NEW DELHI: If you differ with the Hindutava brigade, have the temerity to talk of the true ideals of Hinduism and criticize the demolition of the disputed Babri Masjid structure, be prepared for venomous late mail and obscene phone calls.
Prabhas Joshi, editor of the Hindi daily Jansatta, and poet Girdhar Rathi, editor of the Sahitya Akademi’s Hindi journal Samkaleen Bharatiya Sahitya, have been victims of this vicious campaign ever since they chose to speak out in defence of saints.
AfterDec.7, the day Joshi penned a FrontPage additional condemning the treachery employed by the RSS, VHP, Balrang Dal and BJP in demolishing the mosque, he has received no less than 600 letters and more than SO phone calls. Rathi, who wrote a long article in Jansutta’s Sunday magazine pointing out that the people who committed a sin against the Constitution by demolishing the Babri Masjid had earlier pulled town temples too, has received numerous disturbing phone calls.
Many of the letters addressed to Joshi hurl the choicest, imprint able abuses as well as threats al him, his parents and his wife. Some contain obscene doodling’s while others call him a “traitor,” “mullah,” “Jaicnand,” “an agent of the Muslim countries who has sold himself for petro dollars” and “eunuch.” These are the mildest of the epithets used.
All the letter writers invariably say there are going to stop reading Jansatta and will ask others to do the same. A number of letter winters justify the attack on the media saying it was deserved and the press must show “restraint.” They also accuse Joshi of spreading communal hatred against the Hindus.
One anonymous letter writer, while using unprintable language against Joshi, also threatens to kill MPs like VP Singh and Ram Vilas Paswan “who are opposed to the Hindu cause.”
Some letters have been addressed to the managing editor of the Express Group, Vivek Goenka, asking him to sack Joshi. “People have been calling my wife to caution her against me because, according to them, I have converted into a Muslim so that I could maintain three other wives,” laughs Joshi.
Rathi has been receiving two types of phone calls. One, where the callers, who include women, Start abusing him in extremely filthy language for his allegedly “ant Hindu” stance. “The second type is those where the caller says he is phoning from a mosque and wants to convert me into a Muslim. Such callers use a sarcastic tone, compliment me for my supposedly anti Hindu views, and inform me that I will have to be circumcised too,” he says.
Joshi is convinced that most of these letter writers belong to the RSS and its allied organizations. He says the RSS teaches its members and sympathizers to get into the habit of writing letters to journals so that the organization’s viewpoint receives publicity. “They are making an orchestrated attempt to demoralize me. All these threats of stopping to read Jansatta do not get reflected in its circulation which has been steadily increasing. Also, they want to instill the fear of these organizations RSS, VHP, BJP and Bajrang Dalin me,” Says Joshi.
The veteran editor adds that the RSS and its allied organizations are particularly annoyed with him because “they considered me close to their thinking and now they feel betrayed al a crucial juncture.” Doesn’t he feel scared? “No,” comes the reply. Joshi has not bothered to get the abusive phone calls traced as “it would serve no purpose.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 22, 1993
