Witch Hunt on BJP Government in Karnataka?

Posted by on Mar 15, 2009 in India, Indian Politics

It seems Karnataka is the most happening state in India from what we have seen in the last few months. If you have to take a look at most of the National Newspapers or Channels, then one can find that there is a clear obsession with whatever happens in Karnataka.

The other day I saw a news video in a leading English Channel which had a girl telling about the way she was slapped by some hooligans in Bangalore. The caption that followed this story was something like this – ‘Bangalore Not Safe For Women?’. There were few more such incidents that were reported from Karnataka with a lot of passion from the National Channels/News Portals. Definitely all these incidents if they really happened need to be condemned but what I feel is that they shouldn’t be blown out of proportion for the simple fact that there are more attrocious incidents that keep on repeating through the length and breadth of the country. To just pick on one state just because there is a BJP Government in rule looks fishy.

What surprises me is that when I sneak into a Bangalore Group in Orkut that has about 80k members, none of these incidents seemed to be talked about. The mood over there doesn’t seem to be that anti-govermnent while there is a lot of hue and cry for even a ‘pin fall incident’ reported from Karnataka in e-groups such as the ‘Pink Chaddi Group’ in Facebook which feed on seemingly biassed reports from say NDTV and Times of India.  For me it looks as if some vested parties in the Centre and the Media are perhaps trying to make a fuss of everything that is happening in Karnataka.

In my own state Andhra Pradesh, there have been several incidents of acid attacks on college going girls. Unfortunately I don’t think I have seen Renuka Chowdhury, the Hon. Minister for Women and Child Welfare coming out on National TV to take a note of these serious issues happening in her own state which is under the Congress rule. Any intelligent person can clearly understand the double standards! So what I want to say is that there seems to be a section of biased media that is trying to magnify trivial things just for the sake of maligning the BJP and the rest of the Sangh Parivar and of course you have the Congress leaders trying to encash on every opportunity that comes their way. After all they need to as the millions of citizens will never forgive the UPA Government for the 60-odd bomb blasts and the Mumbai mayhem.

Here are a few points that clearly show double standards from a section of the Media and others:

  1. Although the BJP has nothing to do with the Shri Ram Sene and Pramod Muthalik, a lot of people cleverly try to say that the Ram Sene is part of the Sangh Parivar and getting protected by the BJP. Instead of condeming the Ram Sene directly, they try to mud sling the BJP and most importantly the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) which was wrongly dragged into the Mangalore Pub attacks.
  2. Take the instance of the abduction case of the daughter of a Kerala CPI MLA CH Kunhambu. The Media reported that she was kidnapped by Hindutva activists because she was traveling with a Muslim friend. A lot of noise came from all the quarters to say that Mangalore was getting Talibanized. It was later proved that the MLA’s own supporters belonging to the CPI’s student wing DYFI had done the abduction just to save the girl’s modesty. Even after the truth is out, this incident is still used in a lot of media articles as an example of ‘moral policing’ by Saffron Brigade carried out under full support of the BJP State Government!
  3. The other case is that of the suicide of a minor girl called ‘Ashwini’ in South Karnataka. Despite the fact that the Police had arrested a person by the name Saleem, a 28-year-old on the grounds of sexually exploiting the girl, the blame just continues to be put on ‘Moral Policing’ by some Hindu activists and indirectly accusing that it is all because of the BJP Government being communal.
  4. More than 100 people were arrested by the Bangalore Police recently in a liquor party that went till 4 AM in the morning. That party was illegal according to the Law of the Land and the Police on a tip off had arrested them. Now this incident is being projected as the Karnataka Government’s ‘Moral Policing’ by a section of the media.
  5. Dr. VS Acharya, the Home Minister of Karnataka has asked for public opinion in his blog on whether the Police had done the right thing or not in arresting people who had participated in that illegal booze party. The post received more than 70 comments, quite a lot of them supporting the Police action and showing no sympathy to the boozers. Interestingly Times of India which has been branded as nothing but a ‘Page 3′ newspaper by its critics ran an article about that same VS Acharya Blog post in which it mentions only comments that were criticizing the Police just to create an image that the BJP Government is not functioning well.

We will have to wait and see how things develop in the coming days, there is just so much of action happening around. From the Mangalore Pub attacks to the latest Charlie Chaplin Statue Controversy, the state of Karnataka is being watched closely by the Witch hunters! Can the State Government over there come out clean? There is certainly a Witch Hunt in progress on the B.S. Yedyurappa Government and of course on the State Home Minister Dr. V.S. Acharya. I would say that the Karnataka Government needs to be strong like Narendra Modi in Gujarat and just ignore the mud slinging and just continue with its duties. Let’s see all that, but all of us know that with the elections coming up next month, there will be plenty of drama to be expected to put the BJP in a tight spot!

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