It seems some journalists have been assigned the 'fatwa' beat. Whenever there is any cleric issuing a controversial fatwa that can make a 'story' it is given too much of an attention.
1. A cleric in Hyderabad issues fatwa against Vande Matram. CNN-IBN even did a story and none other than Soni Sangwan covered it. Now one expects a journalist like Soni Sangwan to be objective. She didn't go into the reason why Vande Mataram, a hymn, was opposed by a fiercely patriotic Subash Chandra Bose and a socialist like Ram Manohar Lohia who called it a blot on Indian freedom struggle(not to talk of Gandhi and others). The reason is that it comes from Anand Math that is pro-British.
2. When the militants attacked the temple in Varanasi and 100 (Hundred) Muslim clerics gathered and issued a fatwa to term militants and their deeds as un-Islamic, none of the media organisations took note.
I feelt that's not the constructive approach towards reporting on sensitive issues and try to understand the minority psyche as well rather than sermonising that singing Vande Mataram is a test for patriotism.
Two interesting posts by bloggers Dilip and Nitin's In defence of right not to sing Vande Mataram:
http://dcubed.blogspot.com/2006/06/sing-it-at-passport-office.html
http://acorn.nationalinterest.in/?p=1972
Blogosphere is turly more mature than journalism.
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