Life Ain’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee for Hindus
Hindu Human Rights have recently been flooded with verbal, written and electronic complaints about the portrayal of Hindus, and Hindu women in particular, in the British and Western media. While complaints are quite common, what makes the current sense of outrage peculiar is that the vast majority of complaints we have received are from Hindu women born and brought up in the West. We asked our researchers to compile a top ten.
(PRWEB) May 27, 2005 -- Hindu Human Rights have recently been flooded with
verbal, written and electronic complaints about the portrayal of Hindus, and
Hindu women in particular, in the British and Western media. While complaints
are quite common, what makes the current sense of outrage peculiar is that the
vast majority of complaints we have received are from Hindu women born and
brought up in the West. We asked our researchers to compile a top
ten.
The BBC has made it to the top of the complaints charts with their
new entry straight in at number one: Meera Syal’s much vaunted “Life Isn't All
Ha Ha Hee Hee” once again shows their inability to provide a positive portrayal
of Hindus in Britain. Containing a series of cheap and insulting digs at Hindus,
this program continues the tradition of the Western media’s denigration of
Hinduism and Hindu culture.
In addition to the ridiculing of the Hindu
religion, there is the worrying aspect of how this program reinforces deeply
ingrained stereotypes about Hindus. Starting off with a stereotypically scene of
“progressive Hindu woman” being sexually fondled and who’s character later
insults a much esteemed Hindu deity. We also wonder why was goddess Kali Mata,
revered by millions, is represented as being equivalent to evil in this program?
What was the point of the remark about Sita if you cannot be bothered to
actually give an accurate account of its Dharmic significance?
The
message in these types of drama is that if a Hindu woman wants to get on and be
accepted in this society then she has to jettison any overt or covert Hindu
characteristics or traits. The woman shown as abiding by Hindu customs is
depicted as idiotic, naïve, suppressed, stupid and easily fooled by her
blonde-chasing husband and of course is given an Indian accent (even though her
character is also born and brought up in the West). We do not deny that there
are problems in British Hindu society but then every society has their fair
share of problems and yet how is it that the only “Asian” community portrayed in
the Western media with such problems is the Hindu community? It doesn’t take a
huge leap to work out the implications of the message to Hindus: That your Hindu
culture and heritage is not good enough for this society and the rest of the
world. Strangely enough this resonates with the message given to the Hindus in
Bangladesh and Pakistan where they face extreme persecution.
Previous
number one and next on our charts is Channel 4’s “No Angels” featuring the nurse
“Anji” played by Sunetra Sarker portraying the usual character of the sexually
loose Hindu woman. We quote one of the emails sent to us: “are they are trying
to say she’s ‘progressive’? The only thing progressive about her is the way she
progresses into every man’s bed in the hospital”! Indeed Channel 4 are past
masters in this particular “art”: Sunetra Sarker in one time hit soap
“Brookside”, played nurse Nisha Batra. Again a Hindu woman is shown to be
sexually easy going. Is it a coincidence that women from the same ethnic group
are shown to be modern by being promiscuous, and the new face of Hindu
womanhood?
Not only does this belittle the achievements of the many
successful Hindu women in the UK, who have excelled in every field (and who are
not only in touch with their culture but have found it to be a source of
inspiration), but adds fuel to current wave of hate crimes against women across
society that we are seeing in this country. Is it any coincidence that we
receive reports of Hindu girls getting taunted and harassed in the street by men
and told that they are expected to behave like and be as easy as “Anji”, “Tania”
and “Nisha”? We ask, why are only Hindu women characters picked to portray
“Asian” females as promiscuous?
Perhaps the underlying problem is with
the Western entertainment industry’s current attempts at political correctness.
In a desperate bid to win over minority communities, the BBC and others have
whole departments dealing with entertainment output for minority groups
including, for example, their own radio stations. However, promoting the first
Indian person with a Hindu-sounding name as somehow representative of the Hindu
community as a whole shows how far out of touch the media has become. For
example, ITV’s first appearance on our chart is their hit soap “Coronation
Street” where the character Sunita played by Shobna Gulati, is attacked by a
jealous woman in rivalry over the same man. The dysfunctional “Asians” again
happen to be Hindus and the weapon used just happened to be the statue of a
Hindu deity. When the Hindu community expressed their outrage at this, ITV were
dismissive in their response. This episode (excuse the pun) raises a number of
questions. Why did the Indians with Hindu-sounding names who acted these roles
themselves not raise questions about the script to the producers? Perhaps they
are just happy for any work they can get and feared losing their careers if they
attempted to raise an issue against the anti-Hindu media machine in which case
we would hope they contact us at Hindu Human Rights to fight for their right to
be treated equally. However, it is more likely that it simply did not occur to
these actors that such a scene is offensive and objectionable to Hindus. This
illustrates the point that having an Indian face does not make someone into an
authentic role model for the rest of the community and nor does it promote
healthy community relations. The fact is that the majority of these actors who
have only ever played such roles are not much liked in the community
anyway.
A healthy pluralistic society is based on an exchange of ideas
between its constituent communities. This cannot take the form of degrading one
community by abusing its sacred symbols, caricaturing its beliefs and rituals,
degrading its men and portraying its women as sexual objects. Obviously this is
not going to bring communities together – if it could then perhaps the UN should
be employing the services of the porn industry in order to achieve World
Peace!
Before we are accused of being anti-Art, it is worth noting at
this point that Hinduism is and always has been pro-Art. Where else can we find
the expression and devotion to the spiritual and temporal that we find expressed
in Hindu literature, poetry, paintings, dance, music, sculpture, drama, symbols,
spiritual epics, architecture, costumes, jewelry … the list goes on. However,
when we see that same Hindu imagery and symbolism ordaining toilet seats,
bikinis, shoes, etc., then it is no surprise that our next chart topper, ITV’s
“Footballer’s Wives”, they have cast an Indian character owning a pet dog called
“Krishna”. Lord Krishna is of course revered by millions of Hindus for having
revealed one of Hinduism’s most famous scriptures, the Bhagvad Gita. It’s
strange how “Artistic License” seems to stop with Hinduism.
Just like Top
of the Pops, the Western entertainment industry is churning out the same old
manufactured rubbish over and over again when it comes to Hindus. So it should
come as no surprise to see old chart-toppers like BBC1’s “Eastenders” (featuring
a dysfunctional “Asian” family with what sounds like a Portuguese Catholic
surname of “Ferreira” but have Hindu gods prominently displayed in the family
home and of course the characters are mostly played by Indian actors with Hindu
sounding names) and golden classics like Channel 4’s “Second Generation” (the
dysfunctional “Asian” family was Hindu, and Hindu girls were shown to be easy
sexual prey), the supposedly groundbreaking film “Bhaji on the Beach” (where a
Hindu girl is shown to get pregnant by her boyfriend, and in one scene lights
her cigarette on the diva (sacred lamp) in a Hindu temple – again the
dysfunctional “Asian” family being Hindus), the BBC’s “This Life” (once again, a
successful Hindu woman who is completely alienated from her Hindu culture and
has an affair with her manager while living with her boyfriend) and BBC1’s
adaptation of the “Canterbury Tales” (which showed a dysfunctional “Asian
family” with what looked like a young man from India having an affair with his
aunt – again all the characters were Hindus) still hanging around in the
charts.
Even though Eastenders is sliding down the charts these days it
did manage to beat the BBC’s “Holby City” and “Casualty” and ITV’s “The Bill”
which all feature guest appearances from the token dysfunctional Hindu character
or family from time to time and finished just outside our top ten. Not in our
charts but also showing right now in London is the play “Far Pavilions” which
features the stereotypical story of a colonial British officer coming to the
rescue like a knight in shining amour of a Hindu woman about to be burnt alive
on the funeral pyre of her late husband. These few examples that we have raised
are just the tip of the iceberg. It is clear that anyone who is exposed to even
this small dose of anti-Hindu programming will lose any respect they ever had of
Hindus and Hindu culture. We welcome and invite any response that can prove or
argue otherwise.
The real shame of course is that when it comes to
Hinduism, there is virtually a whole treasure of works of art, thought and
expression that the media could chose from or work with Hindus to access. Not
only would this create a real exchange of ideas with the Hindu community but it
would also open many doors for non-Hindus to learn about and appreciate the only
surviving ancient civilization in the world – that is, Hinduism. That’s the
shame but the tragedy is that these continuous reinforced negative perceptions
of Hindus and Hinduism have created the environment and climate for the Human
Rights abuses against Hindus to be ignored all over the world. As we know the
media has immense power over people’s minds and a lie repeated often enough can
become someone’s truth. It is clear that defamation leads to persecution as
illustrated by the pre-Holocaust anti-Jewish propaganda campaign of the
Nazis.
In summary, as well as having to deal with physical and cultural
annihilation in parts of the world, a situation which the BBC and other media
powers seem rather over-keen to avoid recognizing, Hindus now have to put up
with petty street level teasing, name calling and other actions which barely
fall short of sexual harassment. Broadcasters of programs which show Hindu women
in such a light should take their responsibilities seriously and realize the
offence and defamation they cause. Women and children continue to be raped and
abducted in places like Bangladesh because they are Hindus. And Hindu women who
try and keep their culture in Britain are mocked and humiliated as backward and
regressive, with broadcasts taken from the pens of Indians with Hindu-sounding
names such as Meera Syal. The time has come for this to stop and the media to
reassess whether it wants to continue down this path of alienating yet another
ethno-religious community.
In addition to raising this issue with the
media and government, Hindu Human Rights is also planning to arrange a day
conference to discuss and address the negative portrayal of Hindu women and
Hinduism in the media. Please check our website for further details for the
upcoming event.
Contact:
Hindu Human
Rights
07984966798
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/5/prweb244582.htm