um so when i landed in uk uh somebody at the airport asked me is india still land of
snake charmers i thought a little bit and i didn't reply to that question rather i asked them another
question is uk still a land of witches do you have something about that all right indeed this is a
very nice question um you see as i said somehow the media has got it or not media but because
of the media the general public has got something against the hindus of indians they somehow feel we
are kind of you know kind of quaint but backward people you know kind of antiquated people and
kind of charming and unusual and colorful but quite weird this is why this question arose
and the answer that i was going to give which came from narendra modi and i like that very much
he said people were asking some politicians were asking him at a very political meeting uh you know
this about this snake charming because they always think india means snake charmers they've got
nothing but just charm snakes all over in every street corner so narendra modi is very clever
i like this guy he's got this you know ability to have immediate party immediate response he said
yeah in the ancient days we used to be snake jammers but now we are playing with the mouse
with the mice you know the computer so this idea of responding that we have really grown
quite a lot and we are not some kind of antiquated outdated civilization
but look despite the media's bias look media is severely biased against india and against
hinduism they're only sure in bbc special i really keep firing at the bbc i want them to sue me
because the bbc has been the biggest culprit and producing giving a very most negative image
regarding what india and hinduism is all about ev forever and ever long time ago they asked me to
help them do a documentary sister nivedita he said set up the first girls school in india i
said wonderful i'll help you and they know how the documentary came out sisters of kali
terrorists how did this come into come about and i wrote to the bbc i in fact wrote to the house of
lords saying the bbc charter should be taken off these people are thoroughly biased and then i got
a nice response from house of lords and muslims you take a note of your concerns your noted down
so the bbc bias continues and the media bias has done tremendous harm to india and hinduism
is necessary to smack you know give it back the only way we can perhaps avoid
this media bias especially if kind of focused on bbc using social media you can bypass the
you know mainstream media like the bbc to portray the correct vision of hinduism
there are two ways media can do be biased against you they can either show you really
in a very poor light because those weird things in every religion they can just focus on that
oh this hinduism so naked [ __ ] jumping in the ganga or something oh this hinduism the second
way they can show their bias is by ignoring the positive thing that particular religion
possesses and they have done that repeatedly to me i get into the bbc once in a while
because the positive things be processed like spiritual humanism focusing on humanity not only
god is a dramatic idea suited to this society they love it but they won't let me give me any entrance
or the second idea of religious pluralism different religions are talking the same
thing using different vocabulary suited to their own times and needs of the people these two major
ideas that have heart of hinduism are not allowed to get expression in the in the in the media like
bbc they seem slack and we love you we always got you on the top of the list we will invite you
but then they'll find somebody from the temple you know singing this hinduism
so the esoteric kingdom get gets lost they do it deliberately out of all the countries in the world
india's one most associated with its religion the people are seen as being very strongly hindu just
like many other countries in the east um however india's also got quite a negative perception in
modern media and the world as a whole um being seen as quite a violent and dangerous place
that ties back to hinduism now and people have negative perceptions of it how can we change that
yeah it's a sad thing you must get these things into perspective recently for example there were
issues of women being raped in india it made me shudder it really made me shudder
there are issues about you know violence against women there are issues about
you know kind of some kind of slavery and you know children child labor and so on so i'm fully aware
but when you actually take things into perspective look 100 years ago it eaten here you would have
you know child labor i suspect 150 years back so what is happening what has happened in other
parts of the world is india is going through the same evolutionary process it is coming out of it
again things take things into perspective the number of you know kind of issues of rape for
you know million et cetera according the world highest i think is united states india would come
from halfway down the league table so it is again take things into perspective but the biggest thing
that you ask the most important thing you ask is this why is the media so bent into trying to
portray hindus or india in a poor light this is a very sad state of affairs this has started since
the time of the christian missionaries it's not going away unfortunately this has been i feel like
a carry over because so much mud has been slung against this you know flung against this nation
and its religion for so many thousands of years that habit has not died away even today i'm
telling you the biggest culprit is the bbc i'm very bluntly saying that on air i wish they would
sue me the bbc's portrayal of india hinduism is so poor it's so negative they've never shown anything
positive about india hinduism which is important for their own society for the western world for
the greater world they will never portray hinduism in a good light however hard i try this kind of
lovely vision of hinduism they will never allow to be broadcast to the mainstream public in this
country because it will definitely capture the attention and heart and they'll realize that
what we are with the nation we are vilifying was in fact something to from where we can learn a lot
of things suitable suited to our own nation ideas of spiritual humanism for example is a tremendous
transition so it is an unfortunate legacy if you like that for hundreds of years the christian
missionaries who are trying to demolish if you like the hindu tradition has developed this habit
of seeing india and hinduism in the poorest light possible you can always do that to any religion
any culture any society any civilization you can always pick out things which are really weird
and focus on them and ignore is there are two ways the media can be sure it's it's bias first it can
show his bias by in a way uh showing the negative thing about the the kind of little you know
you know weird stuff about the religion and the second way they show their bias is by not
portraying the positive thing that sits there by ignoring it by passing it and this is in fact the
the issue that i'm struggling with i'm hoping to bypass this media bias by going to social
media in a big way at the moment nearly a thousand people are coming on our youtube channel and it's
expanding dramatically so if hundreds of thousands of people are now latching on to this social media
to learn about hinduism in india and then the the beautiful beautiful aspect of hinduism
we will soon bypass this kind of very biased media presentations
do you think the western world has an accurate or fair viewpoint for dharmic religions now in
fact look look up the say the media presentation you'd be very surprised and i watch it as well
if you look at the big bbc big questions or the moral issues being discussed you will see who
will you see as kind of participants of course the christian lobby the jewish lobby very strong
in the muslim lobby because the muslim lobby is very you know kind of very kind of very strong so
it has to be calmed down so the media will give tremendous importance to islam and muslim lobby
and completely ignore the dharmic creation i'm not seeing a single program ish done by bbc which
shows hinduism sikhism buddhism or jainism in a positive light it always shows them it's kind
of weirdos so it's a very frightening scenario so the west has got a very poor opinion of that
part of the world in the religion the dharmic tradition that came out of that particular world
part of the world has been not given any exposure whatsoever and the only exposure they give is
to show some kind of weirdness in this tradition some you know [ __ ] smoking ganja hindu hinduism
come on now so this is if you like the very poor way they are portraying hinduism in the west and
i fight them all the time look i tell you again i'm saying this on air the bbc called me for some
certain kind of you know consultation regarding how religion should be present in bbc they had
some very high power meeting with me two or three hours vested spent i should say and i said look if
you want to really promote how to present religion in this world that we live in promote the two
ideas at the heart of hinduism pluralism many ways to be spiritual and the idea of spiritual
humanism focusing on humanity and not on god in heaven and the third thing i said you can plug in
is to plug in the idea that science and spiritual are not that distant they are kind of pointing the
same direction three things i can say plug it in and then i go to reply after six months of
hassle ah mr lakhani we have thought about it we are going to talk about pluralism because we are
going to in a way show a program on bbc about pilgrimage from here to rome this is pluralism
what about the cyber science and spirituality well spiritual humanism completely ignored because this
goes against the christian ethos dignifying humanity is the spark of god is not accepted
we are sinners so again spiritual humanism zero they told me we have no plans no programs for
that only program you're going to watch on bbc in the next year is going to be this pilgrimage
to rome and the other program you'll watch is this idea of diwali hindus love diwali their fireworks
just imagine how poorly hinduism is portrayed in the mainstream media to a great extent and they
still have this colonial attitude saying these are kind of secondary people you know kind of backward
people so we can show them in the way we like we are still there we are still the masters but one
thing the guardian newspaper said which everybody touched me was this is they said with the with the
arrival of narendra modi on the political scene in india first time the british rule has ended
there's no he's not a clone of the british empire he's going to play ball with them so he's going to
kind of promote the idea of hinduism in an honest manner and sincere men and refocus attention of
that nation back to spirituality and not this kind of half-baked secularism that never brought in
i just recently realized that you did a recording on bbc on the cast issue and i'm really keen to
know what actually happened because you know it's a big big huh about this in the uk a while back
yes indeed you see the bbc the high power bbc and it approached me about six months one year back
saying mr lakani how can you present hinduism into the media in the bbc i said no problem so we had
three big meetings long meetings for one hour each and i said promote the following ideas of
hinduism which are relevant for the world that we live in the ideas were basically very simple
the idea of religious pluralism spiritual democracy so that people don't kill each
other in the name of religion i say put that in number one number two i said put in the idea of
spiritual humanism you are not just matter lump of matter like rachel droppings we are something more
than matter and this was spiritual humanism i said this is the second feature that you must promote
you know in our in in the media the third thing i said this unlike other religions hinduism is
not difficult with esoteric ideas of science today the ideas of quantum and consciousness sit
very well with the deeper vision of hinduism which is principle oriented so these are the
ideas you must promote uh on on on on on on on bbc and after three big meetings finally he came
back and said um what have you agreed now what are you going to present he said mr lakan you decided
that the way we are going to promote pluralism is very simple we're going to tell uh there's
going to be a pilgrimage of a christian minister from london going to spain that's this pluralism
very sad that's what was spiritual humanism he said no we have no plans for it but it is very
simple bbc is controlled by christian lobby and the idea of that you are not the sinners but you
are the spot you know the the the the if you like the divinity on earth this is kind of incredibly
you know opposite to what christianity teaches so there's no way they're going to promote that
whatever science hinduism they say well we already have some other ideas in mind so we'll leave it
for the time being and then i say what are we actually going to present and this is what i
heard they said two things we're going to present this year on bbc regarding hinduism one is the
caste system and the second is diwali fireworks and feasting whoa wonderful so we're showing you
some in this slide and they came to into me uh last week regarding the cast issue and i was
very rough i hope they don't edit me out when the actual program goes out in autumn i said this on
bbc one tv so it's very important for the slot i said look if you want to ban or put in the clothes
legal clothes that no discrimination based on cost then i just add one more word no discrimination
based on caste or class and they were amazed by what do you mean by class i say look the english
class system is precisely the same as the hindus hereditary hierarchical caste system no different
by mere birth you are something special like the queen for example she's only head of the
head of head of the state just by mere birth she's head of the church too i said you beaten us
so this is the class that you must attack and be challenged be challenging i said i'm
quite open to that and i think they have taken all these comments and i don't know
how much of it will get through on the actual edited version but i've done my bit so i just
wanted to you know bring you up to date on on this issue of cast that bbc keep rubbing
in our face because they think there's a weakness of the tradition let's show that
and i say it's not the weakness it's a very clear it's a human failing nothing with our religion
hey