Haroon Siddiqui Responds To Friends of BJP

Re your story, Friends of BJP Petition Toronto Star

This group has been accusing me of bias over my columns in April and May on the Indian elections. But these folks fail to say what, exactly, are they complaining about, beyond one column.

First, the Toronto Star provided the most extensive coverage of India than any other media in Canada. This is in keeping with our history — more than any other media or individual journalist in Canada, The Star and I have long promoted Canada-India bilateral relations, dating back to the time when many Indians here did not want to associate themselves with poor India. Both the paper and I have been honoured by several local Indian groups for it.

Second, the sole column this group cites, published May 15, was, in fact, mostly reporting. It quoted three Hindu secularists in India critical of Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party.

(1) Manoj Mitta, a Delhi-based journalist whose book The Fiction of Fact-Finding: Modi and Godhra had just been published.

(2) Harsh Mander, human-rights activist and author, among others, of Fear and Forgiveness: The Aftermath of Massacre.

(3) Anil Dharker, novelist, columnist and TV producer, director of the Mumbai International Literary Festival. His group has brought several court cases against the government of Gujarat.

All three had been reported on extensively in the Indian media.

But some folks in Canada do not want to hear what these Indian intellectuals living in India have to say. This is a case of Indians who have migrated out of India posing as more Indian than Indians themselves.

Curiously, these complainants never mention that I also wrote two very critical columns on the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.

They also ignore that my columns repeatedly asserted the greatness of India’s democracy and diversity, and the miracle of its mega-election. I held up the election results thus: “In Narendra Modi, Indians saw a harbinger of hope.”

These Friends of the BJP are partisan propagandists for one party in India. That’s their right. But India is far greater than one political party. It is a great democracy which respects free speech — unlike these folks.

Haroon Siddiqui

Toronto Star