Arrest Of Shankaracharya - 4

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BBC withdraws Offending Article on Shankaracharya
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Among the English journals the most virulent attacks against Sri Jayendra Saraswathi came from Outlook magazine. The titles of some of the articles by Mr. S. Anand, Outlook’s correspondent in Chennai, are eloquently self-explanatory: “How the Gods Fall,” “Swami and Fiends” (sic), “A Sting in the Tail,” “The Baton Awaits,” “Prison Diaries of a Pontiff.” These articles are compilations almost exclusively of slanderous back alley innuendos, invariably attributed to vague police contacts and other faceless sources.

But Outlook did not stop there. The demonization of Sri Jayendra Saraswathi was to be internationalized on 28th January 2005 by no other than the editor of the magazine himself, Mr. Vinod Mehta. In a talk titled “A View from India,” the Outlook editor went on BBC Radio Four to inform English and European audiences about the “Jayendra affair.” The talk was rebroadcast two days later, on Sunday 30th January, immediately after a program of Christian church services. To Hindus who happened to be listening to BBC Radio Four on that Sunday morning, the contrast between the dignified church services and the vicious slander heaped on one of their foremost religious leaders must have been excruciatingly painful.

Two days later the talk was published as an article on the BBC website with the title of “Murder, Mystery and Politics in India.” Straight away Mr. Mehta set the tone. “The charges are a tabloid journalist"s dream - murder, sleaze, debauchery, greed and sex,” he said. The story he went on to recount was meant to illustrate each of these “charges.” But it was overwhelmingly fictitious and certain crucial details stood in contradiction with the findings of the Supreme Court of India, made public some three weeks before Mr. Mehta delivered his talk on BBC Radio Four. His tabloid dream was of his own making.

The Outlook editor did not merely indulge in fibs. His entire article was a colossal lie - by omission. On granting bail to the Shankaracharya on 10th January 2005, the Supreme Court had stated that the Tamil Nadu authorities and police had failed to submit the least prima facie evidence connecting the Pontiff to the Sankararaman killing; they had also been unable to submit any grounds of motive for the Shankaracharya to commit such an act. But Mr. Mehta passed over the Supreme Court findings as if they had never existed. The reason is obvious: the pronouncements of the Apex Court would have demolished his viciously fictitious story.

Immediately devotees of the Shankaracharya throughout the world began writing letters of complaint to the BBC. After some seven months of repeated complaints the BBC Editorial Complaints Unit authorities admitted that Mr. Mehta’s text contained “serious error and inaccuracies.” They tacitly acknowledged that apart from the alleged conspiracy to murder, none of the “charges” mentioned by Mr. Mehta were to be found in the charge sheet. On being questioned about the matter, Mr. Mehta had apparently told them that the charges of personal misconduct were listed not in the charge sheet but in the FIR (First Information Report), filed by the police shortly after the Pontiff’s arrest – another lie.

The BBC remained adamant about keeping the offensive article on their website, purged of the “errors and inaccuracies.” Thanks to www.kanchiforum.org, the devotees of the Shankaracharya organized themselves and engaged lawyers in London. <b>Finally, the threat of legal action compelled the BBC to remove the article, apologize and reimburse the greater part of the legal costs incurred by the Acharya’s devotees.</b>
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