Curious Case of New York Times : Concept of "Special" Glass

This is my response to bias reporting of New York Times on Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India. I will express my view based on my experience and my knowledge of issues raised by NYT.

Dear NYT,

I see that you are one of the most widely read news media. I also know very well that you are one of the global news agency. Unfortunately you also belong to group of media houses who serve opinion, personal bias, agenda more than 'actual' news. Unfortunately and very disappointingly you focus less on facts and research. You have money, connection, platform, dedicated journalists yet I see that your 'news' lack of basic facts.

One can still say "it's okay for New York Times to serve the agenda it sees fit for good society". One can also say "it's alright if the agenda and bias of NYT is to expose the idea that they think of as bad for humanity and for innocent people".

But the problem with your bias and prejudice is that it doesn't do good for anyone and paints people in bad light just because they happen to think differently. Even worse, I will say, you are prejudiced because you know much less about the "idea", "people", "society", "country", "person", "organization" you are considering.

Who knows you do this deliberately and do this just to paint the "idea", "people", "society", "country", "person", "organization" as evil and dangerous!

You recently published editorial article on Narendra Modi, RSS and India dated 6th Feb 2015. Congratulations, first, for your another successful attempt at painting both RSS and Narendra Modi in bad light and "exposing" the "evil" agenda of the two!

Congratulations again for proving me right on what I said in first four paragraphs about you. Let's see if your agenda holds ground and if your facts are biased and one sided!

Agenda

Dear NYT let me try and bring some sense and different perspective that might heal your hatred for Narendra Modi and RSS. Below is hypothetical scenario just to make a point.

Consider following experience of some random Indian guy (name - ABC) studying in US :

Let us assume that NewYork Times have some kind of "special" glass or prism to see Narendra Modi, India and RSS. 

Now consider person ABC who is in US for his studies for past few years. Assume that few days ago he got the same "special" glass that NYT uses. And since than he is using it to see things around here.

Few of the special instances where his "view" changes and the content he observed before and now changes as follows :

(1) Whenever he went to bar/pub with this "special" glass on his eyes he started observing one or two incidents of discrimination. He saw that girls, and sometimes the boys too, looking at a person, who doesn't look like one of them, with a weird face. He saw them ridiculing the person. Only person in question changed with bar/pub but "identity" remained the same. ABC would always be careful about such instances and try to observe them.

Before he put the glass all he would notice is how cheerful the crowds are and how young/adults of all types danced together. ABC would see cheerful faces talking to each other with drinks in their hand.

(2) Sometime ago ABC read that few Shikhs got killed in gun firing in the place they worship, i.e. Gurudwara. ABC remembered reading news about hate crime with shikhs. He recalled the racial abuse in twitter when girl of particular distinct identity became Miss America.

Before he had that "special" glass he ignored all these and thought that country as big as America there can be thousands of reasons for such crimes and "hate" would be one of them. Probability of "hate" would not be much! About the Miss America issue he thought it's upto people to react the way they want. And he saw that it didn't change the single damn thing in his day-to-day life in US. So why be cynical about it?!

After putting the "special" glass of NYT he seem to think that those cases are only because of "hatred" and there is hardly any other possibility. Now ABC seems to be careful about such issues.

Question to readers of this Blog : Should the person throw such "special" glass into dustbin and start living without any cynicism and prejudice?

Dear NYT now you can see the problem with your view of Narendra Modi and RSS. 

# Your next argument will be how can someone draw analogy between the experience of one single guy and whole of community?
You may also argue that it's not right to compare this with burning of churches?

It's a valid question! I don't claim to be 100% accurate. I just want to make you understand how the bias influence person or institution's view of things!

# Here is little to think about 

 Can you compare 100s of re-conversions from Christianity/Islam to Hinduism with very professional, organized method of conversion of Hindus into Christianity of the order of 1000 to 10,000 (it can be easily around 100,000 in one year)? Or you believe only conversion to Christianity is valid and not otherwise? Or you think people who convert poor Hindus in India don't use power of money and don't deceit them?

# Also think about this : If churches are under attack so are temples! You are very direct in proving that there are Hindu militants and Hindu extremist. But very carefully and deliberately you ignore the existence of Christian extremist in India.

# Did you ever think or try to look for evidence of Christian extremists in India? Or you think that is not at all possible? For your information dear NYT we are seeing new phenomenon of Christian converts supporting Naxalites in India. There is strong rumor going on that recent butchering of people, in Assam, done by extremists belong to one particular religion and their agenda is to get separate state. Also recent Intelligence Bureau of India's report argued about "training of north east people to protect their land from rest of India."

# Besides the extremists who use weapon we are seeing new kind of Christian Extremism in India. This is not as violent as others and can be called "soft extremism". Later in this blog I will post the evidence of those. That new extremism is about "abusing Hindu Gods", "building Churches near to temple", "sending team of people who are expert in conversion to premise of very sacred temples of Hindus", "distributing materials to people in near temple premise", "teaching hatred about Hindus and Hindu Gods to followers", "stopping the follower from performing all rituals related to Hindu or India after conversion".

These are serious issues and causing social disharmony.

# Next you will say where are the evidence? Well I will also post the evidence of what I said.

# Next you may say the analogy fails because "even after the change in the ABC's observation after wearing the "special" glass the reality or the way surrounding behaves in US didn't change". And NYT you may say that same is not true for India!

Well I must say this logic of yours is bang on!

Now let me ask you same question 

Do you really think once Narendra Modi came into power the day to day life of 99.9999% minorities changed? 

Do you think church attack and temple attacks and communal tension happened just after Narendra Modi became Prime Minister of India? 

Do you think now that Narendra Modi is PM so people are not free to follow their religion and they face discrimination in their day to day life?

If you are giving attention to "not so ordinary event" like church attack why would you not give attention to similar "not so ordinary event" like abuse of hHndu gods, proselytizing right at the foot steps of sacred temple of Hindus?

# This one is special question :
Do you think only now re-conversion started happening? 

Before you think of an answer first educate me on your view of conversion! Do you want conversion to be allowed in society?
I am sure you will say YES! Then 1) you should have no issue with re-conversion. 2) Since Modi came to power both re-conversion and conversion have been happening!

SILENCE OF NARENDRA MODI IS INDEED DANGEROUS. HE MUST SPEAK OUT AGAINST THE AGGRESSION OF CHRISTIAN ORGANIZATIONS IN INDIA. SOULS OF INDIAN PEOPLE ARE NOT FOR SALE AND NARENDRA MODI MUST MAKE IT CLEAR TO EACH AND ALL THAT ''HARVESTING" OF INDIAN SOULS BY DECEIT, MONEY POWER, ABUSE OF OTHER FAITHS AND SYMPATHY IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. YOU AND ALL OTHER WHO WANT OTHERWISE MUST LEARN TO LIVE WITH IT. YOU ALL ARE WELCOME TO EXPERIMENT WITH SOULS IN YOUR OWN COUNTRY. YOU HAVE NO AUTHORITY TO SPEAK WHAT AND HOW INDIA SHOULD RUN. INDIANS WILL DECIDE IT THEMSELVES. AND CURRENTLY NARENDRA MODI IS ELECTED LEADER OF INDIA WITH MAJORITY IN LOKSABHA AND WITH RULING POWER IN MANY BIG STATES. IT'S ENTIRELY HIS PREROGATIVE TO DECIDE INDIA'S PHILOSOPHY. I KNOW YOU ARE FEELING BAD BUT THIS IS THE REALITY. YOU MUST NOT FEEL THAT YOU ARE ENTITLED TO TALK AND TWEAK THE POLICY OF INDIA.

I HOPE NARENDRA MODI MAKES IT CLEAR TO LIKES OF YOU AND MANY THAT INDIA CAN NOT ACCEPT SUCH INTERFERENCE. I HOPE HE BREAKS HIS DANGEROUS SILENCE!

Fact

1) Delhi has seen attacks in 265 temples according to Delhi Police in last year. (Link)

2) Religious conversion in India is happening and to your surprise it's mostly "one-way" traffic.

    

Church Planting : See link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4, link 5, link 6. There are thousands of more such organizations who plant church in India. To give you estimate : Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI) has 35,000 independent churches as of date April 30, 2011. According to India Today report, dated April 30 2011, 5,000 churches have been planted in last five years.

Here is video where Pastor claims there have been 70,000 church plantation by India Gospel League since 1990. Here is tweet by India Gospel League : You see they have planted 7,800 churches in one damn year. Sam Stevens talk about the same 75,000 church plants.

This was just from two different organizations. There are thousands of organizations from many countries working in India. They all have one goal : Convert people to Christianity and harvest their souls! 

Now by amount of church plantation you can guess the number of people who are converted to Christianity. 

Over 80,000 people have baptized this year by India Journey of Compassion and it's partner. See link.

And here you are talking about few hundred re-conversion and projecting it as a threat to Christianity and Islam.

3) You are wrong when you say "200 Muslims in Agra have been converted." Last time I checked and found that there was no conversion of people in Agra. They are very much "muslims". 

4) 100 christians converted to Hinduism in West Bengal but then 70 Hindus converted to Christianity in UP and 25 in Bihar as reported by national media. I am sure this is "acceptable" to you!

5) Cases of Christian Aggression :
    (1) Sudhir Mondithoka uploaded video of him wandering around premise of Sacred Hindu Temple - BalaJi Temple. He was seen abusing Hindu gods, the people following them. Here is 17 minute video. He is currently in Jail because of this.

    (2) Uma Shankar, IAS : He is famous for his hatred for followers of Hindus Gods. See the following poster with photo of Uma Shankar, responsible for Law and Order of India, asking for murder or Homosexuals. How progressive! Here is more about this progressive guy : link.

   (3) Valson Thampu, Principle of St. Stephen College of Delhi University : To your surprise NYT this person is currently investigated by police for his alleged act of converting one of the official. This has been reported in National media and you missed it again! How bad NYT! See link for detail.

   (4) Prinicipal of Mount Hermon, Catholic School : NYT there is police FIR against this guy. One hindu girl committed suicide after she was forced to eat beef! So progressive dear NYT. Parents of girl registered FIR against the person. See link 1 and link 2.

   (5) Three people booked for their "alleged" abuse of Hindu Gods and trying to convert Hindus. See here.

   (6) 7 Christians arrested for damaging Church property! Yes you heard it right NYT! Here is link to news.

6) Are you aware of Joshua Project dear NYT? They have already mapped the population of India for their mission of converting them to Christianity. They say that India needs special attention because people there are lonely and without God. Any independent country would allow such thing to happen itself? Either you are too innocent to understand this or you think Indians are idiots and they will keep allowing such nonsense to happen in its soil.

7) Fact is that population of minorities are growing every decade. Their percentage is increasing while percentage of Hindus are decreasing. I know the rate of growth is not as fast as you like it to be but STILL they are flourishing in India.

I have only cited couple of news to prove that 1. Conversion is mostly "one-way" traffic in India. 2. Christian aggression is true phenomenon.

There are tons other such news and articles and I don't want to burden you with those facts. I see that when it comes to "agenda" of yours you can go any length to ignore facts and reality.

Finally, dear NYT I have no hope that you will remove that "special" glass. I know you will keep writing bullshit and keep misusing the power of media to target one man and organization.

Whether you remove that glass NYT or not, I have removed it and put it in its true place : dust bin. I see things the way they are and will try to do so. I also hope people who read your articles will see through this agenda of yours and do not think of India as intolerant society. 

And frankly I felt very heavy after thinking everything in terms of religion. I felt bad when I had to organize facts based on religion. But I desperately wanted to rebut you, NYT. 

Good luck NYT in your endeavor of painting the Prime Minister of India as bad and painting the worlds largest, pro-humanity, organization RSS as extremist. I hope you will not succeed in this!

Best,

Prashant Kumar Jha