In today's Deshabhimani(CPM owned Malayalam Daily with several lakhs of readership within and outside the country), a news item appears in page 7, with the caption that 'Vidyarthisena demands action to ban ORKUT.
According to the report, President of the Mumbai based organization Bharathiya Vidyarthisena has called for instituting a software to prevent 'misuse' of this site by 'anti socials' by 'causing defamation' to India and 'attempting to spoil communal amity'.He also reportedly warned the owners of internet cafes of their 'responsibilty' in this matter. Attached to the outrageous threat,there is also a clarification that he does not mean to ask for closure of ORKUT as such. If not for anything else but for its supposedly secular credentials, many of us may be willing to reckon the The CPM among the 'secular forces'. I wish to invite those friends to examine the way in which the news is planted in Deshabhimani. What would you think of this kind of ugly journalism, which is arrogant enough to lend an important space in this newspaper( which is built on the sweat of the working class of Kerala) to the distinguished band of bigots masquerading as protectors of communal harmony and national pride? While we encounter many an assault on freedom of expression as experienced by the faculty members as well as by a student of MS University in Vadodara, the open threat against ORKUT voiced by the junior brigade of Shivasena at Mumbai is too obvious to be taken for any kind of bonafide concern for Communal Peace and Pride of the Nation. The story finding a place in Deshabhimani as though it is a benignly reflected concern for National Honour, communal harmony, misuse of the cyberworld for anti social activities,etc, rather than being presented something ominous ,(that too despite the fact that Kerala is a State with no conspicous presence of Shivasena or its junior). One will be constrained to either ignore this kind of journalism as pathetic naivity, or as one specifically designed, which is nuanced with 'embeddedness' and serving purpose of lending legitimacy to these bands otherwise destined to the trash-bins of history. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ greenyouth mailinglist is the activist support mailinglist for kerala To post to this group, send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
