It’s
amazing how facts are contorted and interpreted to suit a predisposed point of
view. The guiding principle of any fair journalist should be to look at issues
and facts in an unbiased manner and lend us his point of view. However
hard we might try, it is very hard to generate the escape velocity required to spin our
analysis independent of our ideology. Some allowance towards that is natural.
However
when your ideology is at the forefront of everything that you write, then the
writing loses its respect and is placed at a different level. A level from
where it is very difficult to redeem oneself.
I
write this today after reading one more anti modi rant from a writer who I used
to follow with respect.
And
needless to say that respect has been broken up bit by bit with each of his anti
modi rant in which facts are colored and interpreted to arrive at a preconceived
point of view
I
recollect the days when I waited every Saturday for my edition of mint lounge
where the writer would write about history, culture and many other topics which
was insightful and offered a different perspective.
However
begin inning last year just before the Gujarat elections his choice of topics
changed gradually and soon more of his writings took a political angle. With the
discourse on modi getting shriller and reaching a crescendo with his
appointment as a PM nominee for the BJP, the writing of Mr .Patel has changed
for the worse. This recent article on firstpost titled Why Narendra Modi, BJP are more
dangerous than Congress .has prompted me to write this
piece
: http://www.firstpost.com/blogs/why-narendra-modi-bjp-are-more-dangerous-than-congress-1169031.html?utm_source=ref_article
: http://www.firstpost.com/blogs/why-narendra-modi-bjp-are-more-dangerous-than-congress-1169031.html?utm_source=ref_article
I
have no objection to his opinion on Modi, but when facts are distorted to
put views then it is not a fair analysis
that deserves respect.
The
facts mentioned in his piece to emphasize congress secular credentials over BJP
are based on flimsy logic.
He
states and I quote “ The fact is that the Congress has
made its peace with Sikhs there. To see this we need to only go through the
names of Punjab’s legislators. Of the 46 Congress MLAs, 33 are Sikh (on the
other hand 10 of the BJP’s 12 MLAs are Hindu)
The above fact stated to press
for Congress’s secularism case vis a vis BJP is blatantly wrong.
It fails to take into account that
the BJP had an electoral alliance with Shiromani Akali dal a primarily Sikh dominated party which has 56 Ml As .Punjab with a Sikh population of close to
60% should have at least 70 Sikh MLAs and 43 Hindu MLAs basis their
representation in the population. BJP had only fielded 23 out of which they won
12 .So the counter point to Mr.Patel can be that the BJP has only fielded 23
candidates of which only 12 are Hindus This is still below the ideal level of 43
if you consider the population share as a metric for candidature .Does that
make the BJP more skewed towards the Sikhs and so more secular ? You decide
Any basic analysis would suggest that
every party makes a selection of candidates based on the strength of its
candidate and his ability to win. With
the current electoral discourse, selection on religious lines could be one of
the factors for selection but the major criteria should be the candidate’s
acceptance among the voters.
The
facts about Punjab as cited in this article to buttress the writer’s point of BJPs
non secularism does not hold
