China’s Hindu!

It is October 2, celebrated as Gandhi Jayanti across the country and a national holiday. I opened the daily “The Hindu’ expecting some inspiring and incisive analysis associated with the father of the nation or the principles and policies he enunciated. What I found instead was a banner headline “Tian’anmen showcases rise if China” and a write up by its editor datelined Beijing. More reports and pictures followed inside. Curiously there was not a word of criticism about the blatant display of 50 weapon systems including inter-continental nuclear missiles when the world is seriously concerned with issues of proliferation and universal disarmament. Nor was there any analysis of what it forebodes for us whose borders have lately seen increasing incursions across the northern boundaries. There was verbatim reproduction of what Hu Jintao said about ‘socialism, Marxism, reforms and opening up policy without any analysis of how the disparage elements blend together. It is the only country in the world, which has the temerity not to stamp visas on the passports of Indians belonging to J&K and Arunachal Pradesh but to issue them on loose sheets. In fact it went so far as to protest visits of not just H.H. Dalai Lama but also our prime minister to our own North-Eastern State. While there is no denying the fact that China has recorded spectacular growth, much of it has also been allegedly achieved by denying democratic freedoms and labour rights. Behind the soldiers donning ‘2007-style uniforms’ and marching smartly in Tiananmen square, infamous for suppression of pro-democracy protestors, lies hidden abject poverty and corruption of common man. But even a serious newspaper like ‘The Hindu’ cannot pierce beyond what can be described as the Great Wall of Chinese Opacity and censorship.
Many may argue that it’s nothing to raise eyebrows about considering our neighbour in the north celebrated 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic. I am not sure whether other nations in our neighbourhood, there are half a dozen surrounding us, enjoy the same privilege. ‘The Hindu’ in fact ‘showcases’ everything about China far more enthusiastically than the Chinese themselves, which may explain why its editorial staff is extended Chinese hospitality so frequently and so generously. Its full-length laudatory editorial on Tibet in the past without a word of sympathy for thousands of refugees living in exile across the world would substantiate it. Letters of protest from readers were ignored except one written by Ram Chandra Guha, the noted historian and others, a heavily edited version of which was squeezed into its columns. The intent surely was not to reflect a dissenting opinion but for the sake of record. One could even argue that everything is fine so long development takes place and the standard of life of its 1.3 billion people improves. Should we, then, ban strikes by affluent pilots who report sick make our national airlines lose billions? Should we follow the Chinese example and tame press eulogising foreign governments by publishing the handouts issued by their news agencies more religiously than the handouts of PIB? Let responsible sections of press, like ‘The Hindu’, cover international events freely but in a manner, which is objective rather than subservient