Freedom of the press exists only if you own a press
by Swami Devananda
Hindus have very few informed and articulate spokesmen today, and even fewer deep thinkers. Those who do try to put their views across are invariably silenced by the media. Editors and publishers do the silencing by simply ignoring what Hindu intellectuals write or say. As somebody once said, freedom of the press exists only if you own a press.
Ram Swarup and Sita Ram Goel were silenced by the media though they were the best Hindu thinkers of their generation.
Arun Shourie got some space to have his say but not very much. Like Sita Ram Goel he had to publish his own books because no "respected" publisher would touch them.
Koenraad Elst did get a hearing in the Hindu nationalist press because he was an agnostic foreigner with a degree from Europe's most prestigious Catholic university. Rupa published his magnum opus, Decolonizing the Hindu Mind, but I remember seeing only one comprehensive review in the media, in a Kerala Christian news magazine.
But times are changing. NRI Hindus have both money and prestigious academic and professional positions. They are socially and culturally informed. They know about secularism, pluralism and democracy. And they have something to say about the utter prostitution of our academic, cultural and political life by Indian "Hindu" Marxists and politicians of one kind or another, who have dominated public debate since Independence.
Our politically correct liberal socialist secular press, mostly owned and edited by Christians or Christian sympathizers when they are not outright card-carrying Sinophiles, will have to take serious note of these Hindu public intellectuals if they want to stay in business.
Rajiv Malhotra is an astute and articulate Hindu thinker and philanthropist. He has challenged Wendy Doniger, the Queen of Hinduphobia at the University of Chicago's Divinity School, and come away unscathed.
Missionaries, Marxist-Maoists and other "misspeakers" of Hindus and Hinduism in India now have to answer to a Hindu intellectual who can call their bluff and call it with force and integrity.
Comment on Rajiv Malhotra's recent article.. on the imminent dangers of India's fragmentation of identities
turning into politically unwieldy, opportunistic vote banking.
Hindus have very few informed and articulate spokesmen today, and even fewer deep thinkers. Those who do try to put their views across are invariably silenced by the media. Editors and publishers do the silencing by simply ignoring what Hindu intellectuals write or say. As somebody once said, freedom of the press exists only if you own a press.
Ram Swarup and Sita Ram Goel were silenced by the media though they were the best Hindu thinkers of their generation.
Arun Shourie got some space to have his say but not very much. Like Sita Ram Goel he had to publish his own books because no "respected" publisher would touch them.
Koenraad Elst did get a hearing in the Hindu nationalist press because he was an agnostic foreigner with a degree from Europe's most prestigious Catholic university. Rupa published his magnum opus, Decolonizing the Hindu Mind, but I remember seeing only one comprehensive review in the media, in a Kerala Christian news magazine.
But times are changing. NRI Hindus have both money and prestigious academic and professional positions. They are socially and culturally informed. They know about secularism, pluralism and democracy. And they have something to say about the utter prostitution of our academic, cultural and political life by Indian "Hindu" Marxists and politicians of one kind or another, who have dominated public debate since Independence.
Our politically correct liberal socialist secular press, mostly owned and edited by Christians or Christian sympathizers when they are not outright card-carrying Sinophiles, will have to take serious note of these Hindu public intellectuals if they want to stay in business.
Rajiv Malhotra is an astute and articulate Hindu thinker and philanthropist. He has challenged Wendy Doniger, the Queen of Hinduphobia at the University of Chicago's Divinity School, and come away unscathed.
Missionaries, Marxist-Maoists and other "misspeakers" of Hindus and Hinduism in India now have to answer to a Hindu intellectual who can call their bluff and call it with force and integrity.
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