Sir,
In its May 20 issue, the prestigious London weekly, “The Economist,” exposed a number of lies being disseminated by India’s controlled press regarding the Indian government’s blockade of tiny, landlocked Nepal
Among the lies cited by “The Economist” were that Indians were being attacked in Nepal on a large scale. According to “The Economist”, “In fact there have been no attacks and the Nepalese treatment of Indians.” Another distortion is that Indian teachers in Nepal have been fired. Evidence of the good treatment of Indians in Nepal was a statement issued by 900 Indian workers at a Nepalese jute mill that they are not being mistreated.
Earlier this year, “The Economist” exposed the Indian government’s manipulation and control of Doordarshan, or Indian television in a story about the dismissal of an executive of that organization. He had advocated providing objective reporting instead government is encouraging has frequently stated: “India’s media is a tool of the government, being owned and controlled by it. This explains why the Indian’s in Nepal. The Indian government has an interest in creating hostile feelings towards Nepal a country which it is currently abusing, and attempting to bring to its knees.
It also explains the Indian media’s distorted and biased coverage of the Sikhs, another people whom the Indian government wants to crush. The government controlled Indian press has a history of covering up the genocidal policies being practiced against the Sikhs by Rajiv Gandhi’s regime. It also acts as a conduit for Indian government disinformation and is used to transfer blame for terrorist acts perpetrated by Indian government agents on to the Sikhs.
Examples of this include the Bidar atrocity in September 1988 in which numerous Sikh college students were murdered and wounded by mobs and Sikh colleges, home and businesses were burned and looted with police complicity. Also in the same month, the government’s opening of floodgate of Punjab dam without warning, drowning 3,000 people and destroying more than quarter million acres of farmland.
Increasing police brutality against Sikh women, who are gang raped by police officers, go unreported as did the case of a brother who was forced by police to have sex with his sister. What should be front page news throughout India are, if they are ever reported at all, confined to the Punjab press.
A mock takeover of an Indian airliner by Indian security forces was reported as an act of “Sikh
terrorism” in the Indian press and the actual destruction of an Indian airliner by the same forces was falsely ascribed to the Sikhs. There is no true investigative reporting on such matters because the investigative reporting means risking one’s life in India. India’s draconian press laws provide for fines and imprisonment of journalists who delve into security matters. This is done under a very elastic “antiterrorism” law the TADA which stipulates that a journalist can be imprisoned for writing virtually anything the government doesn’t like.
One American newspaper in particular seems unaware of this. The New York Times never tires of talking about India’s “free press”, It has nothing to say, however, about the false reporting about Nepal by India’s puppet press. American journalists should treat with skepticism what they read in the Indian press, or what they hear from the government officials.
Gurmit Singh Aulakh Washington DC
Article extracted from this publication >> June 9, 1989
