西方记者对印度有偏见吗?

When India’s space agency ISRO launched a successful mission to Mars prior to the 104 satellites sent in the first week of February the New York Times ran a demeaning cartoon showing an Indian farmer with his cow knocking at the doors of the Elite Space Club.

当印度向火星成功发射探测器后（发生在2月份成功发射104颗卫星之前），美国纽约时报发表了一幅有贬低意味的漫画：一个印度农民带着他的奶牛去敲航天精英俱乐部的大门。

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully launching a record 104 satellites. (PTI Photo)

印度航空航天研究机构（ISRO）成功发射了创记录的104颗卫星。（PTI 摄影）

And this triggers an important question: 70 years after Independence are western journalists and correspondents still biased against India a country they are supposed to report honestly about so that their readers who are mostly ignorant get enlightened?

这就引出了一个很关键的问题: 在印度独立70年之后，西方记者依然对印度怀有偏见吗？他们本应如实报道印度从而让他们的那些大体无知的读者有所启迪。

Well from a western correspondent himself the answer is…YES.

作为一个西方记者，我的回答是：是的。

There are four reasons for that sad fact:

对于那个令人伤心的现实，有四个原因:

1) India is never in the news in the West unless there is some major catastrophe or huge elections. Thus if you want to write and be published you have to find alternate stories that often border on the sensational the marginal or even the untruthful.

1. 除非印度发生了什么灾难，或者是大型选举，印度是不会登上西方媒体头条的。因此，如果印度新闻想要上媒体的话，你就得专门找那些近乎爆炸性的甚至是根本就不真实的新闻；

2) Your editor in New York Paris or London has often set ideas on India even though most of the time he or she has never set foot here. You need to toe the line otherwise you may not be published which is tough if you are a freelance that is paid per piece. Most western correspondents thus rein in. I had one guy like that in Paris Charles Lambroschini in Le Figaro who believed that the RSS was the most dangerous outfit in India.

2. 你在纽约巴黎或者是伦敦的主编经常喜欢替你出主意即使他们绝大部分时间根本就没有去过印度。所以如果你不按照他们的想法做的话，作为一个自由记者，你可能就拿不到你的稿费。因此大部分的西方记者就受到了约束。在巴黎就有这么一个编辑，他的名字叫做 Charles Lambroschini，在费加罗报工作，他认为印度右翼党是印度最危险的组织。

3) Three or even five years which is the usual period that foreign correspondents are posted (as well as diplomats) is not enough for understanding a country that is so vast so diverse so contradictory sometimes. In fact one needs to go beyond the appearances in India. Indeed the western sense of the hygienic and the esthetical is very different from India’s and the first contact of dirtiness slums or poverty often scars the perception of many western correspondents who then refused to go beyond that barrier.

3）通常外国记者（以及外交官）会被外派3到5年，但是这么短的时间是无法了解一个这么巨大多样甚至是时而矛盾的国家的。事实上，人们应该透过表面来看印度。西方的卫生和美感标准确实有别于印度，所以印度肮脏的贫民窟和贫穷在一开始就给西方记者留下了深刻的印象，导致他们不愿意跨越这道障碍继续深入了解印度。

4) Delhi where everybody is posted is physically so far from the rest of India and so disconnected. The same ideas and clichés are heard in parties and embassies’ cocktails and repeated ad infinitum till every foreign correspondent thinks they are the gospel truth: ‘secularism minorities Hindu fundamentalism human rights in Kashmir right wing saffron’ etc.

4）西方记者所进驻的德里与印度的其他地方距离遥远，也几乎与印度其他地方相隔绝。所以同样的观点和陈腔滥调在派对和大使馆酒会上传播和重复，直到每个外国记者都认为他们获得了真相：世俗主义，少数民族，印度教，原教旨主义，克什米尔的人权，右翼，藏红花等等。

Is this why CNN or New York Times or the Independent haves been particularly nasty in the last few years against the BJP and Narendra Modi even after he was democratically elected by 100 million Indians? It felt more like a biased witch-hunt than actual reporting. For instance very few western journalists cared to mention that the 2002 Gujarat riots were triggered by the attack by a Muslim crowd of the Sabarmati train where 56 Hindus 32 of them women and children were burnt like animals.

这就是为什么CNN、《纽约时报》或者《独立报》在过去的几年内极其恶意地反对印度人民党和莫迪的原因，即使在他由十亿印度人民民主选举就任印度总理之后？与其说是真实的新闻报道，那更像是富有偏见的政治迫害。例如极少有西方媒体关心提及2002年古吉拉特邦骚乱是穆斯林引发的，他们袭击了萨巴尔马提的火车。在那场事件中，56名印度教信徒包括32名妇女儿童像牲畜一样被焚烧。

But the pioneer of them all has got to be the BBC which has been the inspiration of much of the slant of the foreign journalists on India which seems to stem from an unconscious sense of superiority (same is true of western Indologists). I remember when I used to cover Kashmir in the late 90’s how Mark Tully then a beacon to all foreign correspondents & Indian journalists used to say all the time that it was ‘untrue that Pakistan was sponsoring arming and sheltering Kashmiri militants’. Which everybody repeated (bar this writer). He even had a Kashmiri stringer who was named Yussuf I think that informed the militants. When the army arrested him Yussuf Tully kicked such a ruckus that he had to be eventually released.

但所有西方媒体的驻印记者都受到BBC的启发，源于无意识的优越感（西方的印度学者也一样），对印度进行有偏向性的报道。我还记得当在90年代末我在报导克什米尔地区时，Mark Tully，他当时简直就是外国记者和印度记者的灯塔，总是表示“巴基斯坦资助、武装和庇护克什米尔激进分子的消息是不实的” 。每个人都这样说（除了我）。他甚至有个我认为为激进分子提供情报的叫Yussuf的克什米尔通讯员。当军队逮捕Yussuf时 Tully还大闹了一场，最终不得不被释放。

Speaking of stringers the sad fact is that most of the Indian stringers of major western media outlets such as BBC or AP or CNN toe the line that is report what their masters want them to say. In fact they go sometimes even overboard to paint a negative and clichéd image of their own country. No doubt the Nirbhaya rape was a horrible happening and the guilty should have been punished in a harsher manner (and not released like the so-called juvenile). But this was so much reported on so much hyped particularly by the BBC that every westerner thinks now that India is the land of rape. In fact when any western girl wants to travel to India now she is warned “careful – you might be raped”. Yet proportionately there are less rapes in India than in Sweden which has the maximum number of rapes in the world for instance and it is safer to walk at night in Delhi than in certain suburbs of Washington or Paris.

说到特约记者，一个悲伤的事实就是，很多西方主流媒体（比如BBC，美联社或者CNN）所雇佣的印度特约记者只报道他们主人想听的。事实上这些印度记者有时候都非常热衷于用消极和陈腔滥调的笔画来描绘自己的国家。Nirbhaya 强奸事件无疑是一个非常可怕的事件，嫌疑犯必须得到非常严厉的惩处。（而不是因为所说的未成年人被释放了）但是这个事件被过度的报道被bbc过分的大肆宣传，以至于每个西方人现在还认为印度是个强奸的乐土。事实上当某个西方女孩想去印度旅游的时候，她都会被警告小心点，你可能会被强奸。然而比例上印度的强奸率比世界上发生强奸率最高的瑞典还要低，并且你在德里的晚上散步要比一些华盛顿或者巴黎的城郊更加安全。

India should have a look at China which gets a lot more respect from western journalists. Why? Because China does not take insults lying down. Paradoxically western journalists have so much more liberty in India where they can move freely. Whereas in China they still need permission before going anywhere and need to submit the subject of their reporting. They can be censored too or their websites even blocked.

印度应该看看中国，中国从西方记者那里得到了更多的尊敬。（是么？扯淡呢吧？）为什么？因为中国不会对侮辱不做任何反抗。相对的来说西方记者在印度会得到更多的自由去他们想去的地方。然而在中国，在想去哪里之前还是需要许可，并且需要提交报道的主题。他们可能会被审查或者他们的网站也会被屏蔽。

Sure there is no conspiracy that I can see and most western correspondents come to India with a sincere aspiration to report fairly and faithfully. But again the first task of a foreign journalist without being blind to India’s faults – and there are many but not more than any other country in the world – should be to report truthfully and create some empathy amongst its readers or viewers for a country that is unique and endearing and whose ancient civilization that viewed the world as One family has survived centuries of savage onslaught including by the British who are still trying to lecture India.

诚然这里面没有阴谋（是么？这话还敢再要脸点么？），我看到大多部分进入印度的西方记者都带着一颗诚挚的愿望去报道的公平和可信。虽然不能对印度的缺陷视而不见，但是哪个国家没有缺陷呢，所以西方记者去印度时的第一个任务就是进行真实的报道，让读者泛起同理心，让他们知道印度是个独特可爱的国家，其古老文明视整个世界为一个大家庭，并且经受了几个世纪的野蛮攻击，包括直到如今还想对印度说教的英国的攻击。