Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Media Watch  From holy cows, Hindu India’s obsessions seems to have shifted to old mosques. India Today’s cover story this time [June 13] is on this new fad of Hindu nationalism. Titled ‘The Mandir Wapsi Movement,’ the story warns us of “a new phase of Hindu revivalism.” Sunil Menon begins the lead story with Shah Jahan’s Hindu ancestry. “Shah Jahan’s mother was Rajput,” writes Menon, “and his father was half-Rajput. His son, Aurangzeb, had Rajput blood from his father and Persian from his mother.” The metaphor that is currently vitiating the country’s air – the Muslim as foreign invader – deserves a harder look. “The fact that the last three of the six ‘Great Mughals’ were products of intermarriage complicates that simplistic trope.” However, the writer knows that facts hardly matter nowadays in India. The stories we tell ourselves matter. And we are fabricating a lot of false narratives these days by which many mosques are metamorphosing into temples. Modi’s government pre...

Present India is governed by Nathuram Godse’s legacy. Hatred is its fundamental driving force. The organisation that shaped the thoughts of Godse (and Modi as well) re-emerged on the centre stage since Modi took charge in Delhi eight years ago. That is quite natural; cultures have a tendency to revive themselves more strongly than in the original version. The New Yorker wrote on 5 Mar 2017 that since Modi became the Prime Minister, “the militant group (RSS) has been legitimized and grown exponentially more powerful.” The article titled ‘ The Violent Toll of Hindu Nationalism ’ was written three years after Modi strode on the red carpet to Sansad Bhavan, having made a grandiose display of humility that he never had by falling prostrate at the entrance. Three years and “nothing to show in terms of economy and development,” said the New Yorker . Nothing worthwhile to show. So religious nationalism became Modi’s only effective platform. Modi’s hatred of Muslims was already legendary...

  Imposition of a language is also an imposition of a culture as well as history and even emotions. Language never comes alone. It is an enormous package burdened with a heavy baggage. India’s present rulers cannot be unaware of it. Nevertheless, they are hellbent on imposing Hindi on the entire nation. In the 37 th meeting of the Parliamentary Official Language Committee on 8 April 2022, Amit Shah declared majestically that Hindi would be made compulsory in all schools of the Northeast till class 10. 22,000 teachers were already recruited to teach Hindi to the Northeasterners, the Home Minister said. He also exhorted all Indians to use Hindi instead of English for communication among people whose mother tongues are different. “One nation, one language” is a pet slogan of Amit Shah’s. He raised it rather vociferously in June 2019, soon after the Draft New Education Policy was made public. The irony would not have been lost on those who were following the principles of the NE...

One of the many mothers and daughters in India discarded by families because the woman gave birth to a girl child.  7000 girls are killed in their mothers’ wombs every day in India, according to various estimates. 63 million women were never born in India because of this phenomenon of female foeticide. Killing the girl in the mother’s womb became common in India from the time the technology for sex determination of foetuses arrived. In this country of Himalayan paradoxes, women get odes composed to their gloriousness on the one hand, and they are driven to the worst possible edges of survival on the other. In which country will you find so many goddesses? And that too fire-spitting goddesses like Kali and graceful killers like Durga! There is so much empowerment of women in India’s divine milieu. Why is the story on the ground just the reverse? Why is there so much discrimination against women in the country? “India is the only large country where more girls die than boys,” s...

Media Watch India Today has dedicated almost the entire issue [dated 6 June 2022] to Mr Narendra Modi who is completing eight years in power at the Centre. It has outdone last week’s Open in singing Modi’s panegyrics. Modi has taken India a long way, according to the periodical, with an unmatched vision. He revoked Article 370, the Supreme Court issued the verdict in favour of the Ayodhya Temple, and the Citizenship Act was amended. Modi took the country forward by leaps and bounds in economy, home affairs, foreign affairs, roads and infrastructure, defence, industries, sports, and so on. Privatisation of Public Sector Units is seen by India Today as a “radical long-term goal that will fortify the metabolism of the Indian economy.” India Today is of the view that Modi tided the country over many a disastrous hurdle like the pandemic which saw the largest exodus within the country after the Partition and the economic woes caused by the Ukraine War. Aroon Purie, the editor, adds j...