Journalism has never been a straightforward business. Inside it always have lies, ploys and vexed interests and the BBC is a master of that art.
Through a documentary, they are doing more harm to the Nirbhaya girl than the five men have committed. The deceptive and hippocratic TV is providing an opportunity to one of the criminal to depict the victim as the culprit at a time when she is not there to defend herself.
Some women including NDTV’s Sonia Singh urges the policy makers to see the entire documentary to evaluate it. But whatever may be the remaining content of the documentary, like the ordinary blaming etc, the most appealing part of it is the self-justification by the criminal.
If the documentary’s effect was to reveal the Indian men’s conventional stand that women should be self protective, it would be ok. But the culprit’s utterance that “a girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy,” is an open invitation for criminals to do whatever they like to women.
Such advertisements will only further worsen the status of women in the country. The broadcasters know that; but their mission is to depict that all societies outside the Anglo-American culture are inferior to them. In that effort, what harm they do to the women in India is not a matter for them.
For the government in India, the primary consideration should not be whether India’s image is tarnished by the scandal thirsty BBC. Rather, if the broadcaster is allowed to proceed, it will give a platform to the other like-minded criminals to excuse their attack on women.
The entire issue should awaken the government against foreign medias concerted effort maximize their objectives in the cover of press freedom, women right etc. More than that, the manner in which a criminal has been utilized by a deceptive media house should be a lesson for the authorities.
Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed has once laughed at the BBC’s News hour as “sixty minutes of terror, error and lies. One should not forget that the British news papers have collected contributions from their readers to protect the cause of General Dyer who massacred hundreds of innocent people at Jaliianwala Bag in 1919.
Women in the country should be protected not just from street criminals, but also from scavenger journalists.
