Dear International Media,
I am an International student studying in the USA. I am barely 18 and a half but I have lived in India for nearly 18 years. So, I might not be the greatest voice to speak from my country, but I am a voice that needs to speak. I will not give you my name here because name speaks a lot about a person's religion, which doesn't matter in this letter cause even as a student I still represent a big part of India. So, I am Indian first and anything other comes next.
Yesterday I decided to type the words "International media on India" on google. The results which popped up were astonishing. When I read the news, I was disheartened to see the amount of bashing my country's people and leaders must suffer through due to blind, narrow and orthodox sightedness of International media. I decided I will not name any website or publication in this because this is just an open letter and not a roast that I am holding. But I read an article (from a supposedly "Internationally" famous publication) about how the pandemic is causing religious hatred in India. I saw a completely one-sided and pathetically biased opinion of three supposedly "renowned" authors which in short tried to say that the government was trying to blame the fault of spreading COVID-19 virus in India on Muslims of India. Whereas the government never blamed the Muslim community rather they said that a gathering of 4000 people was found hidden in "Tablighi Jamaat". They had to bring some information out about it in public cause few people attended the gathering but ran away afterward and hid in different places, these people could be a potential spreader of the virus.
The article went ahead and said how Hindus were beating Muslims but there were no comments made about how doctors were stone pelted and policemen were beaten up by Muslim community. I do agree that the mistake of a few can not be a base for the punishment of the whole community. But then when we address pollution the whole humankind is considered even though I don't have any direct part in the problem but why should I feel ashamed, sorry or pay for the problems I didn't create. Germany is still sorry for the action only one man took. But rather than being sorry the people from Tablighi Jamaat ran and hid, while the people from their community helped them in hiding and stone pelted doctors and policemen when they reached out to help to make the number of people that should be accused of spreading the virus even higher. No one wrote an article in International media about how an area with majority Muslim stone pelted the helping doctors, misbehaved with Nurses, roamed naked outside their houses when helpers were trying to help and literally cut off the hand of a policeman. I believe that a person who does Sin should be punished but the person who saw the sin happening but did nothing to stop the sin is equally eligible for the punishment. In this case, Muslims did a sin in the eye of the law but no one from the majority of the Muslim community stood against them or spoke anything against them, this makes them all guilty for the crime.
I don't know what International media really wants to do here. No one mentioned how Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave World Hydroxychloroquine and how he is the only World leader that is followed by White House on Twitter. But if he does even a smallest of mistake or comes out even remotely as religiously biased, he is bashed by International media as being radical. Even calling him "The symbol of Hatred", "Hitler of modern times" or "Radical" seemed to be fine, where there are countries like North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran, China, etc. in which dictatorship still exists and yet no one gets bashed and hated as much as Modi even though he came into government through fair and square elections, not once but twice in the world's largest democracy with an unprecedented mandate both the times. And it wasn't that people from the country were blinded about what he will do if he wins the election again. He clearly stated in his manifesto about how he will bring CAA and NRC in the country and how he will abolish article 370 from Kashmir. He just stayed true to his promise, I don't know what to say any further electing him one time might have been a fluke but getting another term in an opinionated country like India is difficult and he did it with even bigger mandate then last time would have been next to impossible.
I have a thousand things more to write in my open letter, but I will keep that letter for some other day, but one thing is sure to clear that International media is heavily biased and pathetic in the case of India. It is not that the International media is sympathetic to minorities of the countries or they would have raised questions on the treatment of Hindus and non-Muslims communities in Pakistan. But they are rather just Anti-India and Anti-Modi all together. Most of the people write about India like headless chickens without getting to the people or people's sentiment. International media has created enough negative image of India for its work hard to gain a good image back. Thank you for reading my letter.
Yours Sincerely,
An Honest Indian
