NDTV under the scanner.
NDTV under the scanner. 
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Mohandas Pai: The Real Emergency Is To Free India From The Clutches Of Self-Styled Vigilantes

BySwarajya Staff

There is an urgent need to stop India from being branded intolerant over isolated incidents happening in the country, says Mohandas Pai in an article to the DNA.

A news channel gets a mere rap on the knuckle for repeatedly violating the code of conduct and jeopardising the country’s interests, but the self-styled vigilantes are raising a hue and cry that media freedom is under threat and that the country is facing an emergency-like situation.

“The real urgency we are faced with is the need to reclaim the narrative from a mythical intolerance,” he says.

“Some Indians have a habit of exaggerating events and broad-brushing their opinions across the nation.”

Stray incidents happening in a country as large and diverse as India are now part of a “grand narrative” that brands all the 127 crore Indians as religiously intolerant and communal with the country projected as authoritarian and ruled by tyrants, “with civil liberties at peril”.

When a crime is committed somewhere in India, all Indians have to face the charges of a few people “who have arrogated to themselves, without popular support, to speak for all of us”.