim to say that the business model itself is defunct. You may have information that I don't, but are you saying that every media outlet in the world is corrupt? Or is it just India? And why?

     There's a lot of money sloshing around. Advertising itself accounts for only 40% of the media and entertainment industry. In addition to that, they license their content to TV channels, they can openly receive government aid (like the BBC does) and they can also receive subscription fees from various channels. In addition, India is the second largest market in the world for newspapers which can be significantly more profitable than their counterparts in the west.

     The Times of India is one of the most profitable companies in India and is certainly the most profitable newspaper.

     Finally, the Times of India is a self declared liberal newspaper and has has openly given its official position on many of the issues we're discussing like Modi, minorities etc.

     Also, as I had mentioned in my reply to your previous analysis, I don't see sensationalism itself as a huge problem. What I have a problem with is news that is paid to be changed. And as I also mentioned in the above reply, such a massive conspiracy would be impossible to keep secret.

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     • In reply to Bhagwad Jal Park

       No, the business model in itself is not defunct, but is in the given context where there are so many news channels covering the same news! Moreover, they are competing with other kinds of channels like that on movies, Hindi channels, English channels like Star World, sports channels! E.g., you might just know a very non-controversial channel called 'CNBC Awaaz'. It is a Hindi business news channel by the most part of the day, but in evenings it presents interesting programs on shopping, product reviews, etc ('consumer channel', if you may, by the evening). I have seen no other channel come up with that kind of programming. So of course, I do not know that it is financially a success or not, but I think it does have a loyal following and the channel enjoys their uncontested patronage.

       Likewise, look at Discovery Channel and the National Geographic Channel. Even their programming seems to be a bit different from each other, but the important thing is at least in India, they are the only two channels of their kind. So, if someone tells me that their business model is profitable, I would not be surprised.

       So, my point is, if we assume that the media houses are out there to make profits, the risk-benefit ratio is weighed quite heavily (I use "heavily" because as I explained, there is little that separates a news channel from another) in favor of receiving favors (financial or its equivalent) from various parties (e.g., political parties, industrialists, movie stars, etc.).

       Reply

     • In reply to Ketan

       But you're leaving out the legality of it. Making money legally is the purpose. And like I said, the business model of newspapers in India is in fact quite profitable if there is a critical number of subscribers. I know this since as I said I used to own one.

       And the P/L statements of the Times group make it one of the most profitable business houses in India. I think you give too little credit to the amount of money that one can legally make in the media business. Even in a fragmented market. A person like me for example, reads nothing but the TOI. With the TOI being so profitable, would you still assume they need donations?

       Also, we can't just assume that the heads of the TOI (as an example) are corrupt. That's doing an injustice to them. We neither know their personal character, nor do we know what they do in their private lives. I'm much more willing to believe in a person's goodness to begin with than to start off by assuming they have dirty hands based on such evidence. We do have people with integrity and honesty, and yes – even an agenda to push. In the case of TOI, a liberal agenda. But that doesn't mean they're doing something illegal.

       Reply

   • In reply to Ketan

     Another thing Ketan. In your reply you seem to agree that the media can slant the news even without being bribed. Basically to please the people who are its subscribers.

     As I mentioned earlier, I don't mind journalists injecting their own views into the news. Without some help in interpreting and choosing which facts to report, plain figures in a table like format are pretty useless. The idea is that different media houses present different perspectives on the news without lying. If lots (but not all) media houses seem to present a unified view, I'm much more inclined to believe that this merely reflects the current mood of society as a whole instead of thinking that they're getting paid illegally.

     I would also hesitate to use the word "dishonest" when describing the examples you've given above. I have a marked aversion to making judgments without giving people the chance to defend themselves and I'm certainly not going to pass judgment on the ethics of reporters just because one line was omitted. If anything, it shows that there are enough news channels around to ensure that the facts will come out irrespective of whether or not individual newspapers publish them.

     Reply

     • In reply to Bhagwad Jal Park

       Bhagwad,

       I also believe that there should be analysis, but I also feel that dry facts should not be meddled with and should be presented in their entirety in matters that are of greatest significance. Even in the Gujarat riots case, if most media houses feel that the entire state government machinery is lying when it says that the total death toll is 1200, of which approximately 25% are Hindus, then I feel it is obligatory to mention these facts prominently. It is also obligatory to present the other statistics like number of bullets fired, number of policemen killed/injured in the process, the break up of age, gender, sex and religion of those killed. Because, after all, just like in most things related to science and economics, opinion must be based on statistics. Statistics = news, but opinion based on statistics = merely opinion (which might even not be based on statistics). But instead, what I see is that these facts have been systematically cut off from the entire news-presentation. Yes, some readers might be not interested or not intelligent enough to make out statistics, but that in itself is not reason enough to suppress them. You won't like if your bank account statement contains "adequate/inadequate money" instead of the exact balance in numbers!

       If the reporters have convincing reasons to believe that the Gujarat government is lying, then should also present the said reasons, but suppression of statistics/objective facts is not forgivable ethically (of course, it is entirely legal, that is why media houses so blatantly indulge in that!)

       Reply

     • In reply to Ketan

       I agree that important facts can't be cut off. But have you ever had the chance to speak to a journalist who has written an article which you think is biased? Journalists aren't a very rare commodity and most of us know a few. If I agree to your view that a certain journalist/article is biased, that would be like a judge convicting a criminal without hearing even a token defense.

       And like I said, I believe people are inherently decent. I place a somewhat high burden of proof on those who say that someone is dishonest. So while I don't contend your claim that you feel a certain article is biased, I can't agree with you until I hear the other side.

       Which is why I asked my friend. And as I tell you again, he had facts of his own too. But like I said, facts can go back and forth and unless one is willing to invest a huge amount of time in them to make sure that everything is covered, it's best not to start. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Which is why the courts are there to do the job for us.

       Reply

     • In reply to Bhagwad Jal Park

       Yes, it's possible that you hesitate to estimate people negatively as compared to my readiness (?) in doing so! ;)

       You also point out that if someone deviates from the truth then eventually it will come out (citing the example of hand chopping), but what you also in addition submit is that this fact itself will prevent people from being dishonest! Whereas, I feel this fear of being exposed is definitely a discouragement, but whether one will indulge in dishonesty is dependent on the risk-benefit ratio. Look exactly at the hand-chopping incident. What is the penalty for either omitting or inserting "BJP-RSS"? Unless and until you point out what are the measurable harms to the above media houses from what they did in the above case, there is no reason to believe that there is some effective penalty for inserting/omitting facts!

       Likewise, P. Sainath has exposed three publishing companies and how they had indulged in 'paid news' (one of them incidentally is Maharashtra Times, owned by the Bennett & Coleman), what harm has come upon these companies?

       Also, all the types of financial favors extended to media houses are not illegal. One of the methods that is alleged is advertising heavily in color print (which costs more than Black and White print) in prominent pages (like the front page), which earns newspapers a lot of money.

       Reply

     • In reply to Ketan

       It's good that you brought up the cost/benefit ratio. So let's examine it. Again, I want to come back to what we're actually discussing. We're not discussing whether or not journalists are impartial. We're discussing if they're paid to do so by the Nehru-Gandhi family.

       So we examine the cost/benefit ratio not for the journalists inserting/removing a line, but for the principle parties involved, namely the Gandhi-Nehru family/Congress and the media houses themselves.

       So what is the cost benefit ratio here? We have to look at not just the immediate costs, but also potential future costs. Like oil companies having to pay more insurance when their liability for a future spill is raised to $10 Billion. Just think about it. If a conspiracy like this came to light – and as I've mentioned, with the Internet, anonymous disclosure, the new Whistleblower protection act, and the huge number of people who must be involved, there is a remarkably high chance of that happening – the entire Congress party and the Nehru Gandhi family will be toast. The opposition will see to that.

       It doesn't end there. If a corporation like the TOI were shown to be involved, it would mean the end of it in the newspaper industry. Unlike individuals, corporations have a longer term view of things since they essentially live forever. Taking bribes to skew the news would be a very poor business decision from a purely practical risk/reward perspective. Certainly it isn't something that a competent CEO would choose to take upon themselves.

       Paid news is a problem. But the very fact that it was exposed bolsters my theory that such things can't be concealed for long. It just isn't possible. And that again raises the potential "cost" to a much higher level.

       Reply

     • In reply to Bhagwad Jal Park

       Bhagwad,

       good post and great responses here! have upvoted your comments.

       bhagwad & ketan,

       was typing a longer comment but that got lost and too lazy to redo. at most what I feel possible or likely in terms of media bias is this:

       Much/most ELM including the 3 major TV channels are broadly on the same page politically (have my doubt abt TimesNOW). They have a liberal-centrist view and they may, possibly do favor political parties that come closest to their worldview/ ideology in terms of "lowlighting" their indiscretions a little. they may allow scandals to more quickly fade into oblivion than if the party in power was opposed to their ideology.

       But I dont think they will lie or fabricate stories. If anything its only the amount of column space/ time. Most of the people Ketan has complained about have lots of stories targeting Congress/ UPA over issues ranging from 1984 riots to spectrum scam. some of them at times are open about their disquiet with the BJP brand of politics, terming it as dangerous; if you come to think of it, corruption if "less evil" than killing/ religious rioting.

       Ketan,
       Greatbong had a post abt some incident at deganga which he says is a glaring example of media bias -obfuscation game he calls it. He is convinced this incident would have been front page stuff on national media, if the community involved had been a different one (army had to be called out for a couple of days or so, we hardly even heard abt it)

       Is this of a piece with what you are talking about?

       thx,
       Jai

       Reply

     • In reply to Jai_C

       Jai,

       Thanks!

       Of course, I know that media cannot be too explicit in its support for the Nehru-Gandhi family. The occasional critiques have to come. But as you pointed out, the impression among most people is that politicians, irrespective of the party they belong to are bound to be corrupt. So, the only measuring yardstick that remains is the support of liberal ideas one of which is secularism, and somewhat an offshoot of it – inter-religious tolerance. So, it is the deliberate suppression of some statistic of the Gujarat riots that has created the impression that there was large-scale governmental inaction or even partisan attitude. Compare the case with 26/11, where it is very easy to find the exact number of dead people, including their nationalities. There, Bhagwad's friend's argument that lesser number of deaths need no reporting.

       Bhagwad also suggests that patrons already have opinions on most issues without any info, and that media only selectively highlights that info, which conforms with the prejudices of the patrons. Whereas, I believe in most instances, people form opinions only on the bases of what info the media doles out, and not the other way round. This is obvious, because in most cases, people do not have any other source of info other than the media!

       Take this in context of Gujarat riots – did most of the people already know that more than 2000 Muslims would (as claimed by some journalists would die)? Did most of the patrons already know that almost no Hindus would die? Did most patrons already know that police would not fire any bullets? And the viewers knew all this already because they knew that Modi was an anti-Muslim, hate-filled bigot despite the facts that he was hardly in the office for a year, and in the interim no major riots had occurred?

       I'm myself an example of a person who had changed his opinion when differing info was offered. So, it is not a case that what info is presented does not alter public perception.

       Also, Jai, do see the links to reporting of another hand-chopping incident in Kerala – how can that be explained?

       Of late I have been reading many tweets about violence in some place starting with 'D', but haven't gone through the details. I was referring to Bareilly riots, which were kept away from public glare for more than a week. There was fourteen-day curfew, and considering it is politically an 'in-focus' media silence was too hard to ignore. There were YouTube videos showing torched Hindu houses.

       Reply

     • In reply to Ketan

       Ketan,

       I am certainly NOT of the view that there is any major conspiracy theory or organized favoritism of any kind. I consider Bhagwad has the upper hand in this debate, on most points including the economics of the media industry, having actually run a paper for a year.

       As I was saying in the comment that got lost, any broadbased media organization ELM that tries to be multicity, or national, will necessary evolve a liberal ethos especially considering how fragmented we are on various axes of identity. It aligns with their business goals, they get to sell more of their product to more of us across India!

       This is not a done deal though. Our inner sub-identities are not completely dormant and we may possess illiberal tendencies, extra affinities for tokens of "us-ness", extra distaste for tokens of "other-ness" even though we by and large watch/ read ELM. The elite who own the large media corporations are as a rule more liberal in their beliefs/ ideology than the middle class who are just getting out of orthodoxy/ conservatism. Thus the audience may feel, at times, some disconnect from their core beliefs and the more liberal views put out by the national media. Since we dont find our inner biases reflected in the news put out to us, it strikes us that the media is biased!

       You can find different models in vernacular media, and some smaller newspapers endorse sub-groupings within their language/ region; they are catering to that audience and that works for them. I dont think political leaders of that group pay them off regularly for that.

       But getting back to the ELM, it is in their interests to support centrist liberal politics and they will not need to be bribed for this. All I had in mind was that individual agencies *may* soft focus or lowlight, to some extent, incidents in the regions governed by parties they are in favor of (without getting paid for that). This is a slight *tilt* rather than a huge *lean* and can only be figured out by figuring out how the same paper would react if the opposite party was in power.

       I offered GB's Deganga post only as a possible example – its not vetted and I know nothing of what that is about. It is very likely that GB and his commenters are making mountains out of molehills. It is one of the hallmarks of conspiracy theorists that *absence of information or evidence* is evidence to them! They thus fall prey to inflated rumors running around in that area.

       re. the professor's hand chopping incident in Kerala, it was more than adequately reported including in national media. I dont know where you got the idea it was under-reported. It is still doing the rounds in some of our regional channels.

       Bhagwad,

       You have this round :-) May I commend the both of you for the exemplary nature of this discussion.

       There is enough delta here for this to degenerate, in some other fora, into name-calling. If not between the principals, sideys get into the action and muck it up.

       thanks,
       Jai

       Reply

     • In reply to Jai_C

       Jai,

       Thanks again for responding!

       You are confusing, it seems, the Joseph hand-chopping incident with some other that I am talking of.

       Please read this comment: http://www.bhagwad.com/blog/2010/politics/bias-in…

       And one of my major objections has been not reporting the official statistic of Gujarat riots. Let them be intrinsically unreliable (which can be countered in editorials), but they need space, because they are the official statistic. To be honest, I do not understand how "liberalism" figured in the entire debate. Yes, ToI can proclaim many things, but that is no reason to believe them. [E.g., Narendra Modi claims that he is not anti-Muslim, but do I highlight that as a point in his defense against the accusations of his biased attitude against Muslims; do we really expect any of the major media houses to proclaim, "yes, we are here to make money, unmindful of how we do that"?] I totally fail to understand how suppressing certain significant piece of statistic is related to liberalism. Can someone here show the connection?

       Lastly, my philosophy is one of skepticism, to try to take nothing on faith – if someone makes a statement 'X', my approach would be "it could be correct, or it could be false, let me try to ascertain it with other measurable available data/evidence (if any) and how much logical sense it makes". So, though this reeks of suspended moral judgment, that is the approach I am most comfortable with.

       Reply

     • In reply to Jai_C

       Thanks for your inputs Jai. I'm sorry your long comment got lost. Was it a problem with the commenting system?

       I too am quite pleased over a good discussion without name calling – it's degenerated so many times in other places that I sometimes despair over whether or not it's even possible to argue decently!

       Incidentally Jai, I've noticed even in your previous comments that you don't leave a website for us to get to know you – do you maintain a blog or something we can visit?

       Reply

     • In reply to Jai_C

       Jai,

       I read Great Bong's post, and it turns out the media's strategy is very similar to the one they had employed for Bareilly riots and Miraj-Sangli riots (incidentally, WB, UP and Maharashtra are all non-BJP ruled states).

       So my hypothesis to explain this non-reporting is precisely the one I had used in my blog post (which had led to this discussion). What is your hypothesis? I am sorry for preempting one of your possible arguments – liberalism has nothing to do with this – yes, every media house has a right to make a choice (I am not contesting that), but I am discussing here the (speculated) motivations behind the choices they make. How do non-reporting (vague reporting) of Bareilly, Miraj-Sangli and Deganga riots and instead reporting what Shiney Ahuja's maid did or F1 lead to promotion of liberalism? Or how would the reporting of the former go against liberalism?

       PS: Again, another partisan approach of most media houses has been exposed, but I don't foresee any of the media houses closing shops on this account.

       Reply

     • In reply to Bhagwad Jal Park

       Bhagwad,

       No, the things are not that simple, IMO. As I asked, P Sainath had exposed Maharashtra Times (and two other papers) in their indulgence in paid news, so what (untoward) happened to the Bennett & Coleman Co.? Absolutely nothing has happened to that paper in terms of profit making, to the best of my knowledge. And moreover, I equate paid news with funding from the top. There is nothing different about the two. In fact, this instance of paid news had even violated the Election Commission's moral code of conduct (as it amounted to 'campaigning' less than 72 hours before the election), and it was suggested that results be annulled and re-election be done, but again nothing happened.

       Moreover, the BJP must be also involved in the paid news business, I have repeated this point more than one times. So, they might not complain. Or even if they complain, who will bring out that complain to us? When March 21, SIT fiasco had occurred, Narendra Modi had written a blog entry with clarifications and critique of the media's approach, it was produced only by Rediff, which is a fringe entity in information dissipation; none of the major news channels to the extent I know had discussed that letter. So, even if media's indiscretion gets revealed, the only agency that can publicize that in India currently is the media itself.

       But I agree, with time as the penetration of blogs and twitter deepens, such stratagems would be difficult to indulge in. And as the reliability of the media would go down, there would be lesser incentive for political parties or even the industrialists to use media (just like the advertisers). But of course, India has not reached that stage yet.

       Just one more example, recently (1-2 months back) Reliance Energy had along with pictures of court orders and contract, proved that Tata Power was misusing the monopoly it had acquired to produce power for Mumbai [you can confirm this with some of your friends in Mumbai]. Tata had through seeking judicial interventions, sought to preclude any other company from producing power. To set up these facilities, it had received huge subsidies and favor from the state government, with this caveat that these facilities would be used exclusively for the benefit of residents of Mumbai. However, Tata had either already entered a contract to provide power to some industries in the South (perhaps, Hyderabad) using the same facilities, or was planning to do so. Whereas, on the other other hand Tata had declared that their power generation capacity was insufficient to meet Mumbai's power demands and hence, they would either try load shedding or would have to raise the cost of electricity supply for the city of Mumbai. This is clearly unethical, and also bordering on (or perhaps is) illegal. This Reliance had let the people of Mumbai know through pamphlets (one pamphlet had reached my home; Reliance is the one of the/sole distributor of electricity for the city of Mumbai). But last I heard, Tata Power is in no danger of shutting shops despite revelation of their unethical practice, nor have I heard that their shares have suffered appreciable depreciation.

       So, even long-term costs are not that high. I don't think if any newspaper gets exposed, there is going to be substantive loss to their business.

       Reply

     • In reply to Ketan

       Ketan, you can't really compare the power struggle between reliance and tata to the newspaper industry here. No one really cares about two corporates battling it out. But if it was exposed that the media was getting paid at a high level it would be a very big deal indeed.

       And it's not just the BJP who can challenge the government. We have hundreds of well funded parties in all the various states. Any one of them will not miss an opportunity to put the government on the mat. Look at how the opposition takes full advantage of issues like the rotting food grains and the price rise. You can't really expect that they will keep quite if they have incriminating evidence against the government.

       Remember how the BJP was holding up money during the no confidence vote a few years back? One can argue that they're no better than the Congress, but that didn't stop the accusations from flying. I think we can rest assured that if any political party had real dirt on the congress, they would ride it out to the fullest. All it would take would be for a party to counter bribe a single editor out of the thousands in the newspaper industry to provide incriminating evidence and it's finished!

       Too may exit routes Ketan. Just too many places where information can leak out – and it need not be through a major news channel.

       Reply

     • In reply to Bhagwad Jal Park

       Bhagwad,

       You use the word "finished" (in context of there being an incriminating evidence against even a single editor). I am asking how? What will happen to that media house? What will that media house do in return to the party that brings out such an act? Maharashtra Times and two other papers were caught quite convincingly in publishing an advertorial (paid news) that too at a time when it was prohibited by the EC. To what extent have Ashok Chavan or any of those papers got finished?

       In Tata and Reliance struggle, I was only trying to highlight that even if one exposes quite convincingly something outright unethical a large corporation does, it need not result in any kind of legal action or lowering of public faith or even public outcry.

       The attempts of BJP MPs were laughable. At least I don't believe that someone would pay them *cash* when so many avenues to transfer money or bribing are available. Moreover, if my memory serves me right, the amount was just Rs. 1 and 3 lakhs. So, it was a ploy by the BJP to discredit the Congress, and that ploy was silly, sensational and unbelievable.

       And all these kinds of money transfers/other kinds of favors do not have to occur with written receipts for them to be captured on camera and leaked through the net.

       Reply

     • In reply to Bhagwad Jal Park

       Bhagwad,

       You said: "No one really cares about two corporates battling it out"

       Are you sure? This was not just two corporates battling out – it affects the people of Mumbai on a daily basis – either power cuts or higher electricity bill. How can one say this does not affect common people and people won't be bothered?

       Reply

     • In reply to Ketan

       Ketan, in both your examples (the reliance tata/maharashtra times issue) you've shown how the acts were exposed and not adequately punished.

       My point is that with regard to what we're discussing, there has been no exposure in the first place! For me, this is what is surprising. Retribution comes later. But where is the exposure?

       Of course, my contention is that if the issue is politically damaging to any party, the opponents of that party will make it their job to ensure that a big deal is made out of it.

       Moreover, the media houses compete with one another. A corruption charge against one of them will be gleefully highlighted by all the others. The media house in question may try and defend itself and malign the party making the charge, but the others won't play along.

       Also, a party need not associate itself with an expose. They can make sure it comes out through an anonymous tip off or whatever to make sure that no media house tries to take revenge. At least that is what I would do if I were the opposition.

       Reply

     • In reply to Bhagwad Jal Park

       Bhagwad,

       "there has been no exposure in the first place"

       Then, what nomenclature would you use for what P Sainath exposed? I am still curious, how is paid news any different from what I am suggesting? What retribution/harm has come upon the three newspapers that indulged in distributing paid news?

       Yes, media houses compete against each other, but when it comes to a common core interest, they can form a cartel-sort of thing, where they look out for each other. Also because, advertising seems to form a smaller portion of their real earning, they are not even truly competing with each other much. E.g., MPs of various parties fight a lot against each other, but when it came to their common interest – raising of salaries – hardly anyone opposed it. So rivalries are obviously issue-based.

       In India, any kind of anonymous disclosure is not going to hurt any of the media houses, because it will enjoy very little propagation. If Narendra Modi's letter that was not even anonymous, was read by very few people (it was at most accessible only to those with internet and keen interest in Indian politics), why would an anonymous internet leak receive any widespread publicity? Forget, anonymous disclosure, how many Indians know about P Sainath's expose of three newspapers (which was far from anonymous) and how many Indians have stopped buying those papers on that account?

       I just received the following comment on my blog:

       "Do you know NDTV has shares in Gulf company Emaar which is accused for fraud in AP"

       I am not saying it is reliable or not, but essentially, how much less or more evidence has the commentator provided than what the media does in most cases?

       [BTW, I was just today told on twitter (so am not sure of its reliability) that Nirupama Pathak was concluded to have committed suicide by the AIIMS – and I hear no news of filing of suits of libel against any of the media houses for insinuating that her mother had murdered her. So, what harm has any of the media house incurred for this indiscretion and dishonesty (of not clarifying when the eventual outcome has perhaps contradicted their earlier news)?]

       Isn't it surprising that to substantiate the above accusation against NDTV one will require documentary evidence like bank statement or picture of someone accepting bribe or name of NDTV in the list of shareholders, but to insinuate that Narendra Modi ordered an entire police force to be inactive/partisan no such proof was (apart from verbal testimony of victims) was required? So much so that you state that statistics are redundant in analysis of what happened! Can we employ comparable, if not, equal skepticism for testimonies from different sources if the nature of evidence (or its lack) is comparable?

       Reply

     • In reply to Ketan

       I'm not denying that paid news is a problem. But the example of Sainath is one thing and the kind of large scale systematic conspiracy involving thousands of editors across the country over perhaps decades is quite another entirely. I can understand an individual case getting lost to the public consciousness, but not an expose of the second type.

       So my only question is where is the expose of the Nehru Gandhi family? Not a single journalist has even said anything even off the record. You know how much the opposition hates Sonia and Rahul Gandhi. They never miss an opportunity to call them "Italian", call her "Madam" and use many other cheap derogatory terms. Are you really saying that if they managed to dig up some dirt on them with regard to something this important they would let it go?

       Not for all the world!

       Believe you me – if the BJP had any inkling of something of this sort they would move heaven and earth to find out the truth. They would hold strikes in the country, raise the issue in parliament and agitate in a hundred different ways. The press would be forced to cover it.

       Your last two paras address the difficulty of proving wrongdoing in court. Well, we're in agreement on that. And like I said, we can leave the issue of whether the media is pushing its own views for another day. Right now we're only talking about whether or not they're getting paid.

       And finally, the information that the most powerful family in India has been paying the media for decades is big enough to be covered not just by the Indian media, but even abroad. Newspapers like the New York Times would cover the topic even if local media didn't.

       The truth will out. One way or the other and like I said, there are just too many exit points.

       Reply

     • In reply to Bhagwad Jal Park

       Bhagwad,

       What appears in three Marathi dailies, by no standards, is small-scale. Also, are you suggesting that such paid news can be inserted with involvement/knowledge of just one person in the staff? Look at the picture in that article by P Sainath, those articles were half-a-page long! You have run a newspaper (not me), so do you really want me to believe that such news in popular papers involving so many employees (where every contributor is concerned how much prominence his/her contribution gets in the paper) can be inserted with knowledge of just one or two persons, without making allowances for typesetting or records for legal purpose (as to what was published and who was the source?)?

       If BJP really hate Sonia Gandhi (which they must, I am not denying), they also have reasons to hate (if not equally, appreciably so) the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, where they have not been able to win assembly elections since last two occasions. What you suggest they would do on national level, they could have done at least at local level in Maharashtra? And mere hatred is not required, they would have been able to score a political goal also by trying to reduce confidence in a prominent Congress leader. Was any of that done? Again not, to the best of my knowledge. I vaguely remember that the issue of paid news was raised in the parliament, but it was (any surprise!) not given much coverage by the national media [if news of riots where people die in well known places can be suppressed, what happens within the Parliament is much easier to suppress]. But this is my vague memory, if I get a link, will update you on it.

       Reply

     • In reply to Ketan

       I won't speak for local language newspapers – in fact, even my friend had said that the language media situation is very different and a whole different ballgame which has political leanings.

       For the purposes of this discussion, I was only referring to English newspapers with a national circulation since it's only in these newspapers online that I hear comments that they're biased etc. By definition language newspapers have a limited influence on national sentiment and are therefore less important.

       And no – it can't happen without lots of people knowing – though it's possible for an editor to just make an independent decision without giving anyone the reasons. Which is why is leaked out! Just imagine how much bigger the kind of conspiracy you're talking about will have to be. And yet there is nothing. Like I mentioned in an earlier comment, I'm less interested ind discussing what would happen if it came out (cause that is speculation) and more interested in why it hasn't come out yet.

       Reply

     • In reply to Bhagwad Jal Park

       Bhagwad, Exactly a day before P Sainath wrote that article, paid news did not exist in even local media, but the day it was written is started existing.

       And then there is one thing, that you have been entirely skipping – accounting for all the instances of lying/concealing/exaggerating – that I have pointed out. My hypothesis could be wrong (precisely because it is a hypothesis!), but you have to provide a provisional one in the meantime that explains all this better. I consider myself a liberal (in that, the individual and his/her freedom should be paramount as against their allegiance with some homogenizing ideology), but I do not see liberalism's relationwith concealment (in few cases, even withdrawal) of vital statistics on something of as great significance as Gujarat riots. I also do not see how non-reporting of the riots (and instead reporting that Shiney Ahuja's maid had withdrawn the complaint) I pointed out contributes to or flows from the ideology of liberalism. None of what you suggest explains how major news channels insinuated March 21 (a Sunday) to be the day of summoning of Modi. How is such a misrepresentation contributing to liberalism? Or how did insertion/removal of "BJP-RSS" contribute to liberalism in hand-chopping incident? Every choice one makes or does not make has its driving forces, what are those driving forces in the instances I pointed out? Your alternate hypothesis, which amounts to people wanting to hear bad things about Modi and inaction or partisan attitude of Gujarat police especially when people had no idea what kind of person Modi was for hardly having been in active politics when riots had occurred, is very difficult to buy.

       BTW, Maharashtra Times, as reported by Wikipedia is the ninth largest selling daily in India (and second largest in Mumbai) – so, no its influence is not limited. Moreover, it goes against your friend's assertion that Times Group is big and does not need to indulge in paid news.

       Also, because the national media is larger, risk to one trying to reveal it would also be graver. So perhaps, to break this barrier of fear would take time.

       Reply

     • In reply to Ketan

       With regard to the news skipping, there are the following points I'd like to make:

       1. I haven't verified what you've said – namely that the media has skipped all these facts. If they have, what is the percentage of the media that hasn't skipped the facts…but let me grant you that what you say is true

       2. Without actually asking the journalists involved, I can't pass judgment. Saying that I've failed to present an alternative hypothesis and must therefore accept yours is like a religious person saying that science doesn't have a hypothesis for why the big bang occurred and so must accept the existence of god. Not having the facts required to make a judgment doesn't mean that one accepts any hypothesis no matter how difficult it is to believe.

       In any case, I feel confident that there's a perfectly benign explanation for the discrepancies you've brought out. This might be due to the difference in our ways of thinking. I don't believe in massive conspiracy theories in general and in my heart believe that there are lots of good people even in corrupt environments who are keen on doing the right thing – even to the extent of exposing corruption. I'm not saying my way of thinking is better than your – far from it. I'm just saying it's possible that the different ways we think can lead us to different conclusions.

       I've already given my reasons for why I think massive conspiracy theories lasting for decades don't exist anywhere in the word – not just in India.

       With regard to national media/local media, it's possible for some organizations to be less corrupt than others because of their organizational culture. I'm quite willing to believe that the TOI won't take bribes out of mere principle. And the best way to find out is by asking people who work in the organization whom one trusts – which is what I tried to do.

       Reply

     • In reply to Bhagwad Jal Park

       Bhagwad,

       1. The indicator that these facts (especially the statistic related to Gujarat riots) were not presented with the sufficient prominence they deserved, lies in the fact that you were not aware of them, and perhaps, was not even your friend (going by the conversation you had with him) [which, it seems, is what convinced you that Modi had orchestrated the selective genocide of Muslims inspiring an entire police force of several thousands to fall in line with his diktats in merely matter of hours!].

       2. No, I am not saying that you have to accept my hypothesis, but you could of course present whatever that benign hypothesis could be. If you point out the 'problem of evil' to the believer citing the problems with the world and then point out that "your perfectly benevolent God does not exist", then the believer would just point out that "right now I don't know why God did what he did, but there must be some (benign) reason God did so". In my analogy, "lapses by the media" correspond to the 'evils in the world', "there must be some benign explanation" corresponds with 'god must be knowing the reason', and "adequate checks exist to ensure that the media does not go astray" corresponds with 'god must exist and must be benevolent, facts just can't be otherwise'. Also, when you bring in the issue of God's existence, I must point out that it is incompatible with the principles of naturalism, which we use in our day-to-day life, but the driving forces that I pointed out in my hypothesis face no such barrier in that they do not violate any fundamental principle of physics/psychology/economics/finances, etc.

       As before, I will not comment on your subjective personal reasons for putting faith in your friend (even I do that with those who I trust).

       As far as I see, the difference between how we see these things can be traced to your being more generous (of course, as compared to me!) in assessing people, and mine being lot more skeptical/cynical.

       If that precisely is the reason the way we look at things, then I consider such differences entirely acceptable, because our attitudes would be shaped by our life-experiences.

       Anyway, to be honest, we (and more so I) have far stretched our arguments. One of the purposes was to point out, what I felt, was a more nuanced reason for this widespread cynicism against media's reliability and manner of operating. I would experience some satisfaction if your views on such conspiracy theories would have even shifted a bit. Of course, if your position does not alter, there is not much I could or should do. But as you might notice, even someone you quite agree with – that is – Indian Pundit also believes in the same conspiracy theory as me, but with different players, that is, the industrialists! He also went on to call me names (only slightly subtly so), which is of course, not a grievance against you, but by which I want to highlight that even those who proclaim to be leftist-liberals (Indian Pundit, e.g.,) share almost exactly the same pattern of thinking with those they accuse of being 'right wingers'. :)

       If you are in doubt of any of the discrepancies I pointed out, feel free to ask for the links, though I have tried to give the links as far as possible.

       No doubt, I will keep on commenting on your other posts, as you make some very good arguments.

       Thanks for engaging! Take care.

       Reply

     • In reply to Ketan

       No doubt about it Ketan – hardcore left wing and right wing guys are two sides of the same coin. Human behavior is the same and I'm hardly surprised that you've been called names by hardcore leftists. I personally don't associate myself with either a left or a right since I don't agree on many of the issues that traditional "leftists" would agree with. I hope I haven't given you reason to feel insulted at anything I've said… For instance, I requested IP in one of the comments here not to indulge in name calling.

       Another feature of both right and left wingers is the classical conspiracy theory – as you pointed out with different players. I don't agree with either side…and I'm especially wary of agreeing with anyone who sounds shrill. That goes for people like Arundhati Roy.

       In general I'm not fond of extremes. As Samuel Butler said "Extremes are alone logical, and they are always absurd"

       Discussions with you are interesting for the precise reason that they don't degenerate into name calling the way I've seen many discussions on the Internet do. I don't classify you as a "right winger" either – you don't fit the "type" :D

       Reply

     • In reply to Bhagwad Jal Park

       Also, as to what you say about the reason it leaked out, it was because someone decided to break it this once. And it happened with three prominent Marathi newspapers. Additionally, what is so different about local v/s national media that the former can get paid to produce certain kind of news, but not the latter? My premise is that in the national media, risk of litigation/loss of business is similar to as for the local media (that is, tending to zero), but the incentive is much higher (money involved is much higher). But on the other hand, risk to life/property/job is much graver when dealing with national issues/media, so the disincentive to bring it out is much higher. So, see the risk-benefit ratio is so skewed against trying to bring this out in case of national media.

       Reply

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   Reply

10. Hey, Bhagwad!

    Lovely post. And it is good to know there is no widespread conspiracy. In any case, it is not possible for anyone to keep such a widespread conspiracy going without any breath of it leaking in a country like ours (or anywhere else, for that matter). And like all media worldwide, am sure each house/paper has its bias. As human beings run media houses/papers and provide content, it would be impossible to have total neutrality. We have our problem areas and Kashmir is clearly one of these – I believe India as a state is not behaving as it should (and has elsewhere) in J&K. It is a thorn for a reason.

    Even if there is a minority tilt in bias, I think that is fine. Any majority has the responsibility to be fair with its numbers. And needs to work harder to bring out the voices of its minorities – be they Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, Zoroastrians or any others. Why limit the debate to Muslims because they are a larger minority? What about Kandhamal? If the media does not focus on it some obscure part of Orissa, how can you and I know and factor it into our decisions? The whole idea of a democracy is that information exists in the common sphere about all for everyone to take their individual calls.

    I am really proud of India's stance to support the Dalai Lama and give him a home here for as long as he wants, regardless of Chinese pressure. When so many other countries are cautious with him. I was ashamed of the dithering to give Taslima Nasreen her space here – so what if she is a 'trouble maker' in someone's eyes? I might disagree but fight to the death to support your right to disagree, right? Voltaire paraphrased.

    When people argue for 200 Hindu deaths to be reported (and I am sure they were) in the face of 2,000 minority deaths, it shows you their bias, not media bias!

    Reply

    • In reply to Sangitha

      Thanks Sangitha. I too believe that a country must work extra hard to give its minorities a larger voice. Cause history has shown that majorities mostly get their own way – though in the case of India I must say that things like reservations etc have gone overboard.

      Reply

      • In reply to Bhagwad Jal Park

        Sangitha,

        I had asked Bhagwad, Jai, and now I ask also you: how does pointing out that not (or subdued) reporting of 25% of deaths leads to conclusions that are drastically different from those that one might draw with reporting them as prominently as the rest of 75% deaths, amount to any kind of bias? Jai had gone on to call my pointing this out to be an outcome of subconscious illiberal bias. But last I checked liberalism had nothing to do with publicizing statistic after applying too much discretion.

        Bhagwad,

        What you state about majority and minority would change with what criteria for division you apply. E.g., rich are a minority and poor are a vast majority. Postgraduate are a minority, those who are not postgraduates are a majority. Parsis and Jains are a minority, and to suggest that they are suffering from some sort of persecution or organized state-neglect would not be taken seriously. Taken together, the reserved sections of Hindus (SCs, STs, OBCs) are a majority (it is a different matter that these statistic are based on 1931 census!), whereas the population that does not enjoy any kind of reservation is a minority, or perhaps, a majority only marginally so. Hindus in India are not at all a majority, because they are too heterogeneous. Just look how Jats and Gujars fight for their individual rights, and in the process prove that they are not a subset of the larger monolithic label called 'Hindu'.

        Reply

      • In reply to Ketan

        Naturally it depends on the criteria being applied. That way those with grey eyes are also a minority! But the general meaning of minority as defined is a bloc that is different from the rest of the population in a meaningful way…like disabled people for example.

        About the heterogeneity aspect, what was the makeup of the mob that killed muslims in the Godhra riots or destroyed the Babri Masjid? No one cares what their castes were – all that can be said is that they were Hindu.

        Reply

      • In reply to Bhagwad Jal Park

        Yes, Bhagwad, you are right about Gujarat riots, but then why have there been inter-caste riots? Why were north Indian Hindus ill-treated by (presumably) Maharashtrian Hindus in Mumbai?

        And when one talks of heterogeneity among blocs, it arises only when there is some sort of difference from the rest. And it leads to the same question – 'difference' based on which criterion/criteria?

        But you perhaps missed my point above – being a numerical minority in itself does in no way mean that the community is disadvantaged and that its concerns need special attention, or that the perceived backwardness is an outcome of being in minority. And alternatively, being a numerical majority does not make someone advantaged. British in India were a minority when they had made India their colony, as a drastic example.

        It there is backwardness, its precise cause must be found out – and that cause must be tackled. As you know very well, that simply being numerical minority in no way makes one deserving of kid glove treatment.

        But anyway, what you or I think of policy-matters is irrelevant to the original discussion. My original question is: by what kind of logic does 25% (or to make sufficient leeway for Sangitha's position – 10%) of deaths becomes significantly less deserving of mention by virtue of belonging to the majority community? And how is application of such logic related to liberalism?

        Reply

      • In reply to Ketan

        Minorities also need to be protected when they hold views that are different from others and disapproved by the majority – like homosexuals for example. Or in some cases religion.

        About the reporting, if I had to sum up my news in one line to make it easy to understand, how would I put it? I would focus on the large numbers of people from the minority group killed rather than the smaller numbers of people from the majority group.

        Cause the point isn't just about how many people died. The point is that there was an organized carnage against muslims and the facts I report have to highlight that. For the purposes of my reporting the systematic carnage, nothing else matters.

        Reply

      • In reply to Bhagwad Jal Park

        Bhagwad,

        But what you think of the occurrence would and should be a part of the opinion, not news. I would prefer that significant components of statistic are written down plainly (just like how "2000 Muslim deaths" was written down), and the reader should be left to judge what to make of it. There is no binary here – the reporters can and should express their opinion all they like, and that does not preclude anyone from also reporting other significant pieces of statistic.

        If you feel that despite the fact that 10-25% deaths were that of Hindus, it amounted to carnage against Muslims, then perhaps your reader would anyway feel the same reading about 10-25% of Hindu deaths, so still there is no reason to studiously keep from mentioning that statistic! Any 'resultant' vector is an outcome of the magnitude and directions of two (or more) 'component' vectors. So, there were two carnages occurring simultaneously – one of Hindus against Muslims and the second one of Muslims against Hindus. The former one was the bigger vector, the latter one was a smaller vector (in the opposite direction). Just because a vector is smaller, does it become reason to not mention it? Look at the absolute values of the second vector. 59 Hindus were killed in Godhra attack, which was quite prominently reported, but more than three times that were killed in post-Godhra riots and yet that is not found to be worthy of mention?

        If I read the news of cricket match, hardly any news piece would end with "India beat Kenya comprehensively", in all likelihood, there would be individual scores, the margin of win, significant individual achievements/failures (corresponding to highlighting cruel tales of violence against individual Muslims). I would find it ludicrous if there would be whole lot of analysis of the game-play, but if just to find out how much the individual teams had scored, I would have to expend too much effort!

        Sorry, if my cricket-analogy sounds insensitive, but my point is significant statistics are treated quite differently in most other instances by the media. Headlines could be that India beat Kenya comprehensively, but the actual news does not end there, at least in my opinion.

        Reply

      • In reply to Ketan

        Your cricket analogy is apt Ketan. But there's an important difference.

        In the post Godhra riots, it's pretty much acknowledged that the Hindus were the aggressors. We have speeches on youtube by Praveen Togadia for example exhorting mobs to violence.

        People feel little or no sympathy for aggressors – and in a news story talking about how one community targeted another, it's hardly interesting to know how many attackers died. What I and others want to know is how many victims were targeted. The fact that some of those doing the targeting were killed as a consequence of their own hate is not important to the story.

        I don't want to hear a lot of statistics – I want an informed opinion on what happened with extraneous details removed. I want to know the essentials as well those facts that give me a good idea of what happened. It's obvious that in any violent riot people of both sides are going to die.

        I don't need to be told that Hindus died. It goes without saying. But since they were the aggressors I'm not really concerned about them, and I get the feeling that the media thought the same way.

        Reply

      • In reply to Bhagwad Jal Park

        Bhagwad,

        You have made two assumptions, which are difficult, or do not necessarily connect with what happened on the ground:

        1. That you heard Praveen Togadia exhorting Hindus to kill Muslims and that is what led Hindus to kill Muslims (you had called those who killed agressors).

        2. That all or most of those Hindus died had been aggressors. It is precisely to know whether they were aggressors or not statistic like whether they were women or children or men are necessary (of course, women and children could be aggressors and men could also be innocent victims).

        And it is simply because you would not want to hear too much statistic, you find it easy to reach conclusions of the kind in point 2. :)

        Reply

      • In reply to Ketan

        But that's my point Ketan. Just like you, there are lots of intelligent people in the media. Which is why the TOI for example has editorials from so many different people holding vastly different viewpoints. It's wrong to say that the TOI has never published opinions from prominent people who support Modi.

        The statistics you talk about will be brought out if they're important. There are many in the media who have integrity and will not be swayed by corruption and bribery and I depend on these people to tell me the truth of what happened.

        I don't believe that everyone who writes an opinion piece in the papers can be corrupt. Because thinking such a thing of a person one has never met is wrong and is an injustice to them.

        I rely on second hand knowledge for the same reason that I don't go into the detailed science of climate change myself. There's too much and I have lots of other things to do which prevent me from going into a detailed analysis of statistics. I just listen to the scientists.

        In the case of gujarat, I'm willing to read editorials by people with integrity and thus I get a wide view of all opinions. And subconsciously I collect all these editorials and a picture emerges one way or the other.

        Reply

      • In reply to Bhagwad Jal Park

        And one more thing, why would you want your news to be easy to understand? Moreover, what is so difficult to understand that Hindus killed Muslims and Muslims killed Hindus, but more Muslims were killed because Hindus were more in the population? How much IQ does it to take to understand this?

        If the only point of the news presenters and the opinion-makers is to present news in simple succinct way, then there is no need to come up with the amount of analysis that has gone into the entire event. All kinds of details like who the judges were in certain cases, or names of some of the Muslim victims, even the number of people killed in Ehsaan Jafri attack are known. It has been reported so many times that over 200 hundred calls were claimed to have been made by Ehsaan Jafri, and compared to that simply reporting number of dead Hindus and those killed/arrested by police would make the entire news/analysis lot more complex?

        When there was 26/11 attack, one of the first questions that came to people's mind was what actions the government was/had taken in response. Was this not one of the significant questions with regard to Gujarat riots? Have the figures of 30,000 arrests and 170 killings been highlighted that conspicuously? Why or why not?

        I do not buy the argument that reporting above statistic would have made it difficult for a person of average IQ of 95 to 105 to interpret things (if that is the one you were making as you mention "easy to understand".

        Reply

      • In reply to Ketan

        Ketan, the media will give the details that it feels its readers will appreciate. They make the news as simple or as complicated as their readers want. After all, the media isn't a charitable institute. If a newspaper is successful, then by definition it must be doing something right!

        I don't agree that the media model in India doesn't work – the TOI makes piles of money and (as I've said before), is one of the most profitable companies in India. They got that way by writing news that their target audience is interested in.

        If a lot of people want a table of statistics, then some enterprising person will start a news channel targeting that niche. That's the way the industry works no?

        Reply

      • In reply to Bhagwad Jal Park

        Bhagwad,

        I have never said that propaganda is in anyway antagonistic to earning profits! So, what you term as right or wrong is not in terms of what needs to be done to report news ethically. It is only in terms of what needs to be done to earn money.

        No, industry does not necessarily work the way people want. E.g., I do not believe that most people would want advertisements to be misleading, but yet quite a few ads are misleading, and yet advertising industry is successful, simply because the agents, which want the ad-makers to shape opinions want them shaped a certain way. So even though there is a niche of people that want ads to be truthful, there aren't agencies that make these kind of ads. However, some campaigns are truthful, and just like that there are a few instances of media houses having published the statistic on Gujarat (including ToI, an article they incidentally deleted – incompletely so).

        Also, as I already pointed out, there are many instances where ToI publishes lot more statistic than the simple ones I pointed out they could have published. So, there is no way to determine that people do not like statistics.

        Reply

      • In reply to Ketan

        There's a limit for everything isn't there? If ads get too untruthful people will get disgusted and advertisers have to ensure that people don't lose all faith in ads. One can only push it so far.

        I had commented earlier on how I as a person would be less interested in hearing about how many aggressors were killed and more interested in hearing about how many victims were killed since it's only the latter statistic that is representative of what happened.

        As a newspaper if I want to tell my readers that systematic carnage occurred, I will put the number of aggressors killed as a mere footnote and instead give those facts prominence which are representative of what happened.

        Reply

      • In reply to Bhagwad Jal Park

        Bhagwad,

        Again, in your entire analysis, you have repeated your assumption, which I feel is unfounded, and made another analogous assumption. First assumption is obviously: that all Hindus killed were aggressors. And second assumption is that all Muslims killed were victims, and none of them were aggressors. You, in my opinion, have made classical mistake the media wanted us to make that: "all Muslims who died were innocent victims, and all unmentioned Hindus who died must have been aggressors, and that the Gujarat police did nothing and just looked on (to support which the statistic on what all Gujarat police did was not revealed just as a footnote, and at many places not even that)". How did you arrive at these conclusions about how many were aggressors and how many were victims. At best, one can say whether they were Hindu, Muslim, children, adults (and of which gender), and perhaps, if they were killed by police or not.

        "As a newspaper if I want to tell my readers that systematic carnage occurred"

        IMO, as a newspaper, my duty in telling news would be tell what all happened, instead of "I want to tell", which would be part of editorials/opinion.

        Reply

      • In reply to Ketan

        Ketan, what are we discussing exactly? I just read the wikipedia article on the Gujarat violence and I've read the reports compiled by Human Rights Watch, the NHRC, and the USCIRF who have conducted their own investigations.

        Do you really think that these bodies would have neglected to take into account whatever facts you're bringing out now? All these bodies have agreed that the violence was systematic and planned. Why do you want me to go through the facts myself when other more competent people and organizations with more time, experience and perspective have done it for me?

        I understand that you feel the Indian media is biased. But why would so many diverse bodies be biased as well? In matters like this when so many independent bodies are presenting a certain view, I would be an idiot to try and reinvent the wheel and do the research myself. I just go by what they say.

        So when they tell me that the violence was systematic and planned, I believe them and don't need to look further. When the courts themselves have expressed concern, I believe them. When the entire media agrees and most bloggers, editors etc who have seen the same facts that you have concur, don't you think it's a bit redundant for me to to think they're all wrong?

        Reply

      • In reply to Bhagwad Jal Park

        Bhagwad,

        I get your point. :) I think we have covered almost all arguments that could have been made between us, and that is why we are returning to essentially the same points (e.g., 'how could all the people who I consider to be of high integrity and who I get to hear, all be wrong at the same time?')

        Perhaps, one of the last comments on this issue from my side, and in which I ask a hypothetical question.

        Suppose, the court judgment on Gujarat riots issue says that there was no systematic attempt on the part of Narendra Modi to harm Muslims and that he had tried sufficiently/his level best to bring the law and order situation under control. Then, let us further suppose that the same organizations above state that the court could not find evidence as all of that was destroyed by the perpetrators of the genocide. And here I posit that just like a crime leaves typical evidence, attempts of destruction of evidence leave an evidence of their own. What would be your take on the competence and integrity of judiciary, legal and forensic experts, and what would you make of the above organizations?

        Of course, this is a hypothetical consideration, so you might skip it. But I am curious of what you would feel.

        I have asked myself quite the opposite question. If the courts declare that Modi and the government were guilty of deliberate inaction/partial action and that what started within hours of train burning was a well-orchestrated conspiracy (involving the state machinery – added after first publishing), I would be quite taken aback. I would have to revise my theories on how I view the world. Not that I am not open to revisions now, but that would have to be a more radical revision. I hope, when I am proved wrong I would have the honesty and the courage to concede the flaws in my understanding of the world and the people. :)

        To be candid and a bit personal here, media for me plays a very small role in my life. I am one of the persons who thinks there is no extrinsic (meaning, defined/given to me by someone other than myself) purpose to life. I like to observe, think, understand, hypothesize, and if I overcome my laziness sufficiently, to try to apply my hypothesis to test them in the real world, e.g., by trying to develop some technology (because that is what I enjoy the best). Some of the important decisions I take in life are dependent on how I view the world. E.g., had it not been for the generalized cynicism (which you must have quite easily observed) I harbor, I might have tried different things with my life, e.g., devoting it (entirely or partly) to the service of poor patients or entering the civil services to try to improve things. If my cynicism is proved wrong in a big way, I would regret my career-decisions to which I would have got committed by then, but I also hope that life will allow me sufficient margin to reverse them at least partially. And it is for this reason I mention courage and honesty in context of conceding my being wrong, because as it is, it is not very difficult to come up with few other conspiracy theories (like, selection of judges was influenced by Pratibha Patil, against whose immediate family members exist allegations of few grave crimes! ;) ). No, I am not making a background for further excuses, I sincerely hope I would be able to keep my objectivity.

        Thanks, again!

        PS: I will not respond on this post, unless and until you ask me some specific question or if I feel inclined to respond to someone else's comment.

        Reply

      • In reply to Ketan

        Thanks for asking this Ketan, and I think it's important that I explain how I feel on these sort of matters.

        First, let us agree that any analysis can potentially be wrong, whether we do it ourselves or take it from someone else. Our goal therefore is to choose a method of finding out the truth that puts us in the wrong as infrequently as possible.

        In my opinion and experience, when lots of people and organizations with no agenda, who come from different sources, who are qualified, and who have acted independently of each other come to a certain conclusion, they are almost always correct. That is what I call the consensus and though the consensus can be wrong, they are right far more often.

        Climate change skeptics often ask me how I can blindly trust 98% of the scientists who agree that AGW is a serious threat without "finding out the facts for myself." I have to respond to them by saying that while it's true the consensus could be wrong, it has a very great probability of being right – so given a choice I would blindly accept the consensus (provided I'm convinced that it's a real consensus and that it's a qualified consensus!)

        So the answer to your question of "What would I say if the consensus in this case regarding systematic carnage in Gujarat was wrong" is that I would say "Damn! I hope they learn from their mistakes and do a better job next time."

        Because even after that, I will still believe in the consensus of qualified people because in the long run, the consensus gets it right about 95% of the time. And that's a pretty good statistic.

        Reply

      • In reply to Bhagwad Jal Park

        Bhagwad,

        Sorry to break my promise that I return to respond. :)

        I had read your post and quite a few arguments and counter-arguments (especially with someone involved with an NGO and helping farmers and with amateur blog on climate). I of course feel quite unqualified to debate on that. But I also felt that such debates on global warming miss the point. Whether human-caused global warming is occurring is one thing, but for the debate to be more meaningful, we might need to answer several more questions – will it cause exactly the same effects as predicted by the scientists, what is the level of consensus on such predictions, what solutions are suggested to ameliorate such damage, and with what pace can we afford to implement the proposed solutions given the high demand for energy, food (more agricultural land –> more deforestation), living space, etc. Because answering all these would lead us to a few answers as to what we are supposed to do! [E.g., one significance that our debate on media holds is that whether we can base our decisions on what media conveys, which would depend on how reliable we consider it. For instance, one of my friends tells me that his cousin's personality has changed since he started watching on several Hindi news channels that the World would come to an end in 2012. He has lost all ambition and is perhaps now depressed also.] So, just like relying on media has at least some consequences in our life, relying on global warming warnings would also have significant consequences – shall we build a new thermal power plant which would help supply electricity to a hospital, where frequent power interruptions cause vaccines to go waste (this example is not even completely made up!) or would it be wiser to build wind mills at the cost of some vital space where building could have come up so as to ease overcrowding in existent cities and to let few people out of villages so as to reduce the disguised unemployment that agriculture in India represents?

        It is for above kind of considerations that though I would be quite okay with accepting the hypotheses of scientists as to what causes global warming, it is with great trepidation I would want to stall construction of thermal power station or erect wind mills instead of urban colony [assuming, overall efficiency of wind mills in power generation is quite low].

        But if you see, predictions of global warming require some real scientific training and sophisticated simulation systems including super computers. These scientists themselves are saying that they are making reasoned guesses, and that they could be wrong. Essentially because, they are trying to predict the future (something that has not occurred, except for the recorded trend of rise in global temperature). Whereas, the above organizations are claiming to report the truth on Gujarat in that they are reporting events that already and actually occurred! If they are proved wrong, what they would lose would not be impression of being competent, but the impression of their being honest! Because witnessing certain events and reporting them as they would have occurred does not require much intelligence or training (IMO), though it might require courage and certain kind of personality to enter areas with ongoing riots and people killing each other with swords, guns and petrol bombs.

        Reply

      • In reply to Ketan

        This is an interesting topic and I thought a separate blog post would make more sense. So let me compose one and then we'll discuss more!

        Reply

      • In reply to Bhagwad Jal Park

        Hahaha!

        I guess, you were referring to global warming and the related economic considerations? Yes, it is interesting, and though I am quite given to air my opinion with little knowledge, this is one area where I feel totally lost! ;) E.g., I would be confused, what do we owe to the future generations, if at all we do, who are not yet born? Likewise, I feel that given the same resources, had India's population density been much lesser (say, 10% of the current), Indians would have been much more prosperous, less frustrated, with lesser incentive to be unethical and perhaps that would have led to better work culture. This connection between prosperity and ethics might seem remote, but I will try to explain it in one of my blog posts someday. But Dilip D'Souza cites examples of countries like Singapore as exception and Atanu Dey (who is PhD in Economics) feels that even with current population density, with right economic policies India can improve a lot (and he cites reasons also). So, I do feel quite at loss.

        Sorry for the off-topic comment. Do let me know if you are particularly against off-topic comments.

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      • In reply to Ketan

        No issues :)

        Actually when I said that I would write a separate blog post I was referring to the whole "consensus" thing. Let's see how it turns out!

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      • In reply to Ketan

        Ketan,

        1. I did not think there was any significant under-reporting of casualties of any one community vis-a-vis the the other. but I admit I have an entry barrier to this topic- its a little repulsive to classify victims along these lines and compare counts.

        This above is just a statement on how I view this and why I dont spend too much time in this analysis. I do not impute or imply anything to anybody that is interested and pursuing this breakup.

        2. I actually do believe, that in immediate context of any violent event, it is *good* for media to exercise considerable discretion and caution in their reporting of events, this includes identification of community etc. After things are settled down and order is restored, however, it is their duty to publish clear data in matter-of-fact, non-sensationalist terms. Any suppression thereafter is indeed dubious.

        You may call this characteristic liberalism, or sensitivity ( I actually feel this is also pragmatic and the path of least-harm) and I have no quibble.

        3. We are certainly not a majoritiarian democracy, we enshrine protections for minority rights ( I think this has something to do with our being a republic, I am genuinely unaware) and I am very supportive of those protections.

        4. However simple majority-minority distinctions cannot always be made when looking at a situation where riots break out. It invariably is indulged in by whichever group has a *local majority* and the local minority which could numerically be a super-majority at a regional or national level can suffer. I think you have made similar points in this disc. but not sure. Greatbong made it on his comments back there.

        Local majorities can be national minorities, they can even be miniscule to the point of not appearing to exist when ratioed into our huge national population. This should not distract us from the actual acts of omission or commission.

        5. There is *one* caveat. The radicalization of any community does depend to some extent on its numeric strength. More the numbers more recruits possible for violent acts, more the scope for spreading. hence I will consider majority communalism to be more worrisome than minority communalism.

        ie. a national-level majority community has many, many places where it is the *local majority* and miscreants of this community have significantly more opportunity to indulge in violence.

        I dont know how you guys keep this up. This is my last comment on this topic :-)
        thanks,
        Jai

        Reply

      • In reply to Jai_C

        Jai,

        Responding to each of your points sequentially:

        1. I find in many articles, analyses and even news piece that over 2000 Muslims had died. But official stats is something else (800), which has hardly been reported. So, I see many instances of invention of facts or exaggeration.

        2. I would agree with you. But even before the final count of dead was over, there were 'news' screaming something like "over 2000 Muslims butchered". This does not seem sensitive, nor liberal (by the aspect of liberalism you elucidated upon). There is only one major article (in my knowledge) by the ToI, that had mentioned the breakup of total number of deaths, their community wise breakup, the number of people (of either religion) arrested and killed in police action. It was published in 2005 (three years after the riot), but in 2010 I find that the text of that article is missing. No reason has been given for doing that. I might be wrong, but perhaps, whatever registered news media present as news is to be preserved, as many times they are used as verifiable source in case of legal disputes. Maybe, this might not apply to online content, but deleting/modifying something (that too on a significant issue) is less than ethical in my eye, and invites my suspicion as to what could be the motive. In fact, I find many articles disappeared, but it is difficult to prove that. It's just that I could prove it in one case.

        3. IMO, what you state has very little to do with whether 25% of deaths ought to be reported or not. Moreover, that sentiment does not preclude the media houses from reporting what action the government of Gujarat is claiming to have taken to try to control the riots.

        4. I agree, in a major breakout of riots, at least some innocent people from the majority community would get killed. And nor all from the minority community who get killed need be innocent. They might also have been aggressors.

        5. What you point out is certainly true. That is why I have mentioned that there were more Hindus trying to kill Muslims than Muslims trying to kill Hindus. But of course, this not always hold true. In Godhra train burning, the number of Hindus killed was unimaginably more than number of Muslims killed. However, one of the most important of the points of debate (for me) is, then why is it also insinuated that more radicalized Hindus, with greater numerical strength needed state government support to kill Muslims? And as a corollary, why the actions taken by the Gujarat police were not prominently mentioned?

        Lastly, why would you say that this is your last comment? What if some new point of argument emerges? :)

        Thanks!

        Reply