The Hindu : Kerala News : Sangh Parivar mounts attack on weekly

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, May 03, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

Sangh Parivar mounts attack on weekly

By C. Gouridasan Nair

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, MAY 2. The Sangh Parivar has a new target in Kerala on its view finder: Mathrubhumi Weekly, brought out by the Mathrubhumi group of publications. For the last few weeks running, the Parivar organ, Kesari, has been mounting a relentless attack on the widely respected journal accusing it of pandering to Muslim fundamentalist and Marxist interests.

The weekly, which has sprung back to life with some sweeping changes in content selection and make-up, has angered the Sangh Parivar for the space it gives to thinkers and writers who are ideologically opposed to the Parivar.

The Parivar has accused Mathrubhumi of having deviated from the lofty ideals of K.P. Kesava Menon and other founders of the newspaper group and becoming a conduit for ideas and perspectives that are alien to the `national interest'.

The April 4 issue of Kesari has termed Mathrubhumi a `synonym for immoral journalism' and accused it of having taken a biased stand on a history workshop organised in Thrissur in December under the aegis of the Ithihas Sankalan Yojana.

A front page article attacking the Mathrubhumi alleged that the weekly had given a distorted picture of the seminar with a cover that showed RSS volunteers marching with swords in hand and an article by a Marxist historian questioning the premises on which the workshop was being organised.

Mathrubhumi, the article said, had replaced its slogan `truth, equality and freedom' with `untruth, discrimination and intolerance'.

In its April 11 issue, Kesari came down heavily on the weekly dubbing it a `proselytisation tool' of social commentator and writer, Ninan Koshy, who has been an active campaigner for human rights under the banner of the World Council of Churches.

The Parivar organ has accused Mathrubhumi of having become a forum that was being used by Dr. Koshy, who was the LDF-backed Independent candidate in the Mavelikara Lok Sabha constituency in 1999, to impose his `global Christian political agenda' on the readers.

Continuing its attack, Kesari wrote in its April 18 issue that the Mathrubhumi weekly was increasingly getting dedicated to the Islamic cause, the provocation being an article on the future of the Muslim community post-September 11 and another on the future of minorities and the Lok Sabha election. Mathrubhumi, the article alleged, was forcing its readers to consume the `minority community agenda laced with anti-national observations' being dished out by its authors.

Almost every article in the Parivar organ has concluded with a veiled call to boycott Mathrubhumi weekly, without exactly saying so.

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