4 ms·

The bizarre thing is how balanced the documentary actually is if you watch it. Many senior BJP officials are given plenty of time to defend their case. It focus

by rozab 4y ago

The bizarre thing is how balanced the documentary actually is if you watch it. Many senior BJP officials are given plenty of time to defend their case. It focuses on provable events, things which were captured on video or public legal proceedings. If this has received such extreme backlash, I'd hate to see what happens to an actual opinionated news outlet

mikehotel 4y ago
Check out what happened to the founders of https://www.altnews.in/ https://www.altnews.in/, a fact checking website. Some would argue they are opinionated but judge for yourself. https://archive.ph/uEqAc https://archive.ph/uEqAc https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt_News https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt_News
- webmobdev 4y ago
  And Karan Thapar is now "jobless" (in the sense that no reputed media house is willing to work with him because of pressure from the government) too - - Why Modi Walked Out in 2007 and the BJP Now Shuns Me: https://thewire.in/books/narendra-modi-karan-thapar-interview https://thewire.in/books/narendra-modi-karan-thapar-intervie... - How India's ace journalist was punished for confronting Prime Minister Modi: https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/how-india-s-ace-journalist-was-punished-for-confronting-prime-minister-modi-19584 https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/how-india-s-ace-journalist... Recently, NDTV also saw some high-profile senior editors and journalists exit after Adani (Modi's crony capitalist buddy) bought it.
arp242 4y ago
My biggest gripe with the documentary is that it simplifies things too much, and in some cases IMHO even misrepresented things. The way it presents things is, crudely put, "Hindus and Muslims were living happily together in India, and then Modi came along, stoked tensions, and things all went south". While Modi definitely played a part and has much to answer for, things are significantly more complex than that. "Muslims set pilgrims on fire during the Godhra train burning" accusation/assumption – which probably isn't true – didn't come out of thin air, as such things did happen before.[1] One example of what I considered serious misrepresentation is (quote from the documentary) "In June last year, a BJP spokeswoman made comments about the Prophet Muhammad on TV that angered Muslims in India and around the world". Curiously, it doesn't say what the "comments" were, so I looked it up and they were really mild: "I want to ask those with affection for the Prophet that at the age of 53, he married a 6-year-old girl Aisha and then at the age of 56, he consummated that relationship with 9-year-old Aisha ... does such relationship not come under the category of rape?" [2] Which is a long-standing and common criticism, and the ages are generally accepted by Muslim scholars as well. And the "around the world" means the usual religio-fascist countries that are angered whenever someone criticised their religion; you know, the type of people who think that someone getting beheaded for showing a cartoon or stabbed in the eye for writing a book is just a fantastic thing. Yet, the way it's presented in the documentary leaves the impression that she said something vile and horribly Islamophobic. She did no such thing. Yet she was suspended from the BJP, seemingly mostly to placate violent threats from some Muslims. Several people died in the protests over those comments. The person who made the remarks had to have security due to death threats. There's a bunch of things like this where I felt it presented a rather myopic view of things. Not false exactly, but not the full story, either. One could counter by saying that the film was only intended to examine Modi's role, and isn't supposed to be a full examination of the full conflict. But I think one needs to understand at least the basics of the full conflict and context to examine Modi's role in it. Of course, none of this justifies India's response to the film. But I did not like the documentary, and did not consider it all that balanced. Yes, BJP officials were given ample time, but by focusing on only a specific set of events instead of a more complete picture it was quite balanced. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Chamba_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Chamba_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Wandhama_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Wandhama_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Amarnath_pilgrimage_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Amarnath_pilgrimage_massa... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Kishtwar_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Kishtwar_massacre and more [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Muhammad_remarks_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Muhammad_remarks_controve...
- rldjbpin 4y ago
  i really wish they made the documentary correctly, especially given how much time they had since the events to work on this. i get the pushback from the current administration for any media criticism, but i am surprised by how many indians are unaware of these events. i hate to see them only get an incomplete picture.
- arp242 4y ago
  * I meant the say "by focusing on only a specific set of events instead of a more complete picture it was quite UNbalanced." in that last paragraph (too late to edit).

by rozab 4y ago

mikehotel 4y ago

Check out what happened to the founders of https://www.altnews.in/ https://www.altnews.in/, a fact checking website. Some would argue they are opinionated but judge for yourself. https://archive.ph/uEqAc https://archive.ph/uEqAc https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt_News https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt_News

webmobdev 4y ago
And Karan Thapar is now "jobless" (in the sense that no reputed media house is willing to work with him because of pressure from the government) too - - Why Modi Walked Out in 2007 and the BJP Now Shuns Me: https://thewire.in/books/narendra-modi-karan-thapar-interview https://thewire.in/books/narendra-modi-karan-thapar-intervie... - How India's ace journalist was punished for confronting Prime Minister Modi: https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/how-india-s-ace-journalist-was-punished-for-confronting-prime-minister-modi-19584 https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/how-india-s-ace-journalist... Recently, NDTV also saw some high-profile senior editors and journalists exit after Adani (Modi's crony capitalist buddy) bought it.

arp242 4y ago

My biggest gripe with the documentary is that it simplifies things too much, and in some cases IMHO even misrepresented things. The way it presents things is, crudely put, "Hindus and Muslims were living happily together in India, and then Modi came along, stoked tensions, and things all went south". While Modi definitely played a part and has much to answer for, things are significantly more complex than that. "Muslims set pilgrims on fire during the Godhra train burning" accusation/assumption – which probably isn't true – didn't come out of thin air, as such things did happen before.[1] One example of what I considered serious misrepresentation is (quote from the documentary) "In June last year, a BJP spokeswoman made comments about the Prophet Muhammad on TV that angered Muslims in India and around the world". Curiously, it doesn't say what the "comments" were, so I looked it up and they were really mild: "I want to ask those with affection for the Prophet that at the age of 53, he married a 6-year-old girl Aisha and then at the age of 56, he consummated that relationship with 9-year-old Aisha ... does such relationship not come under the category of rape?" [2] Which is a long-standing and common criticism, and the ages are generally accepted by Muslim scholars as well. And the "around the world" means the usual religio-fascist countries that are angered whenever someone criticised their religion; you know, the type of people who think that someone getting beheaded for showing a cartoon or stabbed in the eye for writing a book is just a fantastic thing. Yet, the way it's presented in the documentary leaves the impression that she said something vile and horribly Islamophobic. She did no such thing. Yet she was suspended from the BJP, seemingly mostly to placate violent threats from some Muslims. Several people died in the protests over those comments. The person who made the remarks had to have security due to death threats. There's a bunch of things like this where I felt it presented a rather myopic view of things. Not false exactly, but not the full story, either. One could counter by saying that the film was only intended to examine Modi's role, and isn't supposed to be a full examination of the full conflict. But I think one needs to understand at least the basics of the full conflict and context to examine Modi's role in it. Of course, none of this justifies India's response to the film. But I did not like the documentary, and did not consider it all that balanced. Yes, BJP officials were given ample time, but by focusing on only a specific set of events instead of a more complete picture it was quite balanced. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Chamba_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Chamba_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Wandhama_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Wandhama_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Amarnath_pilgrimage_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Amarnath_pilgrimage_massa... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Kishtwar_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Kishtwar_massacre and more [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Muhammad_remarks_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Muhammad_remarks_controve...

rldjbpin 4y ago
i really wish they made the documentary correctly, especially given how much time they had since the events to work on this. i get the pushback from the current administration for any media criticism, but i am surprised by how many indians are unaware of these events. i hate to see them only get an incomplete picture.
arp242 4y ago
* I meant the say "by focusing on only a specific set of events instead of a more complete picture it was quite UNbalanced." in that last paragraph (too late to edit).