Arundhati Accuses Mainstream Media Of Fanning Hatred

Brut India

“The next generation of children that are educated in India will not be competent to study anywhere else in the world.” Writer Arundhati Roy proclaims the India story is over. Do you agree?     Thanks Karwan e Mohabbat for the footage.

Transcript

00:00People who think or who have the audacity to call themselves journalists or television anchors,

00:06basically spineless pets on a saffron leash, drawing massive corporate salaries,

00:15destroying the lives of people.

00:17What happened in Hathras shows you the rot that every organ in this country is rotting.

00:26It's over. The story is over.

00:29The time to stand up is now.

00:49Every time I speak at this press club, beyond this group of real people,

00:56I see the ghosts of people who, even in recent times, would be here at this table with us.

01:06The ghosts of all of them who are today in prison.

01:09People who have spoken up.

01:12Recently, in fact yesterday, when someone sent me a draft of the press conference,

01:18they said a group of eminent people will address the press,

01:22and I said there are no more eminent people in this country.

01:26Everybody is fair game.

01:28Everybody is now on the list or on the waiting list or on the reservation against cancellation list.

01:38And so I don't know who the next lot of people who will be here speaking to you

01:44and this lot have probably been dealt with.

01:47So I do want to salute all those people who have stood up and who are today behind bars.

01:55The people from Bhima Koregaon, the people, the lawyers, the academics, the professors, the journalists,

02:01the students, the anti-CAA activists, all of them.

02:06After independence, after we were given a constitution for the first time in the history of this civilization,

02:15this caste-based social hierarchical civilization,

02:20for the first time we had a legal document that said all Indians are equal.

02:25The police, the politicians, and even I'm afraid the judges in our courts

02:30are reading a different constitution from the one that we know and we were taught.

02:36Now we are reduced to begging for our citizenship

02:40and even begging not to be just mass incarcerated in prison.

02:45Of course, this system of incarceration began on the edges of this country,

02:52in Kashmir, in the states of the Northeast, in Chhattisgarh, in Central India,

02:57where hundreds, thousands of Adivasis and villagers, nameless and unknown,

03:02are in jail, charged with sedition, charged with this UAPA Act,

03:07the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.

03:10If there is one thing that this panel must demand, it is the revocation of that law.

03:16Because that is not a law, that is just a loose collection of words

03:22which allows a state to charge anyone with anything and imprison them for months and years together.

03:30That law, if it is not repealed, any amount of protests are not going to help us.

03:36What happened in Hathra shows you the rot, that every organ in this country is rotten.

03:45There was a Dalit girl who said when she was found nearly dead by her mother and brother

03:51and taken to a police station, she said in three videos, she said,

03:56I was gang raped, I was gang raped by these men.

04:00She told them, told you their names, you know the caste they came from.

04:05And yet the police did not register a case.

04:08She was taken to hospital, the doctors did not examine her for rape.

04:14They all started only looking at the strangulation wounds.

04:18And gradually the police, the medical community, the judicial community,

04:24leaks, casts out of the whole thing and makes it sound like some unfortunate crime.

04:30And hey, for all you know, maybe her mother did it, maybe her brother did it.

04:34So every aspect of our society is rotten now.

04:40The most rotten part of this country is the mainstream media.

04:45People who think or who have the audacity to call themselves journalists or television anchors,

04:52basically spineless pets on a saffron leash, drawing massive corporate salaries,

05:01destroying the lives of people.

05:03I mean, look at Omar Khalid. How many years have they lied about him?

05:08How many years have they called him names?

05:11How many times have they completely endangered his life?

05:16And that buildup of him is now the reason that he's in jail.

05:21And we would not be in a state of fascism if it was not for the Indian media.

05:27Today you have a country whose economy is in shreds.

05:31People are hungry. People don't have jobs.

05:34Everything is coming apart, but we are held together by a pipeline of hatred,

05:40which is funneled by the mainstream media.

05:43We are a one-party democracy, which is an oxymoron.

05:46So today the only good thing that is happening is it is unsustainable.

05:52This is unsustainable. It is impossible for this to continue.

05:56So you are seeing one by one individual judges, individual chief ministers,

06:03individual politicians slowly come up to realize it is not possible.

06:09We have a government that is very cunning in how it can win the elections,

06:14but has no intelligence about how to rule this very vast country.

06:19Let's not pretend anymore that this is a democracy

06:23and there is a lot of noise on the media and it's free.

06:26It is not free.

06:28And I will lay a huge amount of responsibility on the doorstep

06:34of the corporate-funded mainstream media,

06:37of the corporates that do fund this toxic media.

06:41Some corporates have started being worried about it

06:44because they know that in a climate like this,

06:46when the world's economy is integrated,

06:50even the people who work for the BJP, who support the BJP,

06:54who vote for the BJP, even they will be finished.

06:57Even the people who want to have a Hindu Rashtra at home

07:02and have their children in America,

07:04the next generation of children that are educated here

07:07will not be competent to study anywhere else in the world.

07:13It's over. The story is over.

07:16Unless every one of us, whatever our differences,

07:21realize that we are up against fascism.

07:25So every one of us, whether you're a judge,

07:29whether you're a politician, whether you're a writer,

07:32whether you're a student, whether you're a small magistrate,

07:36whatever you are, the time to stand up is now.

07:41Thank you ghosts for listening. Bye.

07:46Thank you ghosts for listening.

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