Why this biased misinformation on Flashpoints Radio?
Dear Dennis Bernstein,
We are writing this letter on behalf of Indian community in North America and
across the world to express our strong concerns about
interview of Prof Angana Chatterji conducted by you on flashpoints at
http://www.flashpoints.net/cgi-bin/ra.pl?date=20020603&start=36:10
Thanks for giving an opportunity for an Indian voice on flashpoint and taking an
initiative to bring some facts about Kashmir and Violence in Gujarat.
At the same time we are extremely shocked at the irresponsible anti Hindu
propaganda unleashed by Prof Angana Chatterji (it will be worth counting the
number of times she forcefully said Hindu nationalism with extreme hatred,
probably because of her immense hatred towards Hindusim, which is all together a
different subject)
The objective of Prof Angana Chatterji was solely to blame Hindus and Hinduism
for what happened in Gujarat and what is happening in Kashmir for last 13 years.
With strong hatred for Hinduism this is understandable.
Here I would like to remind you about the LA riots 10 years back: 3 days of
violence, 54 killed, loss of one billion of national property, 13000 rioters
arrested. This happened in most civilized society called America. And
what was the reason for this barbaric violence???? One black person was
acquitted by all white Juries.
54 innocent were killed by rioters because NO ONE WAS KILLED but ONLY
acquitted!!!!! I would like some one to answer the scale of violence if 58
innocents (25 women and 14 children) were burnt alive in LA by a mob of 2000
fanatic blind minority of LA. Can you imagine Mr.Dennis Bernstein?? Let me
answer it for you: the response would not have been any different than Gujarat
violence with little difference of figures.
Prof Chatterji’s dis-information agenda has left many questions unanswered on
both the subjects that were discussed on flashpoint during this interview you
conducted.
Though she talked about the Muslim refugees in Gujarat, she conveniently missed
out to mention 0.7 million Hindu Pandits (minority of Kashmir) that have been
driven out of Kashmir and 0.35 mi staying in refugee camps. She did mention the
that India has not conducted the plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir but again she
conveniently forgot to mention the United Nation’s resolutions that had a
primary PRECONDITION of Pakistan withdrawing their army from occupied Kashmir
before any such plebiscite can be conducted. Which Pakistan has never done in 50
years. She did forget to mention ‘the instrument of accession’ signed by the
king of J&K to accede to India in 1948 and its legality There are many other
important things that she conveniently forgot to mention while talking on these
issues. (I do not wish to make this letter too lengthy)
With her anti hindu agenda it is expected that she forgot to mention all these
facts while comparing Kashmir to Palestian (the same logic Pakistan, state
sponsoring terrorism, applies to Kashmir) It is very clear that her objective
was to malign Hinduism and Hindus more than providing the real information on
both these issues.
Therefore we would like to request you to either bring an UNBIASED expert on
both these issues to be interviewed again or provide us an opportunity to
provide factual information on the background of this anti-Hindu propaganda
unleashed using your radio station. I hope flashpoint is an unbiased radio
station that respects unbiased journalism.
Here I would like to specifically mention that I was recently
interviewed on local NBC station of Missouri on Kashmir issue. It was the same
kind of misinformation provided to viewers by that channel that blamed Indian
army for violence in Kashmir (conveniently forgetting mention of terrorism).
After our similar objection NBC did give us an opportunity to provide the real
information on Kashmir. I hope you are serious about providing factual
information on Kashmir and Gujarat rather than a fanatic anti-Hidu. I hope you
shall give us a change to provide the factual information against this biased
and blind propaganda by Prof. Chatterji.
I would request you to visit our web site to understand more about us. I would
also request you to read details on BBC page on our web site that withdrew the
same blind anti-hindu agenda some time back.
I am confident of your personal response on this request by ‘Cause We Care’.
Thanking you
Sincerely,
Mahendra Joshi