First, a disclaimer: I am not an expert on Indo-China relations. But as one who sticks to a basic journalistic quality of tracking news and events that make headlines, I am aware that all is not well in the relations between the two countries. From the news I have been reading and watching in the last few weeks, it is quite obvious that the two Asian giants have upped the ante against each other.
The Indian media appears to be egging on New Delhi to adopt an aggressive stance and match the rhetoric of the Chinese, who have staked fresh claims over the Indian State of Arunachal Pradesh. The Chinese protest against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s recent visit to the North Eastern State evoked strong reactions in the media – quite justifiably.
In my view, China is behaving like the typical school bully, who would pick up fights with every other boy in the school, just to show who the boss was in the campus. The bully would have a free run till he gets his nose bloodied some day or someone at least stands up, looks him in the eye, and says, “Ok, dude! Let’s fight it out, if that’s what you want.” India has to respond in a language that the Chinese would understand.
English daily, Deccan Chronicle, adopted a balanced view in its editorial titled “It’s time to speak frankly to China.” While advocating a bilateral summit to resolve the standoff between the two nations, it noted in the issue dated 19 October 2009: “India needs to prepare itself to deal with any situation that may be thrown up. Economically, politically, militarily, and in terms of its weight in the international system, it is a more capable entity than it was in 1962.”
However, contrary to the general thinking in the media, The Hindu continues to believe that the Chinese and Indians can remain friends forever. It perceives the current turbulent phase in the Indo – Chinese relations in a refreshingly optimistic manner.
In an editorial dated 19 October 2009, “How to end this discordance,” the paper noted: “The tone, although not the substance, of India – China relations has recently been through a problematic phase, with misperceptions and motivated media campaigns creating the impression of some kind of crisis.”
The Hindu further added for clarity: “That this is not so has been made clear by the governments of both countries; in their own ways, they have made the point that the positive overall trend of the “China – India Strategic and Cooperative Partnership for Peace and Prosperity” remains unaffected.”
Is it so? Well, an IANS report from Kathmandu, which was carried by many dailies the following day (20 October 2009) – The Hindu was understandably not among them – provides a contrasting picture.
Deccan Chronicle ran the report with the headline: “Kashmir not part of India, claims China.” The report said: “Besides issuing separate visas to Indian passport holders from Jammu and Kashmir, China is also projecting the disputed territory as an independent country in other ways.
Visitors to Tibet, especially journalists invited by the Chinese government, are given handouts where Kashmir is indicated as a country separate from India.
Media kits providing “basic information” about Tibet – which China attacked and annexed in the 1950s – says Tibet “borders with India, Nepal, Myanmar and Kashmir area”.
It could be noted that barring the so called “Kashmir area,” the other three are sovereign countries. So what are the Chinese trying to say? Or still better to ask, what is it that China wants? That’s some food for thought.
The writer PC Vinoj Kumar is a Special Correspondent for the Indian weekly magazine – Tehelka. The views expressed are his own.
7 Comments
My observation is that “The Hindu” publishes reports from Chinese perspective. In the recent Sri Lanka crisis, the news magazine took an extreme hardline stand supporting Sri Lanka which is a new Chinese ally. Failing to realize and act on the movements of the Chinese could result in a disaster to India’s security.
An investigation to expose the ties, Indian media houses have with foreign governments or agents could throw some light on why “The Hindu” is attempting to sway public opinion against Indian interests.
Its no more The Hindu, it will be “The Chindu” [chinese-hindu]. The last 2-3 years have been quite bad financially for Kasturi and Sons, with the successful launch of Times of India in Tamilnadu. So massive funding from China and Srilanka for Anti-India reporting is how The Chindu keeps itself alive.
One more fact is that Mr.N Ram was awarded Srilanka Ratna for his ‘compliance’ of an anti-indian and anti-tamil stand. If you noticed in August there was a 3 page Interview in Hindu with the Srilankan-Hitler Rajapakse, to whitewash the black genocide. 3 Full pages of an interview with a War Criminal and Genocidal Maniac in a so called National Newspaper !!
Chindu has hit rock bottom in ethics.
Has anyone seen an article in Hindu, that criticised China ? You wont be able to. N Ram was a communist, will be a communist and he wears the chinese flag and carrries a little red book.
It wont be too long before Chindu will say Arunachal, Sikkim and Katchatheevu is not part of India. and yes, that the Chinese funded Maoists are freedom fighters.
I see it coming. Wake up before its too late.
I don’t think the Chinese would be too pleased if visitors to Nepal were handed brochures claiming that Tibet was not part of China!
We need no evidence for “The Hindu”‘s cheap pro Chinese or pro sri lankan articles, but for those of you who wonder why, here is a theory. It is called “the force within”. It is usually general for a country which initiates a war (referred to as defaulter) to fund NGO’s in the target country which are anti war and purposefully create internal dissatisfaction. In most cases. the NGO’s are unaware of the fact who is funding them, but in some cases they are. In the case of the Hindu daily, it is probably the most read newspaper in the southern regions of our great homeland. They have influenced generations of reader and defined the way we look at things. What better a mouth piece to spread the Chinese propaganda. There were two great factors that the Chinese managed to identify during the Sri Lanka – Eelam crisis.
1. Though the Hindu daily was pro Sri lankan army and published anti Eelam articles in a state called “Tamil Nadu” (which was primary inhabited by Tamilians who refer to Sri Lankan Tamil as their udanpirapu) they did not see any major backlash against the Hindu daily nor did it see a major loss of the newspapers circulation. The Chinese were very effective in the identification of their mouth piece. After all there are still some idiots who would believe N.Ram over 20 other newspapers.
2. The whole Eelam issues reveled the political power vested withing the people of one state. Though we Tamilians were not able to force the Indian government to intervene, we did play a major role in preventing the Indian governments participation against our so called brothers. This just strengthened China’s belief that if they can create internal dissatisfaction against the governments action, then it would mellow India’s action against Chinese intervention.
Am i accusing the Hindu Daily of espionage. Hell yes I am.
I dont have any disclaimers and take all responsibilities for the content of this article and ready to face any consequences of my actions. But there was something that struck me when i was writing this article. What is the purpose of the original article and my comment. It probably gave many innocent souls an “Aaha” moment, because they failed to see through the Hindu Daily’s lies. But do you thiny this would have had an impact on them. NO. I can soooo see them sitting in their sofas, sipping their filter coffee and reading the Hindu the very next day, in fact for the rest of their life. We Indian, we are such a unique class, we always wait for someone else to take up our own issues, we wait for someone else to express our frustration in public, and yet when we seem them on TV, we referred to them has uncultured people who are not able to cope up with the cultural change. If there is God, i hop he saves us, if Love is God, then it will probably take another Gandhi and a few hundred years to save us
This Ram is a stinking skunk in the sphere of Indian journalism. Mr. Expat 21’s assertion is much agreeable and could be endorsed without any reservation or hesitation. Firstly, as he observed, many also have experienced reading ‘The Hindu’ and ‘Frontline’ over the years and found that they don’t live up to the standards of excellence in journalistic norms and principles and shamelessly continue to derail the good objectives and purpose and thus failed to uphold the honour and inherent respectability for the names that they hold, exemplify and are supposed to reflect. As elephants have two sets of teeth – one set (the tusk) is displayed outside to attract and other is hidden inside to crush, these baneful publications too similarly have these names displayed to attract hiding the ‘Intentions and motives’ to ruthlessly crush – hell-bent to mislead the public. My subscription had natural death with the last $100 in 1984.
Secondly, Mr. Expat-21 finds this fouling Ram as a Chinese Communist. I disagree with his attributive observation. It’s a slur / insult to the Principles / Doctrines of Communism if this scum is viewed / classified as communist. Only his physical appearance resembles the Chinese features – pale yellowish complexion and round face with flattened shap’da nose; it drives me to think otherwise for his grandiose writings reflecting sincere inclination towards China. ‘Communism & Socialism’ are no more anywhere in world today with two noticeable exceptions – Cuba and N. Korea. All those states literally display words like ‘Communists and Socialists’ in their banner of country names just to take refuge under such titles to camouflage but reality and practice they are not so – far away from the doctrines of Communism and Socialism – so is with the words ‘Democratic & Republic’ too, e.g. Democratic Socialists Republic of …! Patriarchs of this mysticism, USSR and China along with their followers in all parts of the world also have gradually changed from such fantasized world to the more practical competitive economic system of Capitalism. Communist China and Democratic India are no more with original economic ideology but have steadily transformed their system to capitalism and are becoming the two largest Capitalist States to compete with the West with market of almost two fifth (2/5) of world population – only difference between them is their governing systems – i.e. without abandoning the prefixes. So this guy is carried away not by ideological impulses but by an unknown instantly invisible affinity towards China. Let me not say he is anti-Indian or want to doubt his loyalty – but compelled to say his sincerity to China is greater and overpowering his loyalty to Mother-India.
Let me not deviate further from the subject. Mr. Vinoj’s thoughts go along with Mr. AP Venkateswaran’s, former veteran FS who had been forcibly demoted / reassigned under Rajiv Gandhi, recent interview ‘Time to get ruff and tuff’. Nobody wants a war as the first choice to settle disputes, yet if the decent soft spoken message is unheard and ignored then it’s driven to a time to speak in a language that the other understands well – there’s no other way about it. Yet, the recent seeming realigning partnerships and developments in the subcontinent, India, under the pretext / disguise of national interest and security, had successfully field-tested and monitored the effectiveness, the world opinion and side-effects, with the wholehearted covert and overt support of Mr. Karuna’s DMK TN Municipality, of its prototype strategy of ‘Annihilation / Genocide of seeming Threats’ on Eelam Nationalism. Results are (1) militarily (Genocide) a success because the chosen target was soft, its isolation and the advantage of geography and effective usage of high flying banner of ‘Terrorism against Democracy’; but (2) the effectiveness of is a failure – became counter-productive and (3) the resulting spawn of side-effects on other areas are monumental. Perhaps testing this prototype may be of multi-purpose – to study its usefulness in the trouble simmering / boiling areas in the northern flank. India will have to think twice, over and over and again and again, before using the prototype because the targets in the North and Northeast are neither soft nor helpless or orphans, unless she creates or finds some Karunas, likes of Rams and DMKs in the North and employing refreshed mentality of RAW. Farook Abdullahs or Dorji Khandu will never be the duplicates of Karuna of TN. It will be very difficult to find still never be possible for India because such Karunas, Balus and Kovans only in TN. May God bless Mother-India!
I understand Mr. Ram of “The HINDU” has been awarded in SriLanka for his services to SriLanka, and he is obviously running the age old news paper to his whims & fancies. Obviously we dont have to discuss much that The Hindu has always been writing on behalf of communists-aka- China & trying to play down the issues created by China.
But the most surprising part is, how come NDTV who is “pro-Indian” and unbiased reporter has joined hands with The Hindu.
Forgot to mention “Save The Hindu” pleaseeee. May be NDTV can buy it off ?