Recently heard the podcast by @sikhyaent on Saravana Bhavan founder P Rajagopal, who stalked the young daughter of an employee & had her husband killed. Observations: the podcast's title ('Dosa King') glorifies PR, the script trivialises his crime, calling it a mere "scandal"

It refers to the whole stalking and murder episode as something that led to Rajagopal's "fall" - i.e a story of crime against a woman is turned into a story about the impact of the said crime on its perpetrator, not its victim.
It refers to the stalking victim as a fit antagonist for the protagonist Rajagopal, as Rajagopal's nemesis. But the point is, she set out to be neither. She didn't make him part of her life story. He forcibly, violently disrupted her life.
The podcast ends by telling us how Rajagopal's employees and friends and many others abuse the woman he stalked, for pursuing the case of her husband's murder and bringing Rajagopal to justice. It also tells us that some admire her. And it "asks us to decide" where we stand
I find it disturbing that a story of a powerful man feeling entitled to ruin a woman's life & trying to get away with murder, is turned into a story of HIS "rise, popularity, and fall".
This @sikhyaent podcast is an instance of how "perpetrators are sensationalised and celebrated" in True Crime stories - as @VeraGrayF observes in this piece https://t.co/pUXCiBjFVG
To put this in context: we don't need a book on the "Rise and Fall of Harvey Weinstein". We already have books on his victim-survivors and how THEY stood up for justice, and what it cost THEM.
Should a True Crime podcast see gender-based violence just as a "story" with all the "masala" elements? Should it set out to be "neutral", asking listeners to "decide" if they are in the victim blaming camp or not?
Saravana Bhavan outlets still have folders celebrating Rajagopals. Should a True Crime podcast on Rajagopal use a title - "Dosa King" - that glorifies him, and does not highlight his crimes? Why does the podcast never call Rajagopal's creepy pursuit of Jyothi, 'stalking'?
The story of a rich, powerful old man creepily fixating on and stalking an employee's daughter & getting her husband killed should not be a mere "sensational story" that we consume as entertainment. @vasanthihari https://t.co/IplZfcDyuZ
Tell stories of gender-based crimes from the point of view of their victims, survivors - do not make these the story of how a woman led to the "fall" of a "great man". Woman victims do not set out to "bring great men down". It is their own crimes that bring such men down.
. @sikhyaent @vasanthihari Title, script's avoidance of the use of the term "stalking", lip-smacking tone of narration - it's difficult to escape the conclusion that the podcast wants us to "relish" the "sensational" backstory of Rajagopal as we "relish" Saravana Bhavan dosas.

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Patriotism is an interesting concept in that it’s excepted to mean something positive to all of us and certainly seen as a morally marketable trait that can fit into any definition you want for it.+


Tolstoy, found it both stupid and immoral. It is stupid because every patriot holds his own country to be the best, which obviously negates all other countries.+

It is immoral because it enjoins us to promote our country’s interests at the expense of all other countries, employing any means, including war. It is thus at odds with the most basic rule of morality, which tells us not to do to others what we would not want them to do to us+

My sincere belief is that patriotism of a personal nature, which does not impede on personal and physical liberties of any other, is not only welcome but perhaps somewhat needed.

But isn’t adherence to a more humane code of life much better than nationalistic patriotism?+

Göring said, “people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”+

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