At a walkathon in Bangalore on Sunday to create awareness about the disease which Khushwant Singh jocularly said stood for “Arse Infected, Don’t Screw”, a senior citizen unabashedly holds up a placard advocating safe sex.
Photograph: Karnataka Photo News
SHARANYA KANVILKAR writes from Bombay: Can a newspaper (or magazine or website) publish anything in the name of a “debate”? Is such content questionable even when it does not directly spark trouble on the ground? And, in the eyes of the law, who is to be held responsible for the publication of such content?
These are old questions in journalism, but they gain added significance in the wake of police in the communally sensitive coastal city of Mangalore taking cognisance of two separate complaints against Vijaya Karnataka, a Kannada newspaper owned by The Times of India group, for two different articles published on two different dates.
Besides the overall editor of the paper, the resident editor, and the author of the piece, the police have registered a complaint against the directors of the Times of India subsidiary that publishes Vijaya Karnataka, in the second of the two cases. They have been charged with “spreading hatred” among the people and “disturbing peace in society”, both non-bailable offences under two different sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Ironically, churches, convents and prayer halls in Mangalore and other parts of Karnataka had been attacked in September last year after Hindutva activists stumbled upon Christian literature (Satya Darshini) that allegedly mocked Hindu gods. This was deemed to be offensive to Hindus and the violence was sought to be justified in the name of the perceived injury to Hindu sentiment.
The boot is now on the other foot.
***
The first case is pretty straight forward and has been widely reported. On 27 December 2008, the Mangalore South police station, registered a case (FIR No 343, dated 27-12-2008) in connection with an article written by the noted Kannada author S.L. Bhyrappa in Vijaya Karnataka on 16 October 2008.
The case was registered on a complaint filed by P. B. D’Sa, president of the Dakshina Kannada unit of Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL).
In his complaint, D’Sa alleged the article titled ‘Inthaha ghatane bere yava deshadalli nadedeethu‘ (In which other country would such an incident take place?) incited communal feelings, in the wake of the attack on churches in Karnataka in September last year.
Apparently, the article by Bhyrappa cast doubts on “the integrity of Mother Teresa and a number of other Christian saints in reference to their contribution to humanity. The complaint said the article had hurt the feelings of Christians, and pointed to a number of demonstrations and jathas taken out by Christians against it.
The local diocese had termed the article “communally provocative” when it was published.
The first complaint named Vijaya Karnataka‘s editor Vishweshwar Bhat, its Mangalore edition resident editor U.K. Kumaranath, and printer and publisher, K.R. Ramesh, besides Bhyrappa.
***
But it is the second complaint, booked by the Mangalore North police six days later, on 2 January 2009, that is drawing the attention of ToI bosses in Bombay and Delhi.
This case (FIR No. 2, dated 2-1-2009) deals with an article written by Pratap Simha, a sub-editor with the paper who writes a weekly column titled Betthale Jagaththu (naked world) every Saturday on the editorial page, and published on 20 September 2008.
The complainant in this case is James Louis, vice-president of the Bharathiya Crista Seva Sanghatane (BCSS). And here, too, the charges are identical: of endorsing the bashing of the minority community and seeking to create discord among various communities.
Predictably, the author of the article (Simha), the editor of the paper (Bhat), the resident editor (Kumaranath) and the printer (Ramesh) have been named in this complaint. But also standing “accused” are five directors of Vijayanand Printers Limited (VPL), the Times of India subsidiary that publishes the paper: Ravi Dhariwal, Chinnen Das, Anand Sankeshwar, Bhaskar Das, and Probal Ghoshal.
Those who have seen the complaint say it does not mention why the ToI directors have been named as accused. All it says is that they are all responsible for the publication of the article.
The complaint refers to objectionable parts of the article ‘Haagantha helidavanu yaava Bajarangiyu alla‘ (the person who said so is not a Bajrang Dal man) and alleges that the article is a “deliberate” attempt to instigate the sentiments of the Hindu community against the Christian community and to create hatred towards Christians.
The complaint raises objections to paragraphs 6, 11 and 12 and says it can “poison the minds of the readers and hurt the sentiments of Christians.
In particular, it objects to the question “How will Christ help the people when he couldn’t help himself?” and the statement “Who will keep silent when offensive statements are made about their religion and is attacked?“
This, according to the complainant, justifies the attacks on the churches and prayer halls in Karnataka, coming as they did shortly after the Christian community was targeted in Kandhamal in Orissa.
It says paragraph 12 particularly instigates the people against the Christian community and justifies all the violence reported against minorities. Apparently the article in question contained the statement, “do not keep quiet when someone comes to your locality with the intention of conversion. Receive the books that they give and then teach them a lesson“.
The case against the author, editors, printer and directors has been registered under section 153, 153A, 153B and 295A read with section 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Section 153 of IPC reads: “Wantonly giving provocation with the intent to cause riot—if rioting be committed, if not committed.” Section 153A reads: “Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc, and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony.” Section 153B reads: “Imputations, assertions prejudicial to national-integration.”
Section 295 saying injuring or defiling place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class has to be read with the IPC section 34 which says: Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention.
***
Media observers say the mere filing of FIRs against the editor, printer, publisher, author/s and directors of the company alleging a plot to disturb communal amity does not amount to much, especially when the attack on the churches preceded the date of publication.
Moreover, the police have to investigate the complaints and only later contemplate or take further action.
PUCL’s D’Sa who accompanied the second complainant to the police station has been quoted as saying that the police inspector told them he would investigate whether the article did create any “negative ripples” in society. That is easier said than done.
But it is the attempt to implicate the directors in the case that is eliciting attention. Are the directors, all of them non-journalists, responsible for the publication of the content when four of the five directors cannot speak, read, write or understand the Kannada language?
Or is this just an attempt to cause pin pricks to them because a mainstream, mass-circulation Kannada publication owned by the country’s largest print media house is seen to have become the inhouse journal of the Hindutva herd?
***
The two cases should also be viewed against the backdrop of Mangalore emerging as a vortex of communalism into which journalists have not just been sucked in but are active players and participants.
On either side of the communal divide on the west coast, leading publications have played a not inconsiderable role in whipping up the surcharged communal atmosphere with inflammatory headlines and incendiary content. The circulations are soaring, but the faultline is growing wider and wider.
Trucks carrying Karavali Ale, a Kannada newspaper published from Mangalore, were attacked last month and its copies burnt allegedly by Bajrang Dal activists for its criticism of their role in the attack on the churches in September. The Press Council of India has had to intervene after the local police refused to register the paper’s complaints.
In March 2007, the paper’s editor B.V. Seetharam was arrested on the ground that his writings promoted religious hatred. Seetharam was arrested under Sections 153A, 153 B and 295A of the IPC—all non-bailable offences.
Ironically, the Vijaya Karnataka editors, the authors, and ToI directors have been booked under the same sections of the IPC.
But the larger question is of the role of the media in creating the ground for “public debate” on a sensitive issue like “conversions”.
Is the publication of any kind of content OK in the name of a public debate? Is it really the business of the media to maintain communal and societal peace and harmony, or is it of the “State”? Is it beyond the function of a newspaper or a writer to provoke readers because somebody might find it offensive?
If Christian literature published decades ago can be suddenly ferreted out and declared offensive to Hindus, are Christians wrong in finding offence in yesterday’s newspaper? Is it wrong for Muslims to feel offence if the Danish cartoons are republished in the name of “debate”?
Who was that genius who said an eye for an eye only makes the whole world go blind?
Ramachandra Guha on the sociologist M.N. Srinivas, in The Telegraph, Calcutta:
“Another reason that Srinivas wrote so insightfully about modern India was that he was always, in some sense, an outsider. He was born and raised in Mysore, where he was a Tamil living among Kannadigas. He then took a PhD in Bombay, where he was a Kannada speaker among Maharashtrians and Gujaratis. He later did another doctorate at Oxford, where he was a brown among whites, an Indian among Englishmen.
“After his return to India, he taught at universities in Baroda and Delhi, where he would have been seen as a south Indian among north Indians. In between his degree and his jobs he undertook long spells of fieldwork in southern Karnataka, where he was a townsman among rural folk. In all these situations, because he could not take the culture or language for granted, he captured aspects of its working that eluded the unselfconscious and unthinking insider.”
Read the full article: The sensitive sociologist
ARVIND SWAMINATHAN writes from Madras: I was forced, kicking and screaming, to see Ghajini on new year eve, and it warms my Tam-Brahm cockles enormously to report that Surya‘s Ghajini scores over Aamir Khan‘s Ghajini lock, stock, and 15 minutes.
The fact that both movies were made by the same director (A.R. Murugadoss) and with the same perky heroine (Asin) does little to erase the pro-Tamil bias in my mind that the Tamil version was decidedly a lot more fun than the Hindi one.
Fun, mind you, from a mindless viewer point of view.
Both versions are totally mindless, of course, but there is some pleasure to be had from mindlessness without a method. Sadly, mindlessness with a method of the Aamir Khan kind is not quite the same thing and it shows in the empty balcony seats after just a week.
Reason #1: Surya: Not one film critic (if any members of that species exist in India today) has had the guts to acknowledge that Surya was more convincing in the role of Sanjay Ramaswamy than the older Aamir as Sanjay Singhania. Surya was warm, spontaneous and vulnerable; at times Aamir looks as if Madame Tussauds lent out the wax look-alike. In some shots, Aamir scarily arches his eyebrows so like Jack Nicholson you wonder if you are watching The Departed.
Reason # 2: Harris Jayaraj: A.R. Rahman and Prasoon Joshi may have burnt a lot of midnight candles for the Hindi version, but brother, take it from me. Harris Jayaraj‘s music had more zing, and was more peppy. Of course, nobody understood the lyrics but who would clutter a mindless movie with meaning? (Answer: Rahman and Joshi.)
Reason # 3: Nayantara: Sanjay Singhania may suffer from amnesia, but the medical student (Jiah Khan) in the Hindi version seems to positively suffer from anorexia. OTOH, Nayantara in the “original copy” was cute, chubby and vivacious. Speaking as a shameless ogler, there was tonnes of baby fat to ogle at, but then that was before Nayantara herself had a (hopefully) short-term mammary loss.
Reason # 4: Hype: With the Tamil version, everything was a surprise, even for those who had seen the original Memento, but was there anything the Hindi movie goer did not know for months: the haircut, the Van Heusen Ghajini line, the six-pack abs. If you had a Tata Sky connection, you would have seen the ‘Making of Ghajini’ like they had made Casablanca or something.
Reason # 5: Climax: Aamir Khan has said he found the last 30 minutes in the Tamil version problematic and Murugadoss has confessed Aamir rewrote the climax for the Hindi version. The mindless violence in the Hindi climax shows that there was nothing elevating that Aamir brought to the table. At least, Surya’s Ghajini had some mindless imagination in the mindless climax.
Many moons ago, another Tam-Brahm, Mani Ratnam, revealed why he had not directed the Hindi version of Nayakan (and left it to Feroze Khan to screw it up, as Dayavan). “It’s like eating your own vomit,” he had said. Murugadoss has tried bravely but failed.
If imitation is the best form of flattery, wonder what making a copy of a copy amounts to?
Self-flagellation?
(Of course, it’s my opinion but I am unanimous about it.)
Also read: 11 similarities between iPhone and Sivaji
Terrorism? Slowdown? Inflation? Communalism?
For the “doctorate of philosophy in business administration from the University of Southern California“, life is one big party as he looks over the shoulder of Atul Kasbekar shooting images for the annual Kingfisher calendar.
View the Kingfisher swimwear gallery here: The final blast
E.R. RAMACHANDRAN writes: It’s a time to give; it’s time to hand over gifts to the important and not so important, for their contributions in the year gone by.
***
To the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan: a pair of parrots
To Condoleezza Rice: A weighing balance
To Asif Ali Zardari: 10% of Best ‘Non- state Actor’ Cash Award
To Shivaraj Patil: A new, tighter bandh-gala
To Vilas Rao Deshmukh: A role in Ram Gopal Varma‘s film Mujhe Kya Hua?
To V.S. Achuthanandan: A dog’s role in an untitled Malayalam film
To Rahul Gandhi: Omar Abdullah’s new book ‘How I did it’
To Raj Thackeray: A taxi from the Bombay taxi drivers association
To George W. Bush: Shoes of all sizes from Iraqi children
To the government of B.S. Yediyurappa: A users’ guide to ‘How to keep your State No.1 in corruption?’
To Anitha Kumaraswamy: A guide on ‘How to manage husband, father-in-law and brother-in-law’
To the commuters on NICE road: A nice Tirupati haircut
To Ricky Ponting: A barrel to stare through
To 2008: A ‘Don’t ever come back’ card!
***
Want to give a gift to someone you love (or don’t)? Tell us.
Carnatic music maestro Mangalampalli Balamurali Krishna, all of 79 years of age, pays his respects to Hindustani great Gangubai Hanagal, all of 96, in Hubli on Friday. Balamurali Krishna was in town to be honoured with the Mallikarjun Mansur Samman.
***
Sadanand Kanavalli recounts a lovely anecdote involving Balamurali Krishna in The Hindu today:
Balamurali, like Bhimsen Joshi, hardly had any schooling. When his father took him to a school, the headmaster asked him to sing a song. That paved the way for singing the prayers before lessons started everyday. One song followed another and it turned into a mini concert. This went on for three months until quarterly exams arrived.
The answer paper went back the way it came, not a word on it. The maths teacher awarded him a big zero. The teacher asked him to get his father’s signature on the marks card. The father, in his school days, was also a zero in maths.
When Balamurali returned the marks card duly signed by his father, the teacher was surprised. “Aren’t you ashamed of earning a zero? No sir. Really, I tried to draw a big, beautiful zero as you have done. But I couldn’t. Indeed sir, you are a great artist.”
The teacher was not amused.
In the end the teacher told Balamurali’s father: “Your son is a born artiste, let him not waste his time here. General education can be had any time it is felt necessary.”
Photograph: Karnataka Photo News
MUST WATCH: ‘If it sounds good to your ear, it’s Carnatic music’
And what better way to start the new year than with a neat poem?
SHIVANAND KANAVI forwards a poem written by his father, the poet Chennaveera Kanavi, during the 1970s—”either during the Emergency or just after”—that has an eerie resonance in 2009, thanks to the speedy despatch of footwear by an Iraqi journalist to US president George W. Bush towards the end of the year gone by.
***
“LISTEN TO ME, I AM TELLING YOU”
By CHENNAVEERA KANAVI
For God’s sake, why do you spread false news?
Honestly, nobody threw chappals at me in the recent meeting.
I am speaking absolute truth!
Even if they did, I never saw it.
This is the really real truth.
No. they didn’t hit me at all.
Please don’t believe what they say.
simply because it appears in the papers.
Read the stuff and then consign it to flames.
Are these paper-fellows, are they lily-white?
They announce the happening of what could have happened!
Never mind if it happened or not, it is news all the same.
Yes, it is true that I saw someone wave a black flag,
because black stands out amidst white caps!
But what’s wrong with it?
wasn’t there a huge audience that day?
After all, my speech is not dirt-cheap, is it?
In such a commotion,
don’t you think it is but natural
if someone were to transfer what is on feet to the hand,
and then transfer it from hand to the head?
If I am right, why all this hullabaloo
about the chappals being aimed at me ?All right, granting that they threw chappals:
why not assume that they were playing a game
of throwing and catching chappals ? Tell me.
You may insist
I was the target.
may I then ask you a question?
Did they get the chappals specially made for them?
They were bought in some shop,
and worn out after so many days’ walking,
now apparently tom, and flung with force. All right.
please, what is the point of taking out anger here
whereas its cause lay elsewhere?
If they opened fire in Gujarat, why should they hiss angrily here?
The price-rise, the decline of self-respect and dignity
and double-talk
they belong everywhere and still occur.
Are they our exclusive property ?
Look at Bihar, how they, sealing their lips with cloth bands,
joining hands behind their back, took processions.
Well, even the papers reported all this.Following them, we should shut our mouths and keep mum,
and there lies smartness.
Just one more word, please listen: the chappal-throwing is over-
wouldn’t it be fair if they were presented with new chappals ?
What do you say?
(From Inviting Life—Chennaveera Kanavi’s Poetry, Translated by Prof. K. Raghavendra Rao, Sahitya Akademi)
Photograph: courtesy geek-o-logie
There are ways, and then there are some more ways, of flagging off a new year. But can any of them hold a candle to the magic of music?
Mickey Hart of Grateful Dead and Ustad Zakir Hussain combined with Sikiru Adepoju and Giovanni Hidalgo in 2007 to present the Global Drum Project, a successor of sorts to Planet Drum.
Before the shows took off, Hart and Hussain would demonstrate their mastery with the trunks of two century-old trees, named by them as “Squid” and “Dancing Dolphins”.
The result was sensory sorcery that appealed not just to the ear but to the eye.
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