Delhi Riots: Callous media stoking communal tensions

The following article was written for MyInd Makers. Pasting it here for reference:

Director of Editorial Strategy (whatever that means!) of The Hindu, Dr. Malini Parthasarathy tweeted on evening of February 25th telling us that “Muslim citizens are being literally bludgeoned” in the Delhi riots.

Bludgeoned = “beat (someone) repeatedly with a bludgeon or other heavy object”. Now, that’s a very strong statement to make so you would assume that she has staggering proof available for her claim. She provides zero proof for her assertion. Zero proof. At the time of writing this piece, 20 deaths and 150 injuries have been reported. All Malini had to do was publish a list of the people and let the people of India take call who was being bludgeoned and who was bludgeoning! She hasn’t done that job yet.

Since she is Director of Editorial Strategy, it is also safe to assume that she either wrote today’s editorial – A test of Governance - or whole heartedly approved it. We are told that the “The police must clamp down on the communal violence in Delhi”. Oh, where would we be without such pearls of wisdom! But that is aside the point. The same editorial also tells us that “There was arson and violence on December 16, in areas around the Jamia Milia Islamia, to which the police responded by indiscriminately unleashing violence on students inside the university”.

Now, come on! When the police did “clamp down” on the rioters in December, you are calling their action as “indiscriminately unleashing violence”. And in your same editorial, you want to police to “clamp down” on violence exactly how? Dr. Malini is best placed to solve this confusion so that Delhi police can wake up and act according to how the Director of Editorial Strategy wishes them to do so!

In the same editorial, we are also told that “The Delhi police did nothing when a gunman opened fire at anti-CAA protesters on January 30.” Did nothing, dear The Hindu? The man was arrested on the same day and investigation is ongoing. Infact your own newspaper told us how he was arrested – “The policemen then surrounded the assailant, bundled him into a police vehicle and took him to the Greater Kailash-I police station, where senior officers are believed to have interrogated him” What more do you want the police to do? Kill him? Why can’t you be more explicit instead of blatantly lying in your editorials? Is this how you disseminate information to your readers?

The new wave of Delhi riots began on the day Donald Trump visited India. Journalists were very quick to jump to blame BJP leader Kapil Mishra for this. What did Kapil Mishra do? He apparently gave a speech that said if the police don’t act in removing the Shaheen Bagh road blockers, they will take matters into their own hands after Donald Trump leaves. If our journalists want us to so strongly believe Kapil Mishra then shouldn’t we also believe that he genuinely meant of riots after Trump left? And since the violence began when Trump was here, this can’t be Kapil Mishra’s brainchild right?

And then we had the entire gamut showing us fake videos about vandalization of mosques. Note how not a single mainstream media has told us how the riots even began. The biggest vulture of them all – Rajdeep Sardesai – immediately bought in 2002 and an excerpt from one of his books about the 2002 violence. What a horrible way to market one’s book at such a juncture really! The Hindu’s National Editor Suhasini Haidar tells us that Army was not called in during the 2002 riots. That blatant lie has been shredded to pieces at many forums and yet they persist.

The glee with which they have been spreading fake news (look at the image below telling us that this is a Hindu mob!) is unparalleled.

When the first phase of violence was unleashed in December, these same media folks had serious issues as to how the police handled the riots. Not a single one these “critics” have not made a single useful suggestion as to how the police could have handled violent rioters going on a rampage on the streets. It is simply beyond belief how newspapers like The Hindu are so easily lying in today’s day and age of information availability and dissemination. It is also amusing how they are preaching to the police as to what to do and are agitated when police actually do what is suggested.