There are times when we allow ourselves to be swayed by propaganda. Propaganda that has no element of truth in it. Propaganda that is false, malicious and baseless. This, sadly, happens to be one of those times.
I must admit that in the past, there were instances when I too got a bit carried away by articles that prima facie appeared to look ever so truthful, objective and factual, little realizing that the authors of those pieces had their own personal axes to grind, their own agendas to pursue. One such instance that I can think offhand was Subramanium Swamy's harsh and bitter critique titled "Do You Know Your Sonia?" In this piece penned by him some 4 years back, he made all sorts of wild and baseless allegations against the Congress President Sonia Gandhi, trying to link her in all kinds of serious crimes like FERA Violations, forgery, Smuggling and – would you believe it - even the murder of her own husband Rajiv Gandhi and deaths of other leaders like Rajesh Pilot and Madhavrao Scindia. http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Soc/soc.culture.indian/2005-08/msg00023.html The allegations were made on the basis of a clever misrepresentation of facts, intellectual play of words and on a lot of speculations, presumptions and assumptions. It is a different matter that his petitions were later dismissed by the Supreme Court, but what was the point? By then, his critique had been distributed all over the Country and Sonia Gandhi had been turned into a highly maligned lady. I do not need to deliberate at length the role of Cristopher Hitchens and a few others in maligning the "Saint of the Gutters" Mother Teresa, except to state that the propaganda material against her too appeared convincing to the innocent mind. And it did convince a lot of people, not only in India but in the rest of the World too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Missionary_Position_(book) http://members.lycos.co.uk/bajuu/ http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/shields_18_1.html The questions we need to ask ourselves are: 1. Would it be just then to tarnish the fair name of others in the absence of sound and tangible facts? 2. Must we allow ourselves to be carried away by propaganda that has no element of truth in it? 3. Must we judge others without even making an attempt to intellectually discern the truth? If guilt by Association is a Crime, wouldn't Jesus Christ, Allah and the 33 Crore Hindu Gods be the greatest criminals, for being indirectly associated with Religious ideologies that have admittedly brought a lot of death, human destruction and mayhem on planet Earth? It is time we act in a much more matured manner. At a time when we Indians need to be proud of Sonal Shah's achievements, let's not tarnish her fair name on the basis of mere "Guilt-by-Association" and/or innuendo, mis-representations and assumptions. Cheers Sandeep
