[Mr. Oliver also skewered Mr. Modi for a comment he made
to Celia W. Dugger, the former New Delhi bureau chief of The New York
Times, who in a video recalled that when she
interviewed the chief minister of Gujarat after the 2002 riots, he said his
greatest regret was that he didn’t manage the media well.]
By Nida Najar
The premiere of John Oliver’s new HBO news satire show,
“Last Week Tonight,” included a segment on the Indian parliamentary election
that seemed to speak for the legions of Indian journalists who actually are
covering the story, as well as the political junkies here who are avidly
tracking every development.
Mr. Oliver took Americans and the American media to task for ignoring the largest democratic exercise in the world and in history, involving 815 million eligible voters.
“The India election is not even that complicated,” Mr.
Oliver pointed out. “Just like an American election, all it really comes down
to is two people.”
The first is the Indian National Congress vice president, Rahul
Gandhi, whom Mr. Oliver describes as the “Indian Han Solo,” mostly because he’s
handsome and often wears Nehru vests.
Then, Mr. Oliver said, there was Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya
Janata Party, the chief minister of Gujarat.
“Modi sold tea in a railway station, and now he’s the most
popular man in the country — don’t pretend you’re not interested in this,
America. Last time you heard a rags-to-riches story about a tea-selling
Indian kid, you threw a [expletive] Oscar at it,” he said, as the poster for
“Slumdog Millionaire” appeared.
Mr. Oliver also skewered Mr. Modi for a comment he made
to Celia W. Dugger, the former New Delhi bureau chief of The New York
Times, who in a video recalled that when she
interviewed the chief minister of Gujarat after the 2002 riots, he said his
greatest regret was that he didn’t manage the media well.
Judging by the response on Twitter, the many Indian journalists
and writers who have been plugging away at the nine-phase, six-week election
season felt vindicated by this spot:
There were viewers who responded to the direct attack on Modi’s
human rights record:
There are moments that didn’t quite work for everyone, such as
the joke about Mr. Modi’s pledge for a toilet in every home, which is actually
a dire need in the country:
But there are other moments that you have to be observing the
election at a distance to fully appreciate, such as Mr. Modi’s campaign
appearances as a hologram, which Mr. Oliver calls Mr. Modi “going Tupac at
Coachella.”
“That’s not just how you get elected,” he said. “That’s how
religions get started.”
Mr. Oliver is just as unsparing to the Indian news media as he
is to its American counterpart. He points out the parallels between the Indian
news media and American cable news, using the example of the combative,
domineering anchor of “The Newshour,” Arnab Goswami (a bit of an exceptional
example, but nevertheless entertaining).
As a gauge of whether or not Indian television news is like
American television news, he brings out a checklist, including “ludicrous
number of people shouting at each other,” and “self-righteous anchors repeating
themselves over and over again” (Mr. Goswami’s program for the win both times).
For viewers unfamiliar with the Indian anchor’s brand of
interview, here’s an extended clip of Mr. Goswami as he fires back at the
Bharatiya Janata Party parliamentary candidate from Delhi who suggests that
he’s being paid off by lobbies critical of her party. “Ms. Lekhi, I’m not
competing with you in raising my volume,” he said, although all evidence
suggests that it’s no competition:
Mr. Oliver included an appeal that no doubt resonated across
newsrooms in India’s political capital: “If this story isn’t worth covering,
then nothing’s worth covering.”
*
[On March 10, Aleph said in a statement that it had received a
“legal letter” from Dinanath Batra, whose lawsuit prompted Penguin to pull Ms.
Doniger’s book “The Hindus.” Mr. Batra, who is a member of a conservative Hindu
cultural group, said he would take legal action against Aleph unless it
withdrew “On Hinduism,” which he said had several “objectionable passages that
offended the sensitivities of the Hindu community.”]
By Raksha Kumar
NEW
DELHI — When Penguin India decided to withdraw a book on Hinduism by the
American scholar Wendy Doniger in February, it cast a pall over the Indian
publishing industry, which was already vulnerable to lawsuits because of
the ambiguous language of Indian defamation laws.
Now, a young publishing house, Aleph Book Company, is under
pressure after it became the latest target of an effort to suppress books by
invoking Section 295a of the Indian penal code, which outlaws “malicious acts,
intended to outrage religious feelings.”
After receiving a threatening letter from the same man who filed
the lawsuit against Penguin, Aleph decided to hold off on reprinting Ms.
Doniger’s book “On Hinduism.” Since then, one of Aleph’s co-founders has left,
and at least two notable authors are considering leaving as well.
Aleph was founded in May 2011 by the renowned author David
Davidar, in partnership with Rupa Publications India. Though Aleph puts out
fewer titles compared with other publishing houses, it has made a name for
itself in the industry through its stable of well-established authors in the
fiction and nonfiction genres.
On March 10, Aleph said in a statement that it had received a
“legal letter” from Dinanath Batra, whose lawsuit prompted Penguin to pull Ms.
Doniger’s book “The Hindus.” Mr. Batra, who is a member of a conservative Hindu
cultural group, said he would take legal action against Aleph unless it
withdrew “On Hinduism,” which he said had several “objectionable passages that
offended the sensitivities of the Hindu community.”
Aleph said in the statement that the book was out of stock and
that it would be reprinted only after the objections were examined by “lawyers
and four independent writers and scholars.”
In mid-April, Ravi Singh, co-founder of Aleph, quit for reasons
he has declined to disclose, but many of Aleph’s authors, both current and
former, saw his resignation as a principled stand for free speech.
“Ravi published both my books. He’s a brilliant, thoughtful man
with tremendous integrity,” Sonia Faleiro, an author who has also been an India
Ink contributor, said in an email. “I’m so proud of his decision, and it would
be my honor to work with him again.”
Hartosh Singh Bal, an author who has also contributed to India
Ink, praised Mr. Singh for taking a step in the right direction, adding that a
single individual can often make a difference.
Aleph’s decision to delay the reprint of “On Hinduism” until it
hears from the independent scholars has made several authors anxious about
their books, especially those about controversial issues.
Mr. Bal’s book on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots is currently being
edited by Aleph. “I am perturbed by the situation,” Mr. Bal said. “If they do
decide to hold Doniger’s book, I might have to reconsider my relationship with
the book company.”
Omair Ahmad, the author of “Jimmy the Terrorist,” said in a
telephone interview that he intended to ask Aleph to cancel two book
contracts — one for a travelogue on Bhutan that has already been
published, the other for a yet-to-be-published book on eastern Uttar Pradesh.
He made the decision after Mr. Singh, who is his editor,
announced his departure, but he said that the way Aleph handled “On Hinduism”
informed his choice.
“They said, ‘We’re not pulling the book; we won’t reprint it
until this jury of four gets back on whether these problems are well founded,’”
he said. “Whatever the complaints are is not in the public eye. Who these four
people are is not in the public eye. That’s a problem.”
Mr. Ahmad also said that he trusted Mr. Singh and would follow
him rather than stay with Aleph. Mr. Ahmad also asked Penguin India to cancel previous
contracts after it decided to recall “The Hindus.”
“My process of writing is endangered when you don’t have an
open, honest space,” Mr. Ahmad said. “And I would rather burn every single book
that I’ve written with my own hands than let somebody else do it.”
After Penguin withdrew Ms. Doniger’s book in February, two
Penguin authors, Siddharth Varadarajan and Jyotirmay Sharma, decided to
withdraw their books in protest. Mr. Varadarajan now wants to self-publish his
book on the Gujarat riots of 2002.
Mr. Varadarajan said he wasn’t sure why Aleph succumbed to the
pressure. “There was not even a court case. How can they give in by the mere
mention of a legal notice?”
Repeated phone calls and emails to Aleph went unanswered. Ms.
Doniger said that she could not comment on the issue but was interested in
seeing how “it works out in the long run.”
Mr. Bal faulted Penguin for setting what he called an
unnecessary precedent. “If you succumb once, you will have to keep succumbing
to these organizations that would find something or the other objectionable,”
he said. “I think there may be a deluge of books that might be withdrawn or
pulped.”
If Mr. Batra has his way, that may be the case. In a phone
interview, he said that if he found other books to be “hurting the sentiments
of Hindus,” he would take action against them. “This was not the end,” he said.
Raksha Kumar is a freelance writer. Follow her on Twitter@Raksha_Kumar
