Just a couple of days back, we published a detailed article on how The Hindu’s coverage of the Bharat Jodo Yatra is a great case study of how to be more loyal than the King! The article was written with the assumption that The Hindu is done with the coverage of the BJ Yatra. However, The Hindu has shredded that assumption to pieces. Not fully content with how they praised Rahul Gandhi, they publish this opinion on Feb. 13th.
The word “catharsis” means “the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions.” The premise of the article is that Kashmiris have embraced the BJ Yatra like never before and therefore – “In the groundswell of support for Rahul Gandhi, there is a message for Delhi”.
But what is the message for Delhi? We were told that “By walking with Mr Gandhi, Kashmiris sent out the political message that they believe in principles such as democracy, plurality, civility and a detestation for hate politics, despite the popular depiction of them as Islamists.”
That is a glowing description of those who walked with Rahul Gandhi. Those who walked apparently believed in certain principles “despite the popular depiction of them as Islamists”. Now, why would that be the popular depiction? The author himself provides an answer for this, inadvertently, in another section of his article.
We are told that “There has been such a groundswell of support only during militants’ funerals or separatist leaders’ speeches in south Kashmir.” Whoa! Now, whoa! In his attempt to worship Rahul Gandhi, have the author and the newspaper actually ended up demonising him further? Did they just compare the crowd that joined the Bharat Jodo Yatra to the crowd that used to join the militants’ funerals or separatist leaders’ speeches?
“Separatist leaders’ speeches” are filled with, well, separatism. Separatism is the exact opposite of “Jodo”. Why then does a crowd that wants to separate, join a yatra that claims to unify? How does the author want the reader to understand this hypocritical argument?
Attending militants’ funerals essentially means support for terrorism. It’s not as if people just walked along with the dead bodies in these funeral processions. Anti-India slogans were raised during these funerals. Now, do you understand why the “popular depiction of them as Islamists”? If you hail separatism and mourn terrorists, why then would the world think of you as a citizen who has “detestation for hate politics”? Do the author and the paper really think that their readers are so gullible, that they can write anything and get away with it? Or is the author (and the paper) saying that the same crowd that embraced separatism has now embraced Bharat Jodo? And in that case, shouldn’t the credit go to Modi and not Rahul?!
Since the author believes so strongly that Rahul Gandhi gained massive popularity in Kashmir, he tells us that this support is because “Mr. Gandhi seems to have been a medium of catharsis for Kashmiris, who have stopped expressing themselves since 2019 in the face of many clampdowns.”
Stopped expressing themselves? Here are three reports from The Hindu itself, by the same author – on how Kashmiris’ have embraced their newfound freedom; how they are becoming prosperous; on how they are finally getting to even watch movies in theatres after 23 years (You can ignore the “dark hall” comment – Kashmiris couldn’t even go to theatres and watch movies for 23 years!).
Are all of these not ways of expressing themselves, of how they have embraced the new situation? Or according to the author, is the only way to express themselves by mourning terrorists and embracing separatists?
We are told that Rahul Gandhi came to Kashmir in August 2021 and “Barely anyone remembers the statements he made that year.” Well, can you really blame the people for this? His speeches have always remained the same ever since he entered politics in 2004! However, why did the author bring this up? Because he now tells us that the speech, he gave in January 2023 as part of the BJ Yatra is different from the speech he gave in August 2021. How? “this time, his speech from the Sher-i-Kashmir Cricket Stadium was live-streamed on social media.” I was reading further to see if any stats will be provided on viewership or activity on SM platforms. Nothing is written. The author bluntly ends the statement there! The only different thing from 2021 to 2023 was that a speech was live-streamed and therefore it is an indication of being popular!
After such a mumbling yet a glowing tribute to Rahul Gandhi, can you guess how the author ends the article? “All the political pundits will agree that Mr. Gandhi’s sudden and rare popularity in Kashmir may not necessarily translate into any upswing in votes for him if elections were to be held in the region.”
The already confused reader will now perhaps want to tear up the paper in frustration! The extreme levels of worshipping that the author exhibited in this article will even put some (p)sycophants in the Congress party also to shame. We are told that “The eyes of many women welled up with tears on seeing him.” We were also told that people men stopped their cars and came and hugged him. In fact, these points are repeated twice in the article, lest we forget! If women cried and men hugged him on a scale that was never seen before, why then wouldn’t they vote for him? After all, we were told that they strongly believe in the “principles of democracy”!
