The Venomous Pen of Gardiner Harris

But those who are too busy to read all this are directed to the bilious poison spewed by the ultra-racist Gardiner Harris to get a flavor of the NYT’s “coverage” of India. Remember that in the seventh largest country in the world inhabited by 125 crore people who are the inheritors of a profound civilization that has resurged with remarkable resilience on countless occasions, all that Gardiner Harris can detect are pollution, filth, squalor, “Hindu militancy,” and open defecation.

And how does he “prove” his doomsday case of pollution? By citing the example of the Maoist Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal who “had to leave the city for 10 days in March to cure a chronic cough.” Of course, Harris conveniently omits the fact that Kejriwal is an asthma patient. Perhaps the most repulsive piece from the venomous pen of Gardiner Harris is his insinuation that India’s open defecation problem is due to the rules laid down in “ancient Hindu texts.” And which city does he chose as the representative of this problem? Kashi, the most sacred city of Sanatana Dharma. It appears that Gardiner Harris watches racist Hollywood movies like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Slumdog Millionaire on loop after snorting a kilogram of cocaine and then writes his India pieces. Even in such non-political pieces, he somehow manages to find a link to PM Narendra Modi as the source of the problems. Harris’s pieces were deservedly thrashed by multiple people multiple times. It appears that the top honchos at NYT finally woke up and banished him to some other desk.