Out of the innumerable quotes that exist in relation to mass media, my favorites are as follows:
- “People in the mass media tend more and more every day to look and act like elected and appointed officials.“-L. Neil Smith
- “I operate under the assumption that the mass media will never be accurate. It operates with the objective to simplify and exaggerate, which is exactly what Walt Disney told his cartoonists.“-Michael Crichton
Let us discuss the above quotes briefly with respect to India and the Hindu identity.
The first quote concerns a topic that invites a lot of discussion and/or argument in the society. In what leads to becoming a judgement call on the Hindus of India and worldwide, topics such as intolerance, nationalism, majoritarian politics, Hindutva etc. are deliberated or characterized on mainstream news media, advertising, cinema, television shows, web series, digital platforms etc. on a regular basis. The demonization of Hindus and their culture is always accompanied by the portrayal of honest and bright Muslim characters that almost always happen to be a victim of the majority in India no matter what mode of mass media is concerned. The self-appointed crusaders of justice, democracy and equality at the helm of such mass media organizations seem to (without having being invited to do so by the people of this country) have declared themselves as the protectors of this nation and her Constitution.
In the past few years in India, we have come across an unusual situation where a number of mass media outlets seem to be “two timers” as in one branch of the organization will support the nationalist narrative and the other will support the leftist narrative. One half of the married celebrity couple will seem to be patriotic and a vocal Modi supporter while the other half will create web series that shamelessly portray Hindus as the worst form of demons to have existed on this planet. In what seems like a carefully crafted business strategy, various mass media organizations and celebrities associated with it seem to have mastered the skill of “Dono Hathon mein Laddu Hona”.
Such antics allow various political forces to artificially manufacture their support bases in public leading to utter confusion among the public on issues pertaining to national policy or security and further provide a lucrative opportunity to mass media companies, celebrities etc. to make significant profits. Anti-Hindu content of mass media is, therefore, not only just part of a greater political narrative but also an extremely profitable business model.
The second quote deals with inaccuracy, simplification and exaggeration by the mass media organization especially regarding Hindu mindset. Inaccuracy is often displayed by publishing fake news, changing the religion or caster of characters in a movie, TV show or web series based on real life events, falsification of Indian history produced as content/news and through various other means. Simplification is done by equating certain social evils in Hindu society (social evils exist in all cultures of the world) to a globalist Muslim Ummah movement to create a theocratic society worldwide. It leads to Hindus drawing false equivalence between their culture to cultures that are out to capture and destroy Hindus by calling them inferior, idol worshippers and many other things. It further leads to the greatest fallacy of equating Dharma with religion or mazhab and creating ridiculous cultural hoaxes like Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb, idea of India etc.
Exaggeration is one of the most common concepts nowadays when we hear debates on intolerance, ghar wapsi, award wapsi, mob lynching etc. Random acts of violence are given the color of communal hatred. And of course mass media organizations never forget to remind us that communal hatred is a trait which is only possessed by the Hindus of this country. What a great opportunity it provides to create fictional content which is nowadays not just part of cinematographic films but also our news.
So now you know that there is a lot of money to be made in commercializing anti-Hindu sentiments in mass media along with gaining several political favors!
