It requires great skill and malevolence to turn a simple story of two Dalit girls being raped and killed by Muslim youth into a tale of oppressive Brahminical system destroying the secular fabric of the Indian society. Even while Indians have moved away from some of the distortions of its past the Western media time and again harps on the same narrative of Brahminism, caste discrimination, Hindu fascism and majoritarianism.
The point of reference here is the gruesome rape and murder that took place in Lakhimpur Kheri, Uttar Pradesh. The accused here were Suhail, Junaid, Hafizul Rehman, Karimuddin, Arif & Chottu. Chottu (Gautam), the only Hindu in the group, was only responsible for introducing the two sisters to the gang and was not involved in the activities of the gang.
The global left ecosystem media houses such as The Guardian, BBC, The Washington Post and Reuters have played a mischievous game presenting this news to its audience. Here’s how they’ve reported an incident that rocked the nation.
Reuters one of the largest news agencies in the world present in 200 locations worldwide spends barely 200 words on this issue. It starts like this “Police in northern India have arrested six people in connection with the alleged rape and murder of two girls from a lower-caste community who were found hanging from a tree, local officials said on Thursday.”
“Six persons” instead of calling out the names Suhail, Junaid, Hafizul Rehman, Karimuddin, Arif & Chottu. The names of the accused were already out in public by the time they reported.
Then little further down the caste angle comes in “Violence against women, especially those from lower castes, is endemic in India, where several still follow an ancient caste system.
This was never about caste violence. It was a clear-cut case of love jihad. The intent here was to accentuate the perceived divisions in Indian Society and particularly in Hinduism.
The Guardian, British-based mass media company jumped on the caste bandwagon. It said “the lowest in India’s hierarchical and discriminatory Hindu caste system, which used to deem Dalits as untouchables”. The audience automatically is made to believe that the perpetrators were upper caste Hindus.
Subsequently it turns the entire incident political by writing another report on the dismal state of affairs in the UP and how it’s going to negatively impact the assembly elections.
Even two days after the names of the accused were put out BBC chose not to name them. In successive reports they have highlighted the plight of lower caste in India. It writes “sexual violence faced by India’s 80 million Dalit women, a community that is at the bottom of India’s deeply discriminatory caste hierarchy”. What’s even worse it writes that Police report says the girls were in love with two of the accused.
It blames the police under the leadership of Yogi Adityanath for not doing enough. “In the past, authorities in several parts of the country have been accused of not acting fast enough in cases of crimes against Dalits.”
It also adds that the apathy of the police has raised protests and not the fact the outrage was all about the rising number of girls falling prey to rampant love jihad incidents.
Washington Post, a company controlled by Amazon boss Jeff Bezos spend much of their valuable space on educating its audience on the on “India’s rigid caste hierarchy” and the plight of the “untouchables” rather than on the case itself.
And it does not miss the opportunity to bring up the fact that UP is a BJP government helmed by Narendra Modi. The article twists the facts by stating that there was outrage against the state government whereas the protests and the outrage was actually towards the accused here and increasing cases of love jihad.
Lastly it adds “Reports of rape are hauntingly familiar in India.” This is again a misrepresentation of facts as rapes per million is much higher in US than in India. A woman in America is raped every 6.2 minutes based on 2011 reports.
In all these reports there are many commonalities. Firstly they all omit the names of the accused; secondly they turn the incident into a caste based violence, therefore fool the readers into believing that the accused were upper caste brahmins; lastly they bring in politics into the matter as the state government here is a BJP ruled one.
Our own agencies that follow the western left ecosystem, namely NDTV, News laundry have again chosen to make this a Dalit issue rather than Hindu-Muslim issue. Gone are those days when they ruled the roost. Their bluff is easily being called out.
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