The cartoon to the left depicts the horrors of the Gujarat violence of 2002. The fact that in the picture they are laughing and drinking the blood of the victims to me screams out planned event.The stars represent the fact that a enough people that stands for one belief leaves others helpless. And it just shows the nonsensical fact of how people who say they are religious could just stand by and watch something like this happen as the people scream for help. There was an overwhelmingly larger number of Muslims killed than Hindu’s. Throughout the years there have been successive events that have occurred and authority figures have not given their best effort to trying to alleviate the tension between both of these groups. The media has always set it up to make it seem like Muslims are the ones that always start these occurrences of violence when that is not always a fact. The media does not report what events happened before the single event to spark the riots and almost always never print the story in favor of the Muslim citizens. The spark of this terrible time was a train fire that killed 58 Hindu people. The media both was a positive and a negative during this time of terror. Covering the first major communal riots following in the advent of satellite television to India, television news channels set a precedent by identifying the community of those involved in the violence, breaking a long-standing practice. Critical reporting on the Gujarat government's handling of the situation helped bring about the Indian government's intervention in controlling the violence. The Gujarat government banned television news channels critical of the government's response. STAR News, Zee News, Aaj Tak, CNN as well as local stations were blocked. The unspoken rule about mentioning a victim’s religion was broken and as a result revenge killings occurred. However that was not the only effect, the accurate portrayal of the event made it possible for someone to intervene in the situation.
Hindutva is a belief that sees India as being a Hindu state. Pro-Hindutva bias has challenged the role of media as an agent of restraint. It was hard to cover riots because of attacks on the media by members who believe in this cause. For example, a number of Indian journalists were subjected to violent attacks by marauding mobs as well as policeman while covering the prolonged communal violence in Gujarat. This apparent aggression towards the media for recording events contributes to the improper representation of the riots in Gujarat and also implicitly states that the government (which is run by Hindus) really does not care about resolving apparent tensions because they allow inaccurate documentation to be aired.It leads to the false documentation of events and the fact that the government actively takes part in it as well, shows that they just want these things to happen and don’t really care whether or not the truth is given to the citizens. Indian prime Minister said, “Do not let emotions sway you. The unity and communal harmony of India will have to be protected at all costs. “
A week before the train bombing there was trouble at a celebration for a Muslim festival. The media implicated that that Muslims had bombed the train and made it seem as though they were retaliating from this previous event. It was said by the superintendent of police that this was so. This stems from our argument that the authority figures did not do anything to lessen tension between the two groups.
"The press, especially some television channels, has been hailed
for presenting the "true picture" of Muslims as the main victims of the riots while in many cases the police played the spectator's role" was said by one paper. However some television stations were banned due to their accurate portrayal of the events. I feel it was a very bold move to publish reports that were unbiased when the entire government was run by a Hindu organization. Not to mention that reporters were being killed and stoned for trying to get a story..The government did nothing about it and the violence just continued. Here you have a
government completely run by Hindus with the ideology of extreme Hindu nationalism and they basically have control over everything. The government was basically allowing the murder of the Muslim citizens obviously to satisfy their beliefs of Hindu superiority and an Indian nation that only includes the Hindu population. Television and newspapers was not allowed to print this because the government regulated everything. The government basically thought to turn the other cheek and let things be. The government didn’t want to make it seem as if they were just allowing things to happen however it seemed that way because they didn't do anything to put an end to it or anything that would prevent it.
The sad thing however is that although unbiased information was able to get out, there were very, very few who were actually convicted for the crimes and out of the 5000 cases brought to the courts at least 2000 were thrown out for lack of evidence. Truth that falls on deaf ears minds as well be a lie, because the government during the time of these riots made no effect to alleviate the tensions between these two groups of people.
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