A couple of years ago, the Y Samuel R Reddy Government in Andhra Pradesh booked the staffers and editor of a daily under the SC/ST atrocities act. Their sin? They spoke out against a Dalit leader of the secular party and led a peaceful demonstration. Funny.Rita Bahuguna Joshi should have known better. Perhaps the stunning success of the secular party in making international friends (they even managed to plant anti-Mayawati stories in Newsweek) made her complacent. So she went ahead and made her little speech. Now she finds herself slapped with a charge under the SC/ST atrocities act. Not so funny.
What should be the yardstick of what constitutes hate speech? Perhaps the effect of said speech on the intended audience. Varun Gandhi's so called hate speech didn't cause so much as a flutter. Not until weeks later a professionally edited CD of parts of the speech showed up mysteriously on our national channels.
HATE SPEECH!
In contrast, Rita Bahuguna's cringe inducing statements (NDTV video with the vital part beeped out) triggered instant revulsion and anger. Her goose got cooked, almost literally, as furious supporters of Mayawati set a portion of her house on fire.
Bahuguna can not claim that she did not know what effect her speech was going to have. Her actual speech can be found here. Obvously the secular media has edited out the key part of her hate speech. Note that it is Bahuguna's remarks vs. Varun's hate speech. RealityCheck has more here.
They literally threw the rulebook at Varun Gandhi. The dude will be making rounds of courts for the foreseeable future, not to mention every journalist, reporter, writer, secular etc. finding new evidence of Varun Gandhi's meanness everyday which might even include references to his body weight.
Well, we just hope Joshi has fire insurance on her house.
2 comments:
Excellent post! Was hoping your blog would address this issue and you didn't disappoint!
Indeed the 'secular' media has completely suppressed the actual comments that Rita made. It was infuriating reading 100s of news articles about some "offensive" comments that Rita allegedly made... but with NO mention of exactly what they were.
Before the MSM completely obliterated all traces of her comments, I googled and captured the information. Here's what Manish of the Southernledger has to say :
"Joshi's speech was about the law and order situation in Uttar Pradesh and the increasing number of rapes in the state. She cited a few cases in which some women were paid 25,000 rupees ($520) compensation after being raped.
Joshi said simply compensating the women with money was not enough. Women who are raped should "throw the money at Mayawati's face and tell her 'you should also be raped and I will give you 10 million rupees ($210,000),'" she said in the speech, broadcast by several television networks.
"
Is all this charade of Rita-vs-Mayawati is a distraction aimed to divert attention from MMS capitulating to Pakistan at NAM summit.
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