Open letter to Editor of Times of India

Dear Editor,

Being an avid reader of your daily it gives me a great pain to say that TOI has let me down in terms of its transparent journalism practices. The issue dated 25.04.2011 looked like it is the mouthpiece of Sathya Sai trust, and the entire editorial team was overtaken by Sathya Sai trust or the so called devotees of common man like us!.

Though I do not have any problems with Sathya Sai Baba or his way of life, I only wished you didn't dedicate a total of 5 full pages of a newspaper to such an controversial man. Agreed, that he has several educational institutions, hospitals, and philanthropically correct contributions by him.

This does not qualify anyone to be above law, or unquestionable, like the facts you only have presented in a tiny bit with the heading "mud slinging on saffron", Also you comfortably left out the fact that Sathya Sai Baba claimed that he would leave his body at 96, and his death now has happened much earlier.

There are several question marks on this public figure which were either not answered or suppressed. Now what is surprising to me is that by making your news paper to dedicate so many precious information pages on a controversial man you have only proven that your newspaper does not care for facts and rather is more worried about the readership and go with the flow kind of mentality.

Investigative journalism would have been great with a newspaper like yours which has such a huge reach, yes, it is true that there are so many people who blindly believe in gurus, saints, and what not?, but as a media leader I expected you to atleast take this herd mentality into a logical conclusion by presenting the facts.

(for more info see the following BBC documentary which is splashed all over You tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BVEJDPrGpM)

Yes Death of any human being is a tragic loss for his family, and this logical conclusion could have happened after few days/weeks of this event. Because people in public lime light need to be investigated, you never know what kind of misinformation our kids will grow up with otherwise, else we will all be responsible for the same.

I'm only worried about the kids of future who are going to grow up in this kind of blind faith culture, If we grow our kids more and more towards this irrational direction then you would see more brain drain by those who hate such irrational thinking and less thinking capabilities in the next generation.

Rationalism is not wrong, it is called so because it questions everything, and as a news paper you need to be neutral on beliefs, gurus, saints which tread very close to irrationality and depend on the crutch of faith. People have more and more faith in unseen supreme power or so called Saints when they cannot do the same in themselves (that is believing in one self on their own abilities)

I'm sure this letter would not be even published in your paper, but I felt it is important that I bring this up to your notice that there are readers who believe that journalism should not be all about emotions, one-sided opinion, and blind faith. Journalism for me means exposure of truth, enlightenment of next generation with correct information.

Hopefully someone who is not a ardent follower of a faith, religion, or some spiritual guru would read this mail and understand what few of the youth in this country think.

Pen is mightier than sword, so please guide our country with something which makes sense, like you have did before, aman ki asha or few of the social causes you have always supported. Do not get so emotionally attached to mass thinking which largely depends on the highest illiteracy rates we have or stupidity some intelligent learned individuals display.

One front page article on this philanthropist was fine (though I disagree with his miracles, and I'm still angry with so many unanswered questions on the controversies surrounding him). Not five full pages which could have been put for better use of "Change the mindset of the country" kind of journalism.

Thanks for reading this, and I hope you are not angry that someone has questioned the belief system of some one. It was just a candid assessment of a newspaper on which I rely most for all my day to day information.

Your Sincerely

Ravikiran