By Syed Ali Mujtaba
Indian Muslims always get a bad press and the blame is put on the community for not doing anything spectacular that may give them positive coverage. This is a hackneyed narrative that is going on since independence where the largest minority of the country has been on the receiving end, searching souls, looking for faults which aren’t there and the fault lies with the media that has tarred them with a black brush.
Why do Indian media detest Muslims so much? Before getting into the Muslim’s media coverage, one needs to understand the nature and character of Indian media and the role it plays in the Indian society.
One needs to begin this story from 1990’s when the media got out of government control and the corporate cartels started controlling such communication network. There was a plethora of media outlets that emerged very thick and fast and were controlled by the business establishments.
These corporates media establishment had twin objectives one to make profit and second to be on the government side to protect their own larger business interests.
On the profit side media has two sources of revenue, one subscription and other advertisement. The advertisement is dependent on the subscription and subscription is nothing but the readership or the viewership. So if the profit has to be made, advertisement has to be solicited and this can be done only if subscription is increased.
And that’s where the content became the king and it became the deciding factor that’s based on the impact value that can fetch large subscription and the corresponding advertisement. It’s here the negative news contents has a huge role to play to enlist subscription and advertisement.
That’s where negative content related to Islam, Muslims, Islamic Jihad Kashmir and Pakistan are the most selling news item because it generates a large number of readership and viewership among the Hindu majority community and since it pertains to Muslims, they willy-nilly sucked into such devilish media designs.
Such malpractice in the media has now become a widespread feature and most of them are subscribing to this journalistic model to get good finical returns. The negative Muslim profiling in media by running stories on; Islamic Jihad, love-jihad, nikah halala, triple talaq, beef eaters, Tablighi jamaat, besides usual stuff of Muslim personal law, anti- Kashmir and anti- Pakistan stories fetch huge subscription and advertisements.
There are other reasons why Muslims get a bad press in India. Ever since the incumbent government has come to power in 2014, there is a well-planned and finely crafted political project to increase anti-Muslim environment to gain political benefit and where media’s help is sought to execute this game plan.
As a result Indian media is now reduced to government propaganda machinery that has complete apathy towards journalistic ethics. Anything that a devious mind can conjure against Muslims is fabricated and blown up out of proportion by the media to create a panic among majority community and lead them to hate Muslims and at the same time instill a fear among the minority community.
The basic criteria of the media is to search stories that can have an impact factor to get large readership/viewership and that can translate into revenue generation and as well toe the government’s narrative of Muslim bashing to consolidate the Hindu vote bank.
The anti-Muslim narrative has all the juice and pulp fiction to regiment the majority community and that is the reason majority of media outlets have teamed up together with an open display of bigotry abuse and hatred against the Indian Muslims. This is also to be in the good books of the ruling current government and helps in promoting its agenda where its political survival is based on communal polarization.
he Cobrapost.com expose in 2018, brings true picture of media- Hinduvta collaboration to communalize the society for political gains. The undercover agents of the cobra-post website approached the top media houses and offered them huge sum of money to publish/ broadcast Hindutva contents for communal polarization so that mileage can be made by the ruling party. The expose revealed that all the media houses agreed to engage in campaigns to induce communal discord in the society and were willing party in polarization of the Indian electorate on communal lines.
The media coverage of Tablighi Jamaat members stuck at Delhi’s Nizamuddin Markaz in the last week of the March is another example of media government participation in building hate Muslim campaign. Instead of lambasting the government for not testing the foreign Tablighi members at the airport, the media went hammer and tongs attacking the Tablighi Jamaat and Muslims holding them accountable for bringing the corona virus in the country.
What could have been a story directed against government’s inefficiency to make efforts to contain the virus at the entry point, a slander campaign against a particular community was started in the media. The media instead of showing any sympathy towards the Tablighi Jamaat members’ ignorance of the presence of Corona virus around them, attacked them of hiding as terrorists in the Tablighi Jamaat Markaz in New Delhi.
The media did not question the government why it did not evacuated the Markaz members when it knew its Corona linkage as early as March 18, why it prolonged the evacuation to March 29. The media did not asked the government why it allowed congregation at the Hindu temples till March 20 and why it questioned the Markaz for having the congregation on earlier date.
The media instead of standing by its journalistic ethics chose to demonize the Muslim community for the congregation of the Tablighi Jamat as it was a well thought out plan where subscription, advertisements and building of government’s vote bank was involved. There was a pathological preoccupation and obsession with bigotry against Islam and Muslims in the India media in coverage of Tablighi Jamat news.
It led to vociferous tirade against Muslims the media made the Tablighi Jamaat Markaz in New Delhi synonym to Akal Thakat in Golden Temple in Amritsar and Maulana Saad with Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.
The media bashing of the Muslims lead to a huge fall out at the societial level. For the acts of the Tablighi Jamat in Delhi, Muslims were targeted, abused assaulted on streets at several places in the country. Many BJP legislators openly asked Hindus to boycott Muslim vegetable vendors and not allow them to enter their locality stoking communal polarization. All this happened due to media attacks on the Muslims that conveniently ignored all the injustices being done to the Muslims.
The negative profiling of the Muslims is assiduously done to create a sense of unity within the Hindu community for political millage. It is being done to create maximum impact on the readers and viewers mind. These were done with an eye on ‘us vs them’ elixir is the magical political formula. The media is a party to the execution to this well thought out political plan. This plan is to develop a common enemy in name of Muslims to foment a feeling of unity among the Hindu elements so that ruling party’s vote bank is protected.
In doing so, the media knew it well the impact factor of the anti-Muslim news story and much such negative reportage can make their cash register ringing. The media in doing so, also knew very well that Muslim side do not have the wherewithal to resist them because the organs of government that can come to the Muslims rescue condone the anti-Muslim propaganda for the political benefit of the ruling government.
This is a wake-up call for the Muslims in India. In this age of TV media, social media, and whatsapp networking; the battle with media has to be fought with the media. But so far Muslims have miserably failed to set up any strong media platform to counter such humiliation. It is high time for the Indian Muslims to come forward, sit in conjugation, and confabulate how to increase their share in the media market of India.
The need of the hour is that Indian Muslims must stand up, unite and forge an alliance to launch media projects in the country. There is need to create elite group of likeminded people who can respond to the anti-Muslim propaganda being done from different media platforms.
Muslims with resources can join hand to set up a major media house and respond to the anti-Muslim hate mongers media outlets. There are problems in doing so, but there is a space in which Muslim-owed media can still operate in the country. If it’s professionally run by the trailblazers of truth and investigative journalist definitely such a media platform can make an honest and meaningful impact on the Indian society.
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Syed Ali Mujtaba is a journalist based in Chennai. He can be contacted at syedalimujtaba2007@gmail.com
Vigorous, scathing, trenchant – but every para is the truth!
Yes – a major national Muslim media may go a long way in presenting a counter-narrative to this fake conjured up anti-muslim narrative, hate, propaganda!
check what western media says about mujlims- hate mujlims.
200 million mulim, universities paid for by hindus- notmany hospitals,schools,
no major media. ecery day playing victim, reciteing quran- alah, ahhah, beard and scull caps.
subhan allah,
hindus have 4 miniesters in uk cabinet. hindu ceo,s ceoe,s of major usa companies.
aalah cant help you- look at pak, afganistan, syria, iraq. you leaders, bin ladem, abu bakar, hafeez sahid.boko haram,
al shabab, isi,
Mr. Hussain, you and your ilk should just get the f*ck out of India and go to Pakistan or Bangladesh or any other Muslim country (Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Indonesia).
We don’t want Muslim parasites in India.
Muslims are not supposed to live in India after the 1947 partition.
So you think you Sanghi vulture.
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride..
what does koran say.
should muslims live with kaffirs-
or should only live in pure muslim countries
this means muslims should leave west and go back to live in pakistan, sudan, somalia,afghanistan.
sure islam is great,and muslims are the best,best in science, medcine and finiance
,
prefer india to pakistan ,
pakis will be disappinted
Typical Hindu gutter rat day dreaming. It is Hindus who need to be kicked out of not only India, but the entire planet. The world will be better off without filthy smelly Hindu parasites. They will not be missed.
What aboutit western people savouring beef meat? Hypocrisy everywhere.
after 1947 there should have been an islmic and a hindu state
no problems.
muslims got the first- hindus did not.
india will neverhave peace ever
mujims should leave bharat- get peace in pak, afghanists,iraq, syria,
take your 10 kis, 4 wives. and 6 goats
You are so funny, you illiterate RSS IT chaprasi.
Love to see your ignorance and your chaatukarita for Rs 4 per comment.
Must take their Quran with them which calls me with most hateful and violent hateful ever coined in humanity to describe and slaughter other human being and it KAFIR..2) JIHAD..WAJIB UL QATAL.
ONE CALLS SOMEONE ‘CHAMAR’ GOES TO JAIL FOR UPTO 6 YEARS BUT MUSLIMS WITH THEIR SPECIAL RIGHTS 4 WIVES, 10 CHILDREN ON RATION CARD, FREE HEALTH CARE AND FREE EXPENSIVE LANDS CAN CALL HATEFULLY A ‘KAFIR’. IT IS IN QURAN AND MUSLIM WILL TELL YOU IT IS THEIR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT AND THEY PROTECT CONSTITUTION WHEN THEY CALL NON MUSLIM A ‘KAFIR’.
Lali b. There weree rich muslim from south india. You think they would have left their land and property to go to Pakistan in 1947 very well developed indian with transportation. You are such a scumbag. And ignorant bed bug.
Jai hind🤘
Maybe because of massacre of hindus after direct action call by Jinnah? Maybe because Sambhajis eyes were gouged out on Aurangzeb’s orders because he didn’t convert to your peaceful religion? Maybe because of massacres of hindus by turks? Maybe because of Dawood and his mumbai blasts? Maybe because of Indian Mujahideen bomb attacks on innocents? Maybe because of kashmiri pandit Hindus massacre by ur peaceful quam? Maybe because of Kamlesh Tiwari? Ramalingam? Ankit Saxena? Ankit Sharma? Dhruv Tyagi? Bharat Yadav? Sawan kumar Rathod? And targetted rapes of small girls in up and elsewhere?
WhatsApp University PhD!
Your pseudonym should not be Vidya ( meaning knowledge), should be Jaahil Chaandal
( ignorant witch or devil.)
Anonymous – you chose to personally attack Vidya when your are cornered and have no answers. Because all the points raised by Vidya were facts that you cant refute..
Regarding bad press in media – it can be summed up in following –
“JAISE KAAM VAISA NAAM”
Agree?
false name Sorryvarkar Nagpur shakha!
All these are results of you being brainwashed by negative media……on the contrary hindu related violations are so many that they won’t fits in this section….. Remember it is not religion…it’s an act of an extremist
tell me which country welcomes muslims.
usa, europe, china-
Canada dumbass. It also kicked out rss hindu there.
in 1485 king ferdinand queen isabella gave musims 3 choices-
convert to chritianity
leave spain
face death
most mullahs left..
muslims not allowed to pray in silent masjids.
hindus should have given i same choices to the top wallahs
gandhi, nehru betrayed bharat,
hope it happens some day.
muslim should start a civil war.ghaswa hind,
willgive hindus reason to deal with them
Hindus are chicken sh1t eating cowards. Thats why you attack in large numbers. We don’t need ghazwa-e-hind to deal with you. Right now the Chinese are dealing with you quite well. If Hindu dogs start a civil war, we Muslims will end your gutter rats once, and for all.
in civil war we will use tanks, ,big guns and fighter aircraft,
lets see what happens.
i remember usa,iraq war.sadamhussain bragged.in end usa killed one million arabs, hussain was caught hideing in outdoor cell-hanged later,
same as iss abu bakar.caugt hideing in under ground cell, us army dog got him. he blew
himself,
muslims brag, but are incomdpetent. trained only for terror.
israel has beaten the hell out of 6 arab states.
a civil war in india will settle matters.hope the indian army will take care of you.
Illiterate goo bhakt, you.ll do nothing but fantasize in your delusions. Life is not a video game. Let me educate you, hindu gutter rat. America attacking and invading Iraq was no act of bravery, but a war based on a lie by the most powerful country against a very weak and smaller country. Israel is the same way, but got was defeated in Lebanon in 2006. You don’t know your history. You are an uneducated RSS IT cell troll raised in a gau shala.
We Muslims don’t brag, We deal with our enemies. Hindus have no honor, dignity or bravery. We don’t seek civil war, but will deal with RSS Sanghi terrorists like you, and no army will be able to save you. You can barely fight civilians, let alone the Chinese who occupy Indian territory. Talk is cheap. You’ll end up in the filthy ganges river, decomposed and eaten by dogs and rats. .
my family in pakistan killed several muslims who attacked is. shot the dumb bastards.one uncle alone killed about 7 – the others fucked off.
and remember bangladesh war
1971.90,000 musalmans
surrendered without a fight.
generalniazi surrendered 30,000
to general jack jacob-brave jewsih patriot.niazi was seen crying.
you bastards need a stern lesson- congress has been two kind.
next time i hope we will put you in labour camps,-my wish would be to gas chambers
meanwhile corona will kill lots of you-indian govt should not help you-not even a glass of water
scum
@Lulli bai,
Wrong again, Hindu toilet stain. Just as pathetic how India surrended to China in the 1960s. Your family didn’t do anything, RSS terrorist. You were hiding in a gau shalla with your water pistol. My puppies have more courage then cowardly hindu gutter rats. Now you got Bengalis and Nepalis who hate you as well, and with good reason.
You monkey worshipping Hindu shit eaters can’t fight. That’s why a handful of Chinese just made mince meat out of you without firing a bullet. So what good did your planes and tanks do? And now your homosexual leader Maggot faced Modi has bent over to the Chinese and surrendered like a bitch. hahahah!
Speaking of gas chambers, you Nazi Hindus bastards will be exterminated, with soap because we know you filthy you are. You look and smell like friend shit. We will put you in concentration camps and wash your bhangi asses with bleach till Hinduism cancer is removed.
As for Corona, it doesnt discriminate and most dying are Hindus, so loss to humanity. You know deep down you couldnt fight a Muslim on the best day of your sad life.We Muslims have been too tolerant of you animals. Forget water, we wont piss in your mouths when you ask for water, cbikari bander.
Know your place, generations of your family have been cleaning our toilets. Now instead of playing tough guy on the internet, why don’t you back up your trolling, and put up your address up? Afraid, little Hindu bitch boy?
Very nic
Indian Media is a Hindu lie factory. Truth to Hindus is like light to vampires.
piss off kalu ram-put on your lungi sing and dance.
get your begum to do the same.
dance, dance
sing along
be happy kalu ram
best
Actually I’d rather piss on you, and watch you dance in your dhoti, goo bhakt. Don’t worry we will piss on your devdasis as well… you’ll both enjoy it more then gau mutr.
be smelly and stinky, tatti Ram
अल्लाह हु अक्बर
बहोत हि खुब द रियल स्टोरी आँफ इस्लामी तारीखअर्तगुल गाजी 📅 सद्दाम हुसैन जी की शहादत भि अल्लाह कबुल करें ईंन्शा अल्लाह जरूर.. आमीन
Lali b. You are such scumbag and dumbass.
If hindu hates muslim. First many hindu have to leave gulf countries. Poor beggars. Canada is tolerant, Australia is tolerant. France, USA .
They are respecting human being. Not like you piece of garbage. Go with your device dance goomer
This site is promoting hatred. Very 2 faced in fact.
You are trying to make a one sided point.
You have young men on here leaving comments inciting hatred against anybody who is non-Muslim
(Referring to Mr Black, the lunatic bubbling blood brained fanatic below) saying totally inappropriate things as you can see but you let it continue.
This should be seriously tracked and moderated
if it is a fair and sensible website, from the looks is far
from that in reality so clear. 🙂
And not statin facts that India was separated without
Legal law of that lands rulers which was not a legally sanctioned action hence a controlled division.
Also not discuss is the lack of legal accountability of authorities in “Pakistan” allowing continual rape of minority Indian families daughters and forced conversion to Islam and cover-up of these disgusting dog like acts of inhumanity?!
I think you need with humility to look in your own affairs and your own facts and how you humanely
and with fair judgement run your own commentator
site, which is not being done at all whatsoever, before
make political smears or cultural attacks.
Have you bothered to deal with your extreme commentators like “Mr. Black” (obvious a pseudonym)
Below? Have you tried to address tolerance and respect and try fact gathering here.
Why has this site not been shut down, it needs to
be if you will not promote love, peace and tolerance!
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