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Vivek Agnihotri
55 quotes
“I open the newspapers but there is no news about the sabotage. It would have been national news backed up with protests if I were a Dalit or a Muslim or a Leftist or a liberal. Indian media, especially the metro-based English media, is the most dishonest institution of India. They are always in a hurry, their questions are statements, they have no courtesy, they are arrogant, rude and humiliating. They are always running late for something and, therefore, have no concentration. I am not talking about those hundreds and thousands of hard-working young girls and boys who are running from one breaking news to another. I am talking about those who instruct them to twist the news. Or who twist it themselves to further their or someone else’s agenda. And it’s no rocket science to understand the design of this parallel politics. They have become victims of their own agenda. For the last 70 years, English media has loved to paint any rightist organization, especially RSS, as regressive, uncivilized, aggressive and fundamentalist. Any organization connected with RSS e.g. ABVP is considered a party of goons. Whereas the student members of left-wing parties are considered rebels, revolutionaries, progressive and intellectuals. It’s more like a perception battle. The media has created a ‘group of somebodies’ and a ‘group of nobodies’. Those raising slogans against the State of India are painted as The Superiors and the ones singing ‘Vande Mataram’ as The Inferiors. This is the reason why people like to associate themselves with the left – The Superiors. Some people like to believe they are liberals. Liberals are those who do liberal things, not the ones who are against the right. If you look at the reporting of the Jadavpur University crisis after the seditious JNU incident, they always wrote ‘left-wing students’ and ABVP goons or outsiders. I realized this when a journalist asked me at JU, ‘What do you have to say about the presence of some outsiders, ABVP goons?’ I wondered, ‘Aren’t they students here? Aren’t they called Akhil Bhartiya VIDYARTHI Parishad? Vidyarthi means student.’ She was taken aback and said ‘But…no… yeah… But…’ I knew she had no answer, only biases. I again asked her, ‘Aren’t they students of the same university? What do they need to do to be recognized as students? Raise anti-India slogans?’ She got upset and left me to cover the protesting students – the real students, according to her.”
Vivek Agnihotri (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“‘But as soon as you enter a university, we witness a radical and communal face of Communism. Here, they propagate the weaknesses and evils of Hindu culture. They manipulate and twist ancient books to misrepresent them and provoke students. For example, they use Tulsidas’ chaupai, without mentioning the rest of the Ramcharitmanas, which is the real context. “ढोल गंवार शूद्र पशु नारी, सकल ताडना के अधिकारी.” Dhol ganvar shudra pashu nari, sakal tadana ke adhikari. ‘The above lines are spoken by the Sea Deity Samudra to Ram. When Lord Ram got angry and took out his weapon in order to evaporate the whole sea, the deity appeared and said the above lines in the context of boundaries that are created by God himself in order to hold his creations. ‘What Leftists do is that they very cleverly translate it literally in Hindi, ignoring the fact that Ramcharitmanas is written in Awadhi and the same word means one thing in Hindi and another in Awadhi. While the literal meaning of the line in Hindi is ‘Drums, the illiterate, lower caste, animals and women deserve a beating to straighten up and get the acts together’, its real meaning in Awadhi is different. In Awadhi, tadna means to take care, to protect. Whereas, in Hindi, the same word means punishment, torture, oppression. Samudra meant that like drums, the illiterate, Shudra, animals and women need special care and need to be protected in the boundary of a social safety net. In the same way, the sea also needs to reside within the boundaries created by God. And hence, Samudra gave the suggestion to create the iconic Ram Setu. ‘Here, Shudra doesn’t mean lower caste or today’s Dalit. It meant people employed in cottage industries.’ I remember there is a book by R.C. Dutta, Economic Interpretation of History, in which he has said that when the Indian economy was based on the principles of Varna, handicrafts accounted for over twenty-five percent of the economy. Artisans and labour who were involved in the handicraft business were called ‘Shudra’. If there was so much caste-based discrimination, why would Brahmins use their produce? Both Dutta and Dadabhai Naoroji have written that the terminology of ‘caste discrimination’ was used by the British to divide Indian society on those lines. Manish continues, ‘Like the British, they provoke young students to believe that Hindu scriptures are against Dalits and women and want them to suffer torture. Young students are emotional and passionate. They come here with the dream of changing the world. The concept of “revolution” attracts them and they get swayed by an illogical logic.’”
Vivek Agnihotri (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They tried to shut me up by painting me as a part of the Hindutva campaign. But it was never about Hindutva. It’s neither about freedom of speech or intolerance. This is a tactic employed to protect their castles. They confuse the issue by bringing in lots of counter news and views. They quote laws. They try to make it look like an anti-RSS, anti-BJP issue. This isn’t about any of the above. It’s about a war against India. In 2010, there was an intelligence report that terror groups were making inroads in Indian universities. Everyone ignored it exactly like when intelligence said Ishrat Jahan was a suicide bomber. They believe in intelligence reports only when it suits them. This is India’s real threat.”
Vivek Agnihotri (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In India, people fight with all their might to kill an idea. The privileged people. The biggest problem with our establishment is that it has no space for a new idea. Art, cinema, and media haven’t developed enough to present new ideas for adoption. They are engaged in the politics of survival and therefore the outcome is mediocre and very often regressive. Most of the ideas are perceived as dissent. As disruption. As treason. Sometimes ideas like Naxalism, become violent and seditious. Despite being a democracy, in our country there is very little room for an alternate narrative. Whenever a child comes up with an innovative idea, parents, neighbours, teachers, and society crush the idea by telling him 'Kyon apna waqt barbad karte ho, yahan kuch nahin hone wala—don't waste your time.’ It can't be that all of them are idiots. They speak from their experience. 'Aise hi chalta hai … don't be stupid '…. Nothing is going to change… you don't know their power.'”
Vivek Agnihotri (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We have moved from nationalization to liberalization to globalization but our narrative remains stuck in the 1960s-70s. They hide their regressive ideology behind a fake humanitarian concern in the name of art or indie cinema. All film festivals are their properties. If you are not part of the club, you’ll never be invited to these festivals. David Dhawan, Rohit Shetty, Feroz Nadiadwala and other commercial filmmakers, whose one film makes more money than the films of all the filmmakers of this club put together, are never seen in such festivals. The media loves this club because it helps the media’s agenda. The media gets intellectual support and in return, they get good reviews. They have become the voice of Bollywood. When I started questioning this unfair equation, they started unfollowing me. Then they started blocking me on Twitter. And, slowly, from their lives.”
Vivek Agnihotri (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source