The murder of Shujaat Bukhari by terrorists last night left me in all sorts of quandaries. On the one hand, there was the purely human element, the need to express condolences to the family of the murdered man and demand punishment for his killers.
At the same time, I needed to take a stand against the left wing brigade on Twitter who were behaving disgracefully, trying to use the murder as an excuse to shame everyone who disagreed with the outrageous views the man had expressed during his lifetime. But I also had to do this without appearing to be kicking the dead body of a victim of terrorism.
Having zero formal training in journalistic writing, I was truly struggling.
And then the idea struck me like a lightning bolt. Rajdeep Sir! I could look through the writings of India’s numero uno political analyst and borrow some words/ideas from there.
I needed to find the perfect balance, a sublime way to make my point that would be fair to all. A form of writing that is truly subtle and classy and sensitive. I found this article written by Rajdeep Sardesai in The News Minute.
Brilliant writing! Absolutely brilliant writing! And a standing ovation to The News Minute for publishing such brilliant writing.
Even the Scroll had printed the same “nuanced” take by Rajdeep Sardesai.
Mr Shujaat Bukhari was the editor of ‘Rising Kashmir’, an influential voice in the valley. He has self admittedly expressed pride in being intolerant. Don’t believe me? See this:
Here is Mr Shujaat Bukhari’s shocking take on the terror attack at the offices of the magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris.
As many as 12 journalists murdered and Mr Shujaat Bukhari’s response is to kick the victims’ dead bodies and their grieving families in the teeth. To tell them to draw a line and stay clear of faith. To say that it is a case of “lessons learnt.”
Or take this absolutely chilling tweet, also in response to Charlie Hebdo attacks.
It also comes as no surprise that Mr Shujaat Bukhari has also been involved in deliberately misrepresenting actions of Indian security forces in Kashmir.
Considering how sensitive this material is, there is no saying how wicked such an action is.
Any killing is wrong. Mr Bukhari did not deserve to die under any circumstances but there is a “political context to his death” as there would be when Pakistani Army bases are attacked by Islamic terrorists. The Pakistani Army has done it’s very best towards training, supporting and shielding Islamic terrorists. But because of the inherently irrational and violent nature of terrorists, the same jihadis have been known to carry out brutal attacks against the very hands that fed them.
As such, it is disgraceful for the pseudo-secularists to use this moment to score points against Indian critics of Mr Shujaat Bukhari.
Colour me confused. How exactly are “Twitter fundamentalists” the issue here?
A particular target of pseudo-secular attacks turned out to be a scientist and political commentator Anand Ranganathan, for the mere accident that he recalled some of Mr Bukhari’s outrageous quotes a few days ago. Sample this truly puzzling tweet from the health and science editor of The Hindu.
Huh? What is wrong with quoting Mr Bukhari’s publicly expressed views? And as for “sitting on a high horse and pinning agendas” on people who might have to “face bullets”, will reporters of ‘liberal’ news outlets remember this when they discuss the actions of Indian security forces?
“Sitting on a high horse and pinning agendas”, you say. Like the times when cosy “political scientists” write articles comparing the Indian Army in Kashmir to General Dyer? In fact, wasn’t Mr Bukhari choosing to do exactly this when he suggested that crushing Kashmiris under the wheel might be a deliberate action from the CRPF?
Or take this one from another liberal, who seems to be implying that right-wing twitter might have perfected time travel.
Unfortunately, bashing right-wingers have become a large multi-national industry, backed up by big money and big institutional power, run by people who believe they are so right and so moral that they have a mandate to monopolize the flow of information. This is not about million dollar left wing channels and news portals versus right-wing twitter, this is about punishing terrorists. Nothing else matters.
Rajdeep Sardesai gave a “political context” to the brutal killing of Prashant Poojary. The News Minute, among many others, published that view and the “liberal” media applauded the nuance. Where is that same “nuance” now?
