Continuing on the “On this day” theme, this one is from “The Hindu”, a paper that I read daily.
Here is a link to a news item 50 years ago: October 1, 1955: Foreign newspapers
Apparently some things don’t change. 50 years later, NY Times’ international edition “The International Herald Tribune” started its publication from Hyderabad. The event was treated as a surreptitious colonial invasion by our national press. It was stopped the next day by the government. No wonder Times hasn’t changed its attitude towards India.
Why shouldn’t we allow “foreign” press? Are we afraid they will doctor our opinions? This constant internal schism between becoming global and deep suspicions of the “foreign hand” is a sad drama. After all a miniscule minority of Indians read English news papers. The broadening of polity has brought power to classes that are impervious to Op-Ed pages. So what revolution are we trying to avoid? Is our institutional cohesion so fragile to get frazzled by Murdoch’s airwaves and Schulzberger’s punditry?
I think in a deep philosophical level it portrays tremendous insecurity in the nebulous nature of our nationhood and the vague longing for constructing our own “indigenous” modernity. To dive deeper into this broader theme, read the brilliant review from Amit Chaudhury’s of Amartya’s book: Argufying
posted by Srinivasan @ 2:43 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
when such decisions are made, say, like not allowing foregign press, is there really a collective deep thinking behind it or is it just a populist decision taken for the personal impact that it might have for a bunch of people; politicians or otherwise??
i have this notion that serious socio-political thought with a reason (good or bad) behind most decisions concerning the nation, is absent.
As the old saying goes 'there cannot be two swords in a pile'. Those in power prefer economic takeovers and media takeovers as devices to win over a nation, to the conventional war.
It is battle of supremacy. Danish fought with British to retain their tiny tarangambady colony. This too is similar to that.
This notion of yours is indisputable. What I was getting at is when these decisions
are made, some rationales (real or cooked-up) are owed. One of these standard rationales which serves as an excellent debate-stopper is this "national interest/foreign
hand/independence" thing. And the politically aware lap up this rationale and are content with it, by and large. One of the reasons why this rationale is so
successful is due to the psychology I tried to explain. If you want some empirical
evidence, read our learned friend Kuppa's persistant anxieties over the Danes.
Just hopped from ram's blog.All these talks of national independence/security foreign hand is baloney. I attribute this xenophobic attitude to communist in the national government. Until keralites and Bengali's get ride of communist from their last bastion in India this will continue.Commi's will do anything to protect their insane ideology. I really hope in another 20-25 years india will have a two party sytem. The right led by BJP and the left led by congress
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