April 25th 2018
Times Now News published a seemingly random article with pictures of Hindu Gurus involved in “sex scandals”, grouping together Asaram Bapu, Gurmeet Ram Rahim and such others accused of sexual offences. Hindu gurus are maligned this way, where irrelevant and unnecessary material is published, and Hindu gurus become a joke in the eyes of the public.
By grouping together gurus in this manner, Times Now News is generalising a stereotype created for Hindu Gurus in India to all the gurus. This is a malicious way of making the public believe that all gurus are the same, that they are all sex offenders, that they are all perverted. They have put a few gurus together, many of whom have been falsely accused of crimes, and by seeing these few together, anyone will come to the wrong conclusion that all gurus are the same. The cultural genocide starts in this way, where one part of our culture is destroyed. The guru disciple tradition, the practice of learning scriptures and rituals fro a guru, the tradition of reaching Oneness with the ultimate through one’s Guru – all of this gets destroyed in this kind of targeted cultural genocide. The nitty-gritties of each guru’s legal case is not shown – where each one has been able to prove his innocence. This kind of dismissal of facts, and putting these gurus under one blanket term called sexual offenders has done atrocious damage to all gurus, and to Hinduism itself.