http://indiafacts.org/claim-the-narrati ... define-us/
Whether it is because international media is more sympathetic (or is paid by-) or that there are many more Muslim countries in the world, the fact is that narrative is against the Hindus, who have had to fight with their blood to maintain their way of life, while similar (pagan) ways of life have been eliminated wherever Christianity and Islam have spread.
News has never been a completely objective account. Framing, a theory in journalism studies, states that news stories often emphasize one aspect of a given event, while ignoring others. This usually leads to an unbalanced account of the event. Framing then, points towards creation of a narrative around themes, especially contentious ones, in a society –migrants or refugees, rebels or terrorists, separatists or revolutionaries, pro-life vs. pro-choice/ or pro-life or anti-women etc
Stories framed with a specific idea direct the readers/audience’s attention to that idea and form a narrative around it. Frames are ‘organizing principles that are socially shared and (remain) persistent over time, (that) work symbolically to meaningfully structure the social world’ (Reese, 2001). Other factors that matter and help in guiding the narrative are reputation and reach of media organization/platform that publishes the story; how often is a frame used, and how many stories are framed with the same idea.
While access through the internet has blurred some of these labels – media organizations, even today, do command a local, national or international audience. For example, vernacular newspapers/ channels are aware that their readers/audiences are limited to people who speak certain languages, both in India and abroad, while newspapers/sites with international audiences, such as The New York Times, BBC etc. can be sure that anything they print about India, can be accessed by the elite from India and abroad. English media news, especially an international organization i.e. BBC/NYT, about India, reaches the decision makers of the world, and consequently sets the narrative, without necessarily engaging in history and context of the issue, even when penned by native journalists
So, as social media and mainstream news buzzed with yet another horrendous case of rape and death of an innocent girl, who happens to be of a certain religion, people of one religion went into victim and blaming mode, and the other into somewhat defensive mode by bringing up past offences of a similar kind against them, highlighting that similar crimes have occurred in the last few months against the majority and yet no media outrage has shook the nation, let alone the international community.
As someone interested in the impact of tales that media spins, I wanted to conduct a quick study on what a researcher, or even a well-meaning journalist will find, if he/she puts in some search terms in ‘Google’, the most used search engine in the western world. So, I undertook a mini-on-the-spot research to demonstrate how narratives created remain online to be located by other researchers, then put into academic papers and books, without questioning much. Using permutations and combinations of a few words, to gauge how India and its social state is being represented in English speaking media, some results were generated. The research was conducted between April 12 & 13, 2018. Also, I recommend that readers, especially those who are skeptical, conduct their own research to examine what the world gets to read about India.
Following table was generated after examining the first five stories that appeared in the search for ‘mob lynching Muslim in India’.
Please check the results in the article
It is interesting to note how much changed or did not change when the word Muslim and Hindu were switched. While the search for ‘mob lynching a Hindu in India generated 142000 results, the number of results for ‘mob lynching a muslim in India’ was 273 000. The stories however overlapped, meaning many stories that emerged in ‘mob lynching a Muslim’, with Hindus as perpetrators also appeared in ‘mob lynching a Hindu’, which means that the top stories (this research looked only at the first page of the search) in both cases were Muslims as victims.
Both Hindus and Muslims have certainly been on the receiving end of violence-so why is there not a single story of violence against Hindus in the first ten results, even though the search words were ‘mob lynching a Hindu in India?
For mob lynching a Muslim, the number of results not only doubles but actually talk about Muslims being oppressed in India. In the results, where almost all the first ten stories, regardless of who the ‘mob’ was ‘lynching’ depicted Hindus as aggressors, 12 out of 15 were written by journalists with Hindu names. We cannot be sure of political orientation, but the names seem Hindu, which provides another kind of legitimacy. The picture drawn is that only Muslims are victims, and there is no violence against the Hindus. So much so, that even ‘sane’ Hindus are speaking up.
How common Indians esp Hindus are brainwashed innocently
These stories are accessible to all English speakers who have access to a computer and internet—anywhere in the world. I will leave for those who understand algorithms and logics of digital searches to explain how this functions and how it is an indication of the material present online. However, as an academic I am concerned that a collective of these articles can be put together, backed by some news on riots in the last century to establish that there is a large Hindu-Muslim divide and that there is no reconciliation and may be, that India should prepare for more violence until there is a breakup like 1947
.
In short, generating atrocity literature to support either an outside intervention or division as a solution. Ongoing Hindu exodus from Jammu & Kashmir, for the last three decades does not surface in these searches[/b]. For example, for a search on ‘Hindu exodus from Kashmir’ the first three entries were from Wiki, and the first international media organization, BBC, appeared at sixth number.
A few stories down was one from Al Jazeera, with a headline that asks a question of a very different kind, ‘Kashmiri Pandits: Why we never fled Kashmir’. The article (2011) penned by Azad Essa has the following direct quote by a Kashmiri pandit:
‘On the one hand, he says, the community did experience intimidation and violence, which culminated in four massacres in the past 20 years. But, on the other, he says, there was no genocide or mass murder as suggested by Pandit communities based outside Kashmir.’ And ‘On the subject of how many Pandits fled Kashmir, Mridu Rai, a lecturer in Indian Studies at Trinity College, Dublin writes in Until My Freedom Has Come that the figure of 700,000 put forward by Panun Kashmir (Our own Kashmir), a group advocating a homeland for Kashmiri Pandits, “refers to a much larger collection of Pandits who had departed [from Kashmir] at different times over the centuries”.
Rai adds that the language used by Pandits who left the valley – ‘exodus’ or ‘in exile’ – serves as “an indictment of the Indian state for not protecting them within their homeland and then for neglecting them outside it”. These terms also, Rai contends, create a single narrative of victimhood, when, in fact, it is difficult to ascertain why individual Pandits left Kashmir.
Picks up an issue not given much attention–Kashmiri exodus, and by the last paragraph dismisses it as a matter that does not need public sympathy let alone international outrage.
He rejects the figures presented by the KPSS and says most of the killings took place after the mass migration.
The story also features a short video, where the head of KPSS shares his preference for an independent Kashmir and emphasizes that his identity is connected to Kashmir and not to the other states of India.
That is how narratives are generated, over time, slowly, building up a story, eliminating some others—Framing an issue. No mention of families who lost lives, no mention of how they are still struggling to form homes in their own country, no mention of the terror that was created that led to this ‘exodus’ (dare we use that word). Combine that with which media is publishing these stories, and it is not difficult to figure out how a narrative is generated or lost.
Please further the entire article. Please spread it far and wide. make it short and easy for many others in whatsup telegrana nd many other social media.
We keep blaming rss bjp and all other Hindus why it was bot doen when the task is huge and enromous.
It needs sustained level of patronage and continously being in power ~decades-centuries to skew the dynamics .
Some of the hare brained idiots of nth order want everything done in short time when the entire anrrtaive took few decades to centuries to hione and bring it up to this level to chnage the narrtaive against Hindus.
. I can see the Lutyen chutiays seething in anger looking at his nonchalance.