indian vote off to a violent start

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/18/world/asia/indian-vote-off-to-a-violent-start.html?pagewanted=all

Dear Max,

Why are you promoting this article that is deliberately misleading at best and blatantly lying at worst? Are you so blinded by your hatred for Modi that your principles and brains have taken a leave? How are you any different from Indians who were similarly blinded by hatred for their fellow countrymen and betrayed their states/kingdoms to the British? Please let us know what kind of labels we should use to describe this action of yours. Please also let us know what kind of labels would be apt for a person who acts this way.

This article is the WORST form of journalism. It links the announcement of Modi as the prime ministerial candidate of the BJP to the communal riots in Muzaffarnagar. It says that the former is the cause of the latter ("not coincidentally"). This is blatantly wrong and deceitful on several levels. It is so wrong that this journalist and his editor should be severely reprimanded, if not fired for publishing this piece. Here's how they are wrong.

1. Riots in Muzaffarnagar started much before Modi was announced as the PM candidate.

2. Communal riots in UP are more or less routine. It is a state where 100 communal riots have taken place in a single year not too long ago!

3. As of March 2013, UP CM Akhilesh Yadav himself admitted that as many as 27 separate incidents of communal violence have taken place in UP since he came to power. That is the officially accepted number. The real numbers are bound to be higher.

4. Did that article you post mention that compared to UP (with its 100 incidents of communal violence in a year), Gujarat has had a decade-long period of no communal violence under Modi's leadership? No? Why not?

5. The article mentioned that there were 451 incidents of communal violence to date this year, and 410 incidents last year. Did the article mention that number of incidents of violence in Gujarat last year and this year, and for the past 10+ years is exactly a big fat fucking ZERO?? No? Why not?

6. Has the whole of India been free of communal violence in the years and months before Modi became the PM candidate of the BJP? Have there not been hundreds, if not thousands of incidents of communal violence across the length and breadth of the country for weeks, months, years before Modi became the PM candidate? What about the killing of the BJP leaders in TN? What about the huge incidents of communal violence in Assam, bigger even than what is happening in Muzaffarnagar now? What about the 451 incidents this year to date, and 410 incidents last year? Is Modi responsible for all of those? If not, why is Modi responsible for what is happening in Muzaffarnagar now?

7. If a single riot happens in a state where Modi was the CM, then Modi is responsible for it. He is harassed and criticized for it for over a decade. If riots happen in a state where Modi has absolutely no authority, but it happens at time when Modi is in the news, Modi is responsible for that also? Has the article even remotely, obliquely implied that the fucking ineffective government in UP or the asshole government in the center might be responsible for the Muzaffarnagar riots? No? Why not? What kind of assholes are you guys for making these types of statements and omissions?

8. Do you even know about the series of rapes and harassments which led up to the current spate of violence in Muzaffarnagar? Let me school you:

•Dec 21 2012: Muzaffarnagar panchayat offers rape victim Rs 1.5 lakh to keep quiet (Source)
•Dec 24  2012: Minor girl gang-raped by three youths in Muzaffarnagar (Source)
•Dec 29, 2012: Girl, school teacher sexually assaulted (Source)
•Dec 30, 2012: Two women injured in acid attack in Muzaffarnagar (Source)
•Feb 18, 2013: Woman gang-raped by four men, filmed in Muzaffarnagar (Source)
•Apr 3, 2013 Acid attack on three teachers, student in Muzaffarnagar in UP (Source)
•June 03, 2013: Minor girl raped Muzaffarnagar (Source)
•July 8, 2013: Man shot dead for demanding arrest of gangrape accused  (Source)
•July 29 2013: Woman forcibly married and gang-raped as ‘honour’ punishment after her brother eloped with village girl  (Source)
•Aug 24, 2013: Class IX student raped by youth in Muzaffarnagar (Source)
•Aug 23 2012: Schoolgirl gangraped by 5 youths in Muzaffarnagar (Source)
•Aug 30, 2013: Muslim cleric arrested for abducting 11-year-old girl (Source)
•August 27, 2013: In Kawal village, an eve-teasing incident led to clash, burning bikes and the murders of three youths
•Aug 28, 2013: A mob returning from the cremation ground indulges in arson.
•Aug 29, 2013: Stoning between both sides. Women devotees molested near a place of worship.
•Aug 30, 2013: Huge mob assembles at a mosque in Shaheed Chowk after Friday prayers.
•Aug 31, 2013: Nearly 40,000 people assemble at Nangla Mandoud  Panchayat. Mob attacks a family going in a car on Khatima road, sets fire to their car.
•Sept 1, 2013: Police files FIRs against leaders who had spoken at meetings in Shahid Chowk and Nangla Mandoud. Affected family in Malikpura threatens self-immolation.
•Sept 2, 2013: Walls of places of atemple broken in Sanjhak and Titavi. BJP calls Muzaffarnagar bandh.
•Sept 3, 2013: Case filed for circulating fake video of Kawal incident. Violence in Shamli town.
•Sept 4, 2013: Sporadic violence in Muzaffarnagar.
•Sept 5, 2013: Mahabandh call given across Muzaffarnagar district. The Khap panchayat then announced to organize a ‘Bahu Beti Samaan Bachaoi Mahapanchyat‘ on September 7, at Nagla Mandaur
•Sept 7, 2013:  The panchayat was organized by the Jat community at Nagla Mandaur, 20 km from Muzaffarnagar city, where over 1.2 lakh people participated. People going to panchayat attacked.
•Firing  in Muzaffarnagar town as stoning, arson go unabated. Army called in and town put under indefinite curfew.  21 killed, more than a score injured in violence.

Source: http://indiawires.com/25917/news/national/series-of-rapes-behind-muzaffarnagar-riots/

9. The article talks about how Hindus make up 80% and Muslims make up 13% of the country's population. But did the article mention that the percentage of Muslims in Muzaffarnagar city is 57%? Why not? ("The city has 39% Hindus, 57% Muslims, 7% Sikhs, 2% Christians and 0.5% Jains." - Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muzaffarnagar#Demographics).

10. Tell me: if North Indians in Chennai routinely harassed and raped Tamil girls, and the Tamilians lost their patience one day and riots broke out, would you be posting articles which blame some far away politician for the violence in Chennai? Yes? No? Maybe? Why? Or, why not?

I am labeling the journalist who wrote the article you posted as a lying bastard. What about you, Max? What should we call you for spreading the words of a lying bastard? Why did you post a link to this very deceitful, deliberately misleading article? Do you hate Modi so much that you no longer care for what is truthful and what is right?

With extreme pity for your willful blindness, blatant hypocrisy, intellectual dishonesty and not a little idiocy, sincerely,

S P

Why are you promoting this article that is deliberately misleading at best and blatantly lying at worst?
>>
Agree; this is totally wrong title and very much misleading as if the violence has already triggered.

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/18/world/asia/indian-vote-off-to-a-violent-start.html?pagewanted=all

Maulana Gaywala and Maulana Rashmunullah agree with you whole-heartedly as also your ex-frienden Flimmy Iyer.

If it came in NYT it has got to be true. If it is against Modi, then it is Gospel.

so much excitement over so little. i saw an article of interest in the times and i posted a link to it. i didn't editorialize and i didn't insert my own opinion into it and with good reason -- because i don't yet fully understand what happened in muzaffarnagar.

look if you feel the article is dishonest, i am sure the times wants to hear from you. calm down, wipe that froth off your mouth, and compose a cogent letter to the times and i am sure they'll consider publishing it.

SomeProfile wrote:5. The article mentioned that there were 451 incidents of communal violence to date this year, and 410 incidents last year. Did the article mention that number of incidents of violence in Gujarat last year and this year, and for the past 10+ years is exactly a big fat fucking ZERO?? No? Why not?

Perhaps because that is not true.

The worst five states in India in terms of communal incidents per million population are Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Kerala, in that order, over a period spanning from 2005 to the first quarter of 2013. Madhya Pradesh with 965 incidents between 2005 and 2013 (March) has the worst record of nearly 14 incidents for every million population. The countrywide average is about 5 incidents per million population. This is because in most parts of the country communal strife is negligible.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Nearly-1000-communal-clashes-in-past-8-years/articleshow/22531410.cms

Some of the raw data that the Times of India article fails to cite (in the usual fashion for that toilet paper) is at http://164.100.47.132/Annexture/lsq15/13/au6502.htm

It is clear from this raw data (provided by the Home Ministry to Lok Sabha) that Gujarat had several communal incidents -- and fatalities in those incidents -- in each of the last four years.

Wow..this is no ordinary Modi fanboy talk. The posts increasingly smell of organized spin. It's almost like there's a cadre of Internet Hindu warriors scanning the interwebs for any criticism of the Supreme Leader God and hitting every such instance with a pre-canned rejoinder. I'm just amazed people would spend so much effort and personal time to make such inane points that are not going to win any hearts, minds or votes.

And here's the real vote story behind the Muzaffarnagar riots: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/muzaffarnagar-headlines-today-sting-riots-for-votes-up-cops-admit-pressure/1/310303.html

And no, it doesn't involve Modi.

SomeProfile wrote:And here's the real vote story behind the Muzaffarnagar riots: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/muzaffarnagar-headlines-today-sting-riots-for-votes-up-cops-admit-pressure/1/310303.html

And no, it doesn't involve Modi.

Without any inspiring alternative vision to offer, the chaddis' best hope in UP was to polarize the vote in UP on a Hindu-Muslim axis as against the traditional fragmentation by caste. The events in Muzaffarnagar snowballed only because the BJP sensed an opportunity to muscle in on the RLD's Jat votebank and fanned the flames with incendiary speeches at various mahapanchayats and fake videos on the net.

Having ineptly slept through the entire development and losing whatever goodwill they still enjoyed, the SP is now belatedly trying to woo their Muslim votebank with this blatant pandering. But they're probably lost the Muslim vote already. Ms Mayawati wins that votebank now, along with her traditional Dalit vote that would never vote for the BJP anyway.

Final score post riots - BJP (i.e. Modi): +1; BSP: +1; CONgoons: 0; SP: -1.

And yeah, Modi / BJP are going to rinse and repeat this tired and tested strategy elsewhere. You can look forward to many more riots in the months to come. It's a Back to the 80s party fo sho.

Merlot Daruwala wrote:Wow..this is no ordinary Modi fanboy talk. The posts increasingly smell of organized spin. It's almost like there's a cadre of Internet Hindu warriors scanning the interwebs for any criticism of the Supreme Leader God and hitting every such instance with a pre-canned rejoinder. I'm just amazed people would spend so much effort and personal time to make such inane points that are not going to win any hearts, minds or votes.

So if people spend personal time creating some charts & falsely conclude that UPA gave a great economy to people, which 100 analysts are contradicting, that is fine with you. But this rankles you ?

What a hypocrite of the first order.

rawemotions wrote:

Merlot Daruwala wrote:Wow..this is no ordinary Modi fanboy talk. The posts increasingly smell of organized spin. It's almost like there's a cadre of Internet Hindu warriors scanning the interwebs for any criticism of the Supreme Leader God and hitting every such instance with a pre-canned rejoinder. I'm just amazed people would spend so much effort and personal time to make such inane points that are not going to win any hearts, minds or votes.

So if people spend personal time creating some charts & falsely conclude that UPA gave a great economy to people, which 100 analysts are contradicting, that is fine with you.

Haha..looks like Idefixe's charts still rankle you. I have not seen anybody, least of all an "analyst" contradict that data. If you have, please share it here.

rawemotions wrote:But this rankles you ?

Not at all. Those miscellaneous fanboys can keep posting their pre-canned rejoinders and their paens to their Supreme Leader God and you, of course, are welcome to keep posting your rambling stream-of-consciousness rhetoric and rants. It's all good.

It is interesting for ring side observers to notice who is promoting what or saying what or not saying.
bjp supporters: no riots in modi's Gujarat. Even a political novice would know that is a blatant lie.
Upa obsessed secularists: times implying that Aug 27 eve teasing incident and modi's pm aspiration declaration were not unrelated. Except for intentional intellectual blocks such claim is really bad journalism.
Bjp as a party will use religious tensions as vote catching mechanisms.bjp supporters try to paper over or act oblivious to those facts.
Sp ( and other so called secular parties including congress) used pandering to Muslim votebank as a premier vote gathering technique. In up case, as was pointed in today's article, sp govt was instrumental in releasing the culprits and sowed the seeds of future problems.

Facts be dammed.
Secular bandwagon: let us get Modi . No matter how much we have to mask or remake facts.
Bjp fanboys : this is our chance to put our beloved Modi on pm chair. Whatever it takes and however many lives it costs, it is worth it.
These are India's choices in 2014.