By Chitra Subramaniam

It is said that a visitor once came to the home of the Danish Nobel Prize-winning physicist Niels Bohr and, having noticed a horseshoe hung above the entrance, asked incredulously if the professor believed horseshoes brought good luck.

“No,” Bohr replied, “but I’m told that they bring luck even to those who do not believe in them.”

A ceremony of civilisation proportions is unfurling in the world’s largest democracy – India. The Ram temple consecration ceremony is scheduled for January 22, 2024, inside the temple complex on Tuesday in Ayodhya. Lord Ram, or Rama as he’s called in South India, is a presiding deity of Hinduism. I have been reading and watching Indian media coverage about the consecration ceremony and the various events leading up to the final moment when Lord Rama’s statue will be installed at the sanctum sanctorum. We will be witnessing history in the making. But I am troubled, rather appalled by some of what I am reading and watching. Insulting people’s faith and imposing your views on them is sacrilege, to say the least. On the eve of this very important ceremony for Hindus worldwide, I write about journalism, faith, rituals, and respect for people’s beliefs. Journalism is a noble profession. If you muddy the waters with personal issues, you’ll get called out.

If bile, vengeance, and gratuitous attacks on people, their beliefs, and faith are what float your boat, journalism is not for you. Vicious reporting, mocking not just those who do not think like you but running them down systematically with every byte and column inch with all the means at your disposal, exposes you more than it does them. I see this happening on all sides, whether it is coming from the left or right. It is a mark of ignorance, something that good and courageous journalists will chase out of newsrooms, as is happening across India. Good journalists know that interviewing people of knowledge – gurus, all of them – requires humility and grace.

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