The Parable:
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Once upon a time, the all powerful deity of a land wanted to create a perfect forest, different from others, where everybody would be equal, and there would be no food chain, and so everybody would be happy, an "ideal forest". He created a forest, and named it (for the lack of a better name) Dandakaaranya. In that forest, the Lion and the Deer, the Tiger and the Cow all lived peacefully, feeding upon the food provided by the creater deity. They all loved him and respected him for creating them and giving them such a jolly time.
Then one day, a company of foxes wandered into the forest from elsewhere and begged the deity to live there. They said they were tired of travelling and being hunted by humans. They said they wanted to live out the rest of their lives peacefully, and share their vast knowledge of the world with the idyllic inmates of this vast forest. The diety accepted their request and everybody was happy--the foxes because they found a new home, and other animals because now they had someone new to talk to.
But after a few days, the foxes slowly began murmuring among themselves. The food provided by the diety was not as good as raw meat that they wanted. Actually, they stopped in this forest mostly because they wanted to eat tasty meat of the Deer, the Cow, and the Rabbit. The murmur quickly grew into loud arguments and even dissent and rebellion. The leader then thought for a while, and he got an idea.
One night, he led a few of his followers and hunted a couple of nice tasty Rabbits. Then they invited their friends the Tigers for lunch the next day. There was a lot of celebration and dance and song. The Tigers were amazed at the number of songs and the number of languages the foxes knew and the they felt they were strangely rustic. They wanted to be like the Foxes-- dance like them, sing like them, talk like them.
Then the leader of the Tigers went upto his counterpart and wanted to know how they had got to be so intelligent and smart. The leader of Foxes came forward and offered them the raw meat of the two Rabbits and told them that raw meat has unmatched qualities and it was what made them so intelligent. The Tigers recognised the two Rabbits as the young sons of their good friend and neighbour, the Rabbit, but they were too preoccupied with becoming smarter. So each of them ate a piece of the Rabbit.
As the raw meat and blood went down their food pipe, the Tigers began to feel strangely new and strong sensations. They began to think they are the actual masters of the forest. The deity had got it all wrong. He was really holding them back. They just had to reach out and grab the respectful position they deserved. But this feeling quickly faded away as they swallowed the piece of meat they were chewing. They wanted more.
On their request, the Foxes magnanimously ran out and brought two more Rabbits, freshly hunted. These tasted even better, but this was clearly not enough... they wanted more. They felt an unknown hunger. Some were snarling at the Foxes, and some arguing with each other, and yet some others were looking hither and thither, to see if they can try their hand at this thing called hunting.
And one of them, who could not hold himself ran wild and attacked his friend the Cow, who was peacefully grazing. The stunned Cow sprang aside and stared at him in a new light--his long sharp canines, his tongue red with stains of fresh blood, his strong paws with razor sharp claws, and a murderous intention in his eyes, all made his friend look, well, not friendly at all, to say the least. The Cow was scared to death, and did the only thing it could. It prayed to the deity.
The deity appeared and he was furious and sad. His own creation, the Tiger was behaving in a such a shameful way. And he chided the Tiger for this unspeakable, unprecedented, and decrepit act. But the Tiger did not back down. He said that its in the nature of a Tiger to desire and eat raw flesh and that the Deity had been wrong to try to change the nature of things in the Universe. He said that if the deity believed that all the animals in the forest were equal, then he should also respect the right to food of every animal. And the food of the Tiger were of course other smaller animals. He said that this was a universally accepted fact and this was what happening in other forests in the world.
The deity was taken aback. He knew that the Tiger was right. His experiment had horribly gone wrong. If he punished the Tiger, it would only increase his anger and resentment. If he left the Tiger alone, he would surely kill the Cow. If he pushed the reset button and started it all over again, it would be accepting that the whole "ideal forest" thingy was a sham. All the options were leading to breaking of the fundamental principles on which Dandakaaranya was created.
And the deity, crushed by the utter failure of his experiment, vanished into nothingness forever and with him vanished the beautiful forest of Dandakaaranya.
to be contd...
Surprising that it took them one full week to cook up this.
First they lay the ground work by pasting this -
“The Special Investigation Team (SIT), probing major cases of 2002 anti-Muslim Gujarat riots on Tuesday slammed reports that riots witnesses were tutored to give false evidence for exaggeration of the situation, by activists and organisations helping the victims. ”
1. The word they use is - “anti-Muslim Gujarat riots”.
How does then one account for the death of around 300 Hindus if riots were ‘anti-Muslim’ ?
2. Then ‘Gujarat riots’. Attempt to tie Gujarat to riots.
So a phrase ‘riots that occured in Gujarat in 2002‘ that would have conveyed the correct meaning was manipulated to “2002 anti-Muslim Gujarat riots ” to implant in the mind of the reader that -
(a) riots of 2002 were anti-Muslim.
(b) There was no ’cause’ to the riots. It spontaneously happened. No relation to Godhra incident.
(c) Gujarat and riots go together.
3. Next- ‘SIT… slammed reports…’
Whereas rest of the report show that SIT members have not denied what was reported earlier.
So ’slammed’ is meant to give a wrong impression that SIT themselves have denied what was reported earlier as findings of the team.
4. And they conclude with- “…by activists and organisations helping the victims. ”
Ya.
Whatever else you read, mind you, these activists and their organisations were helping the victims.
With this introductory paragraph implanting plenty of contrary-to-truth suggestions in the minds of the reader, they start their report.
Then comes - “The SIT rebuttal followed the alleged leak of its report recently, …”
5. The ‘SIT rebuttal’.
In case the ‘SIT …slammed reports…’ phrase of first para failed to make an impression on you, to reinforce it, is “SIT rebuttal”.
However, in the rest of the report one does not find SIT rebutting anything, only attempting to deflect the reporter.
6. Further, “alleged leak”.
It is only ‘alleged’, implying that truth is something different.
Second, ‘leak’. conveying the idea of untrustworthiness of source.
Thus the ‘reports’ in the first line becomes ‘alleged leaks’ in the second.
Next, this is the best that they could find among what SIT told them- ““The findings of the report have concentrated on the investigations into the cases and it was not our business to indulge in the blame game and level allegations,” a senior SIT official said.”
7. Far from denying what was reported earlier, far from ‘rebutting’, far from ’slamming’, SIT makes a neutral statement, indicating that it was not their business to blame anyone.
No negation of what was reported earlier as findings of the team.
This is what is trumpeted as ’slamming’ ‘rebuttal’ .
Next- “The SIT response to the reported leak came on a day, when the Supreme Court termed the leak as a “betrayal of the faith reposed in those to whom the report was allowed access”.”
So, that was not, after all, an ‘alleged’ or even a ‘reported’ leak.
For the Supreme Court to make such an observation, the leak had to be true.
8. So here we have these fellows attempting to suggest that the earlier report was not based on facts by adding ‘alleged’ and ‘reported’ to ‘leaks’ knowing fully well that the earlier report was based on authentic information.
9. Despite this, the next para tries again to cast aspersions on the veracity of the earlier report by using the words- ‘claimed’, ‘alleged’.
And then- “Asked about the leaked contents of the report, the SIT chief, R. K. Raghavan told Hindustan Times that he could not confirm whether the leaked contents were true.”
10. So where Court and SIT chief is involved, it is straight- the reports were based on leaked contents. not ‘allegedly’ , not ‘claimed’, not ‘reported’, but exactly on ‘leaked contents’.
11. This is the second quote from SIT that they have given which again does not deny the truth in the earlier report.
Is this what is trumpeted as ’slamming’, rebuttal’ ?
The third quote from SIT goes- ““I am answerable only to the Supreme Court. The alleged reported leaks appear to be inspired by dubious motives. I cannot confirm such claims. The act is highly condemnable,” Raghavan said. ”
Again, no denial of what was reported.
Further, by saying “I am answerable only to the Supreme Court.”, Raghavan tells the reporter that he is not intereseted in answering any question put by the reporter.
The rest of the quote reveals discontinuity, as when number of replies are clubbed together. It indicates the possibility that the quote is a contructed one from replies to different questions.
And then one more attempt to cast aspersion of the report-”The SIT sources said the alleged leaks appear to have been based on statements of state police officials and “cannot be termed as findings of the report.” ”
It is ‘SIT sources’ this time, not Raghavan. It could be anyone from the guy who supplied tea to the SIT to the sweeper who cleaned SIT office premises, since the ’source’ is able to only speculate that the ‘leaks appear to have been based on statements of police officials’.
And what all of this unequivocally confirms is that the earlier report was very much based on the SIT report.
Despite this and contrary to facts, the Hindustan Times headlines claim- “Gujarat riots witnesses not tutored: SIT”
When did SIT say that or anything at all to that effect ?
The intention behind this is that a person who casually glances through the news headlines will get the totally wrong impression that ‘Gujarat riots witnesses were not tutored’. And that SIT itself says so.
Next, if he glances at the first two paras, he will only reinforce this wrong impression.
The rest of the report is more of suggestions and insinuations rather than honest reporting.
As many people have the habit of glancing through the headlines, and maybe the first two paras, these tactics are very succesful in spreading misinformation and lies.
The headline, first para and the first line of the second para that cathces the eye of the casual glancer is carefully designed to mislead and misinform.
No wonder these master liars as are found in editorial dens indulge freely in such detestable tactics.
The question is, how does a newspaper such as this that has rather decent circulation get away with this kind of blatant deception ?
Don’t its subscribers deserve truthful reports ?
Why should the newspaper misinform its subscriber who pays him ?
Isn’t it akin to ‘biting the hand that feeds’ ?
Ok. Maybe, there is another ‘hand’ that is feeding these deceptive monsters more than what the subscribers can.
That would explain.
Nevertheless, there are sufficient grounds to file a case of ‘Cheating’ and make these monsters and the ‘hand’s behind them pay for their crimes.
