The nationalist camp was shocked after LK Advani was painted black in a pre-telecast interview. That he is like any other politician, ambitious of becoming Prime Minister of the country; that leadership has biting differences at the top and that BJP too is like any other crises ridden party.

The press-release issued by CNN-IBN was carried out by PTI in newspapers and few TV channels all over India. Even my friends were shocked; the question looming large was - what has Advani done? When dozens of people inquired from Advani, he said, "first you watch the interview."

When I watched the whole interview, my long-standing belief that a strong sub-editor is there somewhere in him who cuts out any superfluous and untruthful words, was confirmed. What comes out of his mouth is just a statement of facts, generally an understatement. After the publication of the full text of the interview and a story relating to "what he really said", in The Pioneer, all apprehensions vanished. Meanwhile, when Advani's personal secretary queried CNN-IBN, their response was that the story was done by PTI, a bid to absolve themselves. The BJP president Rajnath Singh termed the pre-telecast Press release as reporting "with malicious intent".

The BJP in general, and Advani in particular, have been subjected to similar malicious propaganda time and again. Deliberate and mischievous reporting of his Karachi speech, which created a furore in BJP and the Parivar for months, has done immense harm to both the Sangh and the RSS. Things have since normalised and a lesson has been learnt.

It was the height of malicious propaganda when a total lie became headline for weeks, "Jinnah was secular: Advani", words he never uttered. Whatever he said in Karachi, he had already said at least half-a-dozen times elsewhere in India. Fortunately, I had video-audio copies of his speech. I circulated the Karachi speech along with the IFF speech. When CNN-IBN interview was telecast and later its text released, I found that in the question-answer interview, there was a reference to his Pakistan visit and I quote:

Q. When the entire Jinnah fiasco had happened, you said it was a historic opportunity, which you felt, had been missed by the BJP. What were you trying to say?

A: What I was trying to say is that I was a person who leads a party perceived as being anti-Pakistan, anti-Muslim, even anti-Islam.

And in the six days that I spent in Pakistan, every section of the population, right from the common man to the senior-most officials in the Government, felt that whatever Advani is saying, he may be proud of his Hinduism. But at the same time, this perception that he is anti-Pakistan, anti-Muslim and anti-Islam is not at all correct. I felt that it was something of an achievement not only for me personally, but for the party also and if the party had perceived my reference to Jinnah's August 11 speech in that perspective, it would have been an opportunity for the it.

In the recent weeks, a new curriculum is being introduced in Pakistan for Classes IX and X students, explaining therein the two-nation theory and its ideology, trying to look moderate. News items relating to it sometime also mention Advani's Karachi speech, quoting Jinnah. Now, the new impact of his speech can be traced. Had there been some other leader, he might have been tempted to include that in the interview.

The deliberate campaign of malicious propaganda against the Sangh Parivar is not a recent phenomenon. It peaked during Vajpayee's regime. However, Editor-in-chief of the Indian Express Shekhar Gupta displayed rare journalistic courage. He recounted some of the media-bombardment on the Parivar and admitted that: "First of all, in Jhabua there has, indeed, been no evidence yet that anybody from the Sangh Parivar was involved in the rape of the nuns."

"Then, despite all the commotion and outrage in the media and the world, not a single Christian has been killed in Gujarat yet. Also, Gujarat has a history of Hindu resentment against the missionaries dating back to Mahatma Gandhi's time."

"Similarly, Orissa run by the Congress, has a history of indigenous violence against the missionaries.

Six persons were killed last year and since the State has a large tribal population, conversions have been going on there. There is no evidence yet that Dara Singh was actively involved with any Sangh Parivar organisation."

Based on an examination of the above, Gupta came to the conclusion that "on facts, therefore, it would seem that we in the English-language media have something to answer for." Just a few paragraphs later, Gupta's column recanted even more by stating that "surely, we in the media have much to answer for."

Now, it is precisely such irreverence for the vital difference between 'something' and 'much' that often exhibits itself in a lot of our newspaper copy and misleads millions of readers.

Courtesy: www.dailypioneer.com, December 17, 2006