On reporting on Godhra and its aftermath

Found in IBN blogs:

The Curse of Being a Hindu in Modern IndiaIn this article, Saurabh Saksena ponders why the media focused only on Muslim victims of the Gujarat riots and not on the victims of the train fire in Godhra.

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After reading a cover story by Rajiv Chandrasekharan (formerly the  National Editor of The Washington Post),  in The Indian American, I hastily sent a letter to the editor about an article that Chandrasekharan wrote about Godhra, in he essentially blamed the victims of the Godhra train fire for their fate. In my letter, I quoted at length commentary by the lat Varsha Bhosle and Rajesh Srinavasan (with attribution, of course) on Charndrasekaran's article.

Imagine how startled I was to see an edited (mangled) version of my letter published in the next issue of The Indian American. Then imagine how overwhelmed I felt when a rejoinder by Chandrasekharan was published in the following issue, in which he told the editor that letters such as mine should not be published. He alternatively praised and blamed Indian media for the coverage of Godhra and its aftermath. He congratulated himself on interviewing many parties, including perpetrators, observers, and officials after the events. He said that Bhosle's and Srinavasan's commentary was written soon after the event, when passions ran high, when in fact, the commentaries were further removed in time, as they were reactions to his reporting.

I mean, how petty!  Rajiv Chandrasekharan was a reporter with the Washington Post.  The 2010 movie Green Zone starring Matt Damon was based on his 2006 book Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone.

Who was I?  Just someone who wrote a letter to the editor.

The Constitution of India and the secular state

As I have stated before, India is (or rather, should be) a secular state (राज्य, rajya), but a Hindu nation (राष्त्र, rashtra). However, several articles in the Constitution of India obstruct the realization of India as a secular state.

Here is an excellent letter to the Hindustan Times by Sanjeev Nayyar, founder of the eSamskriti web site, about minority rights in the Constitution of India and the implications:

esamskriti- Marking lives less ordinary
The term minority is not defined in the Constitution. Nowhere in the world, except in India, is a minority defined by religion or caste. Is anyone listening?

The subject articles, Articles 25-30, may be located in http://lawmin.nic.in/legislative/Art1-242%20(1-88).doc. To quickly locate these articles in Microsoft Word (I use Word 2002), select View > Document Map. Articles 25-28 may be found under the heading Right to Freedom of Religion; Articles 29-30 may be found under the heading Cultural and Educational Rights.

PS eSamskriti is a treasure trove of essays on Indian culture, history, and philosophy and photographs. Check it out!