This week America was shaken by an unbelievably shocking discovery. Three women who have been missing for 10 years had actually been kidnapped, held captive in a house by a man and repeatedly raped for 10 years. This was in a densely populated neighborhood in the major city of Cleveland, Ohio. All of America was riveted by this story and their miraculous discovery by a neighbor.
This immediately reminded us of the abduction & rape of a 5-year old girl in Delhi two weeks ago. That case created emotional protests in the streets of Delhi. The outrage was intense that the Prime Minister of India had to make a comment deploring the depravity within Indian society and activists were aflame with tirades about evil lurking in Indian society. The Supreme Court of India made ludicrous remarks about the inability of police to protect 5-year old girls. Reuters went so far as to publish an idiotic article titled “negligent police must be charged under anti-rape law” . The protesters made the
Police Commissioner of Delhi come on TV to explain how they could not
protect a 5-year old girl and a couple of senior police officers were transferred.
Frankly, we think the Cleveland episode was worse. Three adult women were abducted and held for ten years, not 2 days. These women were raped repeatedly for ten years and never allowed to step outside the house except on two occasions. This is so horrific that depravity sounds too kind a term.
Though all of America was shocked, American society maintained its balance. No one screamed about depravity in American society and women’s activists, parent organizations of those who exploded into rage in Delhi, were mainly silent. No one, not even Reuters, blamed the police and no one forced President Obama to comment.
So far, only one of the three men have been charged. The police are taking their time in investigating the case, as Bill Hemmer of Fox News explained. As he added, the police are very careful in taking testimony from the three women given the duration of their captivity. American society is content to let the police investigation takes its course. In Delhi, protesters would have gone ballistics if the police had taken so much time.
The contrast between America’s emotional balance and Delhi’s emotional imbalance is what we analyzed two weeks ago in our article Do Delhi Protestors Deserve Democracy? Do They Even Understand Democracy?
But this horrific kidnapping, hostage & rape case was not the only shocking case of gender violence in America. In a truth is stranger than fiction scenario, the officer in charge of the sexual assault program of the US Air Force was charged with sexual battery. With this arrest, the level of sexual assault within the U.S. Military has been brought into open. Worse still, a US air force brochure reportedly advises, “it may be advisable to submit rather than resist“.
This has caused intense outrage and publicity. The outrage was well discussed by Maureen Dowd of the New York Times in her article America’s Military Injustice. President Obama, the Commander-in-Chief, declared this situation as intolerable.
Two weeks ago, an 8-year old girl in California was fatally stabbed in her home. These incidents within the last two weeks suggest that gender abuse, sexual assault and rape are widespread in America.
1. Why the Difference in Coverage by US Media & Activists?
All the above cases have been widely reported in the American press and on American TV. But we cannot find a single instance, not EVEN ONE, where an American reporter blamed American culture or America’s religious texts for these horrific crimes. Not even one in the New York Times, Washington Post, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, or any other media organization. We cannot find a single comment by any activist group like New York based Human Rights Watch that points a finger at America’s culture, religion or tradition.
Every single report by every single American media outlet treated these three horrific cases of violence against women as a problem restricted to the criminal justice system. We encourage you to read articles about the Cleveland horror in New York Times, Reuters and Washington Post. You will not find a single comment about America’s misogynist culture or America’s male contempt towards women, or any reference to the Bible.
In contrast, these American and European newspapers exploded in defamatory tirades against Indian traditions, culture, and religious texts. We called it a Gang-Rape of Indian culture in our January 19, 2013 article titled “Gang-Rape” of Indian Culture by US Media.
Below we list some of the disgustingly defamatory comments from U.S. & European Media:
- Washington Post, January 4 – “a retrograde culture that’s hostile to women”
- Times of London – “India’s “patriarchal culture,” where Indian men are characterized,…, by a “murderous, hyena-like male contempt” towards women
- New York Times – January 1, 2013 – “a patriarchal and misogynistic culture”
- New York Times – March 8, 2013 – “old mindsets steeped in patriarchy still prevail”
- Wall Street Journal – April 2, 2013 – “But in India, socially conservative attitudes towards women dominate, and thousands of years of patriarchal traditions have been blamed for crimes against women..”
These were not isolated comments. The same comments were repeated in literally every single American publication we read including the Foreign Policy magazine. This magazine went off a deep end in December 2012 stating India Has a Woman Problem and concluding India needs a sexual revolution. In contrast, this Foreign Policy magazine does not see any Woman Problem in America and has, so far, ignored the above cases of horrific violent acts against American women.
But no organization has been so utterly committed to defaming Indian culture as misogynistic as the India Ink blog of the New York Times. And they seem proud of it. We recall an interview by NYT’s Heather Timmons in which she said she was most proud of India Ink’s coverage of the Delhi rape-murder case. NYT’s Gardiner Harris went farther than most in directly blaming India’s great Epics on January 22, 2013:
- “The foundational texts of Indian culture — the Ramayana and the
Mahabharata, ancient Sanskrit epics — both revolve around the communal
outrage that results from insults to a good woman’s modesty.”
This is as horribly false and as defamatory as writing that the Bible revolves around unsavory women like Jezebel. Of course, no one in the New York Times would ever dare write anything as stupidly defamatory as that. But NYT’s Gardiner Harris had no compunction whatsoever about such utter garbage about Ramayan & MahaBharat. And, based on our own investigation, Gardiner Harris either misunderstood or misquoted the professor whom Harris quoted.
This is not to rehash the disgusting, bigoted and defamatory behavior of the U.S. Media but to point the huge disparity in the nature of the coverage of crimes against women in America and India.
2. Who is really responsible for US Media’s bias against Indian Culture & Society?
Why the question? In our opinion, there is no doubt that the entire US media, perhaps barring a few exceptions, are utterly biased against Indian Culture and Religion to the point of deep seated bigotry. No one has done more work in this area than we have and there is no voice more determined and outspoken than ours about this bigotry.
But we cannot hold the US media solely responsible. The US reporters and opinionators are in closed feedback loop as we argued in our article Anne Applebaum, Tom Friedman et al on India – Blinders, Myopia or Closed Feedback Loop?
The only Indians American media speak with are the English-Educated Indians or EE-Indians for short. The EE-Indian class is a highly influential class in India, a class that is almost 100% educated in English and only in English from 1st grade onwards. Their expertise in or even basic knowledge of Indian texts, literature, history, philosophy or religion, is virtually nil. This ignorance
does not shame today’s EE-Indian class. Instead it fills them with arrogance
towards the “desi” or “core Indian” people.
The Indian offices
of American publications, TV networks and NGOs are almost 100% staffed
by EE-Indians who are brought up and trained from childhood to become
“modern” or “westernized” and to despise core Indian culture as
“backward”. This is not just a class but more of a caste in the original Portuguese/Latin sense, in that it gets transmitted through lineage or birth. In other words, the children of EE-Indians become English-educated almost as a birth right.
Consistent with the old adage about the zeal of the converted, the EE-Indian class fights more zealously against core Indian culture than most American or European people. The entire claim of superiority of EE-Indians, their own sense of entitlement and, in fact, the very existence of their caste depends on Indian culture being declared unsuitably backward. You don’t have to go far to see this. Just read the articles in the NYT- India Ink Blog. You will smell a disgust of the common Indian in their writings. Of course, NYT is not alone, just the committed leader of the pack of Reuters, Wall Street Journal et al.
We confess we find it much easier to discuss our views with Americans who have never been associated with EE-Indians. They see the similarity between American & Indian acts of violence against women. They understand that a portion of every society is perverted and evil. And unlike the New York Times led cohort, they understand that innate evil exists in every society and it must be eradicated. And unlike mainstream US media & their EE-Indian employees, they understand that such perverted people like rapists of 5-year old girls are innately so regardless of whether they go to a church, mosque or temple.
If you want to see a sensible, rational and humane TV anchor discuss the Cleveland kidnapping, watch the May 7 clip of Bill O’Reilly, America’s most watched cable TV host for ten years running. His comments below are from his Talking Points on May 7:
- The crimes are heinous and will reinforce the perception that although America is a free country, we are also a dangerous nation. The reality is that Kidnapping are very rare, but there are some very bad people walking the streets of the USA. The crime in Ohio just another cautionary tale.
Why can’t such plain speaking be ever heard from India Ink of the New York Times, India Insight of Reuters or IndiaRealTime of the Wall Street Journal? Because if they say that, how will they market themselves as superior to mainstream Indians?
So who is responsible for the bigotry we see in European-American media? The closed loop of European-Americans anti-Indian prejudice and its feeding by EE-Indians. They are jointly and severally responsible.
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