BetweenTheLines

Sameer Arshad Khatlani Follow  on Facebook A significant section of the Indian media have been among the most formidable allies of ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). They have over the years amplified and focussed on issues that boost the BJP’s main election-winning strategy of projecting India’s Muslim minority as the threatening other and fifth columnists that only the governing party is capable of dealing with. The prime-time debates on Indian television channels mostly focus on the Hindu-Muslim binary. Issues are often twisted and distorted to keep the focus on demonising the beleaguered minority.  ALSO READ: Ignorance About It Is Biggest Crisis Islam Faces The Taliban take over in Afghanistan was just another excuse for the media to continue vilifying Indian Muslims. While the Indian media were busy doing what they do best, they were also egging on a potential resistance against the Taliban in Panjshir Valley, the only Afghan province that did not immediately

Sameer Arshad Khatlani Follow  on Facebook W hen the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the West mobilised massive military and monetary support for the Afghan resistance to drive the Soviets out of the country. A significant chunk of the funds pumped in was spent on school textbooks that justified violence in the name of religion with a short-term goal of drawing recruits for the anti-Soviet resistance. The textbooks featured weapons and soldiers and served as the core curriculum in Afghan schools until the US invaded Afghanistan in 2011 to oust the Taliban from power for harbouring the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks. The Taliban also continued the use of the books during its six-year rule from 1996 to 2001 before the Americans replaced the primers in the noughties but not before, as The Washington Post noted, steeping ‘a generation in violence’. Why Taliban Need To Be Called Out Forcefully The Soviets were defeated in the strategically important country in less than a decade