bernard dcosta Wed, 16 Feb 2011 22:26:14 -0800 asked:
Who is Sujay Gupta?
Reply: Sujay Gupta is one on whom Averthanus L. D'Souza. described as
IRRESPONSIBLE JOURNALIST
whom Herald has made their Weekend editor.
Read:
IRRESPONSIBLE JOURNALIST VERSUS NGOs.
By: Averthanus L. D'Souza.
There is none so blind as the one who refuses to acknowledge a
truth which stares him in the face. Mr. Sujay Gupta drifted into Goa in
search of a job, and is now pretending to be a champion of Goa and
Goan heritage. He has introduced a "diabolical" (Gupta's choice of word)
distinction between "the real people of Goa" and the other Goans; as well as
between "the readers (the real ones, with the right to criticize) and the
others. Sujay Gupta got off on the wrong foot by attacking ALL NGOs in the
country, (eight lakh, according to him) including the NGOs in Goa. His
original article in the OPinionatED column of the Herald of August 11th,
2008 explicitly accused all NGOs of supporting terrorism. His column was
titled: "NGOs: Where do you get your money from.?" He clearly asserted that
"The demand for independent scrutiny of funding patterns for eight lakh NGOs
in the country, including our own Goan NGOs, couldn't have come a day
earlier." In support of his accusation that NGOs were supporting terrorism
he cited an (obviously out of touch) Professor of Finance of the IIM,
Bangalore, whose article in the Hindu, incidentally, did not even remotely
hint that NGOs supported terrorism in India. This was Sujay Gupta's
(deplorable) attempt to lend credibility to his wanton attack against NGOs
in general, and Goan NGOs in particular. He deployed the big guns to
support his frivolous and totally unsubstantiated attack. My rejoinder
(which appeared in the Herald on August 23, 2008) to his original article,
was a point by point "factual" refutation of the several allegations which
he had made. Sujay Gupta has now chosen to describe this rejoinder as an
"angry diatribe (which) reeks of frustration and not of fact." My rejoinder
quite obviously touched a raw nerve because I compared him to a circus
contortionist, who is able to tie himself up in a knot. After reading his
latest letter to the Editor (August 26th) I have even stronger reason to
assert that, unlike the circus contortionist, Sujay Gupta, has tied
himself up in an intellectual knot from which he is unable to untangle
himself. He still asserts: "Yes, I am trying to kill flies using a
sledgehammer; some flies that bring in funds in the garb of NGO activity and
use them for diabolical purposes (sic), or to fill their own pockets."
It should be noted that in his original wild and grossly
exaggerated allegations Sujay Gupta has not adduced any evidence whatsoever.
Instead he has now chosen to shift the ground of the debate by asserting
that "a few (sic) NGOs who get funds from outside in the name of the NGO and
divert them for more diabolical purposes, including funding terrorist
outfits and organizations." In support of his allegation, he mentions
that the National Security Advisor "has warned of this, and there are a
few such evidences before the Union Home Ministry from Kashmir and Gujarat."
So now the accusation made by Sujay Gupta that all the 8 lakh NGOs in the
country are conduits for support to terrorist outfits has narrowed down to
a "few" NGOs from Kashmir and Gujarat (and no mention of any NGOs in Goa,
which please note !!). A very far cry, indeed, from his original wild
and irresponsible accusation that 8 lakh NGOs in India should be brought
under the surveillance of the Government.
I have already pointed out (in my earlier rebuttal) that all
NGOs which are registered with the Registrar of Societies (or with the
Registrar of Companies, or the Registrar of Cooperative Societies, or with
the Registrar of Trusts) are already under "strict" surveillance. They are
required to submit frequent Statements of Accounts duly audited by
Chartered Accountants. Sujay Gupta ignores this fact, and stupidly (I use
the word advisedly) asserts that ".the onus of proving them wrong lies
solely with him." (Mr. D'Souza). Sujay Gupta should know by now that the
onus of proving an accusation lies with the accuser. The responsibility is
NOT on the accused to prove his innocence of the charges. In Indian Law, as
also in most western judicial processes, the accusations have to be proven
in a Court of Law by the one who brings forward the accusation. In fact it
is axiomatic in legal circles that an accused person is assumed to be
innocent unless he is proven to be guilty "beyond any reasonable doubt".
Sujay Gupta is the one who needs to do his homework. And while he is at it,
he would do well to find out what the Government of India is doing with all
the incriminating evidence which it has (supposedly) garnered about the
"few" NGOs which have received foreign funds and have transferred them to
terrorist outfits.
It should be further noted that Sujay Gupta has this despicable
habit of shifting the focus of a debate. In his letter to the Editor
(Herald, August 26th.) he asserts: "I have never (sic) raised concern over
grants to NGOs." If this is so, what was the long article all about in
the OPinionatED column on August `11th.? In that article he had stated
that "The Union Finance Ministry has finally upped the ante in pushing for a
legislation which will make it mandatory to scrutinize the sources of funds
of each and every NGO operating in the country." Sujay Gupta has not only
acquired the dubious distinction of being an intellectual contortionist, he
is now also guilty of being intellectually dishonest - which is even worse.
Illogical arguments and false accusations made without evidence can be
sometimes attributed to ignorance or even to over-enthusiasm; but the
refusal to acknowledge facts which are placed before him, tantamounts to a
perversity of intention, which is simply unforgivable.
When one enters into a public debate on sensitive issues - such
as falsely accusing NGOs of being conduits for terrorist activities - one
has to be sure of one's facts; and more importantly, one has to have clean
motives. Sujay Gupta has clearly demonstrated that he has neither. It is
obvious to the "real" readers (and all the "real" citizens of Goa) that
Sujay Gupta has launched upon a Quixotic crusade to tarnish the good
reputation of some NGOs. In this process, he has only succeeded in
projecting himself as being a pathological case of one who burns down an
entire house just in order to kill a cockroach. Sujay Gupta needs to grow
up - in more senses than one.
Averthanus
