“One has to get over this madness of religious persecution. Hopefully things will change,” Mehta said.
Renowned music conductor Zubin Mehta has alleged that The Times of India removed just one line from an interview he recently gave to the newspaper – in which he said that he wishes Muslims in India are able to live in peace forever.
Mehta made this remark towards the end of free-wheeling conversation with Karan Thapar about growing up in Bombay. Thapar asked the conductor what he thinks of “the sort of country we’re becoming”, particularly in relation to the treatment of minorities, especially Muslims.
“Listen, I’ll tell you frankly,” Mehta replied. “I gave an interview to The Times of India over the phone from Los Angeles two weeks ago. A very good interview; and I read it, it was verbatim perfect. The last sentence I told the man, and I met him recently, and he admitted, they took out the last thing I said: ‘I hope my Muslim friends can live in peace forever in India.’ And that was not printed in The Times. It was cut off, and the writer couldn’t give me a reason why.”
“They don’t want to offend Mr Modi and the government,” Thapar responded.
“How would that offend anybody? …This morning I read that they were burning churches in Pakistan. One has to get over this madness of religious persecution. Hopefully things will change,” Mehta said.
Mehta then went on to speak about the situation in Israel, saying that he hopes the government there will change very soon. The current situation there, he said, “is unbearable”.
Mehta’s comment that he is referring to here did not appear in the print version of The Times of India. But when The Wire checked the online version on Monday (August 21) at 11 am, the interview contained that quote.
Responding to Mehta’s comment on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, The Times of India said that the interview had been “trimmed to fit the page” and “the line being referred to was towards the end of the interview and got left out in that process”. It was restored in the online version, the publication said, after Mehta spoke to the author about it.
The cached version of the interview, as originally posted online by the Times of India was 2500 words long. The updated version with the deleted part restored is 2533 words long.
Q: And in India?
A: Well, I speak to a lot of Indian friends, and I get my reports from them. I hope my Muslim friends in India will live in peace forever.
In fact, the 33 words cut by the newspaper come in the middle of the interview, not “towards the end”, and seem to be the only words cut “for reasons of space”.
TOI removes, then restores, Zubin Mehta’s quote on wanting peace for Indian Muslims
The quote did not appear in the print edition but made it to the online copy.
The Times of India “trimmed” an interview published in the newspaper with music conductor Zubin Mehta to remove his quote on wanting peace for Indian Muslims. The quote was later added to the online version of the interview.
In the interview published earlier this month, Mehta was asked for a “message” for India, to which he said: “Well, I speak to a lot of Indian friends, and I get my reports from them. I hope my Muslim friends in India will live in peace forever.”
The issue was first flagged by The Wire, which published an interview between Karan Thapar and Mehta.
During the interview, Mehta said: “I gave an interview to The Times of India over the phone from Los Angeles two weeks ago. A very good interview; and I read it, it was verbatim perfect. The last sentence I told the man, and I met him recently, and he admitted, they took out the last thing I said: ‘I hope my Muslim friends can live in peace forever in India.’ And that was not printed in The Times. It was cut off, and the writer couldn’t give me a reason why.”
The Times of India subsequently tweeted about it:
The Wire confirmed that the quote did not appear in the newspaper’s print edition. Archived versions of the online story also do not contain the quote.