Editorial delight
Edits or leaders on Sethusamudram flowed like water from a well functioning tube-well, mostly saying the same thing over and over again.
You don`t say!
Darius Nakhoonwala
The Sethusamudram business is the ultimate "editorial delight". Over 30 edits were written last week and more have blossomed forth this week. And as I write this there are still five days left in it.
The reason why this happens is simple enough: it is easy to take stands. You can be for the motion or against it without any great difficulty. This becomes especially true when you get into black-and-white areas like myth/belief Vs development. Depending on your editor`s predilections, you can say this or that without any trouble at all.
So The Telegraph wrote that "History can become dangerous when it comes to be laced with politics. The inane legal wrangle over whether Ram is a historical figure or not is an example of history becoming political and potentially threatening." Yes agreed.
And once the initial premise was made so uncontestable, the rest followed. "the government has brought trouble upon itself and will now have to wipe the egg off its face…(but) the tactical gaffe… cannot hide the more important issue underlying the incident. There has been a growing tendency in
The Pioneer, of course, took the opposite view (it has written four edits in all). Its first leader bore the heading "Lord Ram prevails", suggesting that those who had denied his existence were Ravanas. "It is stunningly absurd that the UPA Government should have submitted an affidavit in the Supreme Court claiming Lord Ram did not exist and the sacred texts… lack historical basis. To slyly suggest, as the Congress`s apologists have done 24 hours later, that the affidavit was filed by the Archaeological Survey of India without the clearance of the Union Law Ministry and, therefore, the Prime Minister and his Cabinet colleagues are not to be blamed for the shocking assertion which pours ridicule on the faith of Hindus, is disingenuous…The BJP has done the right thing by exposing the sinister motive of the Congress and Mr LK Advani`s trenchant comment, that the "Congress`s pseudo-secularism has degenerated into sadist secularism", aptly sums up the purpose…"
Got it. Thanks.
The Economic Times wrote "The UPA government has foolishly played into the opposition BJP`s hands with the ham-handed wording of its affidavit filed in the Supreme Court on the Sethusamudram project. Though the objectionable portions were `withdrawn` on Thursday evening, the government has clearly scored a self-goal by showing an unpardonable lack of sensitivity." OK.
The Indian Express, which foolishly sums up the message of its edit in a strap line just below the title had this to say: "The Congress had shot itself in the foot on the ASI affidavit. The rollback is intelligent politics." It also castigated the Congress for never having "been particularly smart about handling sensitive issues of faith." Right, lads, understood.
The Asian Age wrote that "The three bureaucrats left holding the baby are the unfortunate ASI director general, the culture secretary and to a lesser extent the additional solicitor general. The politicians have made themselves scarce, as the concerned minister was not in town, and the law ministry claims it was not consulted."
The Times of India said " Epics should be read as epics, not as authentic histories. Unfortunately, our politicians, many of them wilfully, refuse to do so. The current controversy over the Sethusamudram project is a fallout of the political class confusing mythical geography for the real…"
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