For Indian Jesuit, radical Hindu news service is a "tragedy" for democracy
Ahmedabad (AsiaNews) - The decision by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to expand its news agency is a tragedy "for the secular and pluralistic fabric of India, which, given the ideology of the RSS, is bound to be destroyed," Fr Cedric Prakash, director of the Prashant Centre for Human Rights, Justice and Peace, told AsiaNews.
The RSS is a radical Hindu paramilitary group affiliated with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India's ruling Hindu nationalist party. Yesterday, it announced that it was expanding its news service, Hindushtan Samachar, adding three languages to the existing ten. The objective is to support the work of the BJP not only at the national but also at the state level.
"Ideologically we (the RSS and the BJP) are on the same platform," said Lakshmi Narayan Bhala, who is the patron on Hindusthan Samachar's board of directors.
Now Hindustan Samachar will be available in English, Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Assamese, Malayalam, Kannada, Punjabi, Sindhi and Nepali. Shortly, it should also publish in Telugu, Urdu and Oriya.
The agency, which has 300 newspapers among its subscribers, has 150 regular writers and 500 stringers.
The addition of some languages - particularly Bengali, Assamese and Malayalam - shows a desire to extent the BJP's power to West Bengal, Assam and Kerala.
"If we rely on the freedom of expression and speech as guaranteed by our constitution," Fr Prakash said, "the RSS is not at fault in wanting to expand its news service. However, its ideology is not only fundamentalist but it is also fascist".
A RSS militant, the Jesuit noted, "killed Mahatma Gandhi. Narendra Modi, the current prime minister of India, was schooled in its ideology. His government has also replaced governors and chief ministers with figures who toe the RSS line."
"India indeed faces hard times ahead," the priest said.
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18/11/2021 16:20
