Discrimination and Racism Against Hindus in the Western Media and Universities
Did you know that in the past 70 years, the population of Hindus in Bangladesh has drastically reduced from 28 to 8.9%? There has been a perpetual stream of low-grade violence against Hindus and other religions in the country leading to ethnic cleansing. This has been largely ignored by the western media. Why does the mainstream western media, self-proclaimed champions of the forgotten, give such little attention to the violence and forced conversion of Hindus and other minorities in Bangladesh?
A significant decline in the Hindu and Sikh population has also happened in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Every year, a few thousand Hindu and Sikh girls are forcefully abducted, converted and married to their abductors in Pakistan. The attack on Nankana Sahib Gurudwara (Sikh Temple) in Pakistan on January 3rd, 2020 is a glaring example.
The Western media rarely talks about the decline of the Hindu population from 10% in 1947 to well under 1% in terrorism riddled Kashmiri districts after the final genocide and exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in January 1990. An enormous decline in Hindu population and more widespread perpetual violence against Hindus in Bangladesh, Pakistan and certain regions of India like Kashmir, Nagaland, West Bengal and Mizoram receives far less coverage than sporadic incidents of violence against others in the remaining India.
All of this doesn’t scrape the tip of the iceberg. Hindus have faced unparalleled genocide and ethnic elimination during many centuries of slavery under Mughal and British rule. The western media is still tripped up on the colonial and racist mindset and refrains from acknowledging, and adequately publishing the stories with facts and balanced perspectives when it comes to the plight of the Hindus. The undercover influence of petrodollars, missionary money and misconceptions about Hinduism has also lured many a journalist to propagate distorted narratives and peddle divisive propaganda about the suffering of minority Hindu populace in these regions.
The hypocrisy of it all does not end at minority Hindu suffering though. Hindus have to face blatantly disparaging insults on social and other media channels regularly, even in India, where they are the majority. Take for example, this noxious tweet by Furkan khan, a producer from the US National Public radio (NPR), supposedly a beacon of “fair and fact-driven” journalism:
In today’s day and age of standing up against the slightest of cultural racism (especially on social media), can this happen against any other religious group by a senior producer of a “liberal” news channel? What do you think about the fairness of podcasts and news stories about Hindus from this producer? Most people would agree that a deep hatred and bias would have tainted her work. She had to resign from the NPR and delete this tweet; unfortunately, this only happened after a backlash. However, NPR should have investigated and removed the anti-Hindu bias from their stories and podcasts, which they didn’t do. A search of the podcasts and new stories about Hinduism on the NPR confirm this bias against Hindus and propagates a consistently misleading one-sided narrative.
Another case in point comes from the vicious lies and vilification of Hindu Gods by Audrey Truschke, a controversial faculty member from Rutgers University. Lord Rama is one of the most revered Gods of Hindus and she has indulged in slander (calling lord Rama as “Misogynist Pig and Uncouth”) about him in her tweets. The scholar whom she cites has openly stated that he finds her tweets shocking.
Any professor would have been reprimanded if they had spoken such things about the major deities from other religions. However, for doing the same against the Hindu belief system, not only is she not reprimanded/advised against doing so but is invited by many universities. Truschke has indulged in glorifying Aurangzeb, a Mughal emperor who indulged in the mass forced conversion and genocide of Hindus. Here’s a quick history lesson on the deeds of the “great” Aurangzeb — Guru Tegh Bahadur Singh, the ninth Sikh Guru, sacrificed his life to protect Hindus and Sikhs from forced conversion mandated by Aurangzeb and gave them strength to face persecution. Hindus approached him to seek help in the year 1675 after Aurangzeb had given the ultimatum to Hindus and Sikhs to convert to Islam or face death. Guru Tegh Bahadur proclaimed that Hindus will convert if Aurangzeb is able to convert him. Guru Tegh Bahadur endured inhumane torture till death on November 24th, 1675 but didn’t convert. His supreme sacrifice gave strength to millions of Hindus and Sikhs to face atrocities without giving up their religion and slowed down the wave of forced conversion.
The glorification of Hitler for his crimes against a particular set of people is a reprehensible crime and for good reason, but western media and academia has hardly ever hesitated from glorifying kings such as Aurangzeb who committed repeated genocide of Hindus. This blatant hypocrisy and complete indifference to the sufferings of Hindus has become an unacceptable norm among both western academia and journalism circles.
What kind of person would glorify Aurangzeb? Only the kind who is actively against cultural and religious diversity and has a covert/overt objective of converting what is left of the Hindu people to Christianity or another one of the proselytizing religions. People like Truschke will and continue to do so with an obnoxious sense of colonial and bigoted superiority. Why doesn’t the Western media or academia force Audrey Truschke to disclose her flagrant conflict of interests in spewing anti-Hindu venom, specifically that her family members are missionaries and founders of a proselytizing Christian organization “Bliss India” whose moto is to win India for Christ.
There are many other examples where deliberate misinformation about Hindu traditions and festivals like Holi are being openly propagated in the universities. The media rarely spreads factual information about Hinduism or calls out the bigoted people who denigrate Hindu Gods and Goddesses, festivals and various religious symbols like the Swastika (originally the symbol of peace, health and prosperity, not that of any Nazi related sentiment).
All acts of violence are reprehensible and must be vehemently condemned. The news should be objective and should cover the full story. However, violence against Hindus is completely brushed under the carpet and cherry-picked incidents of violence against others is sensationalized 24/7. Most people have not heard about the NSCN terrorist organization in Nagaland state of India or ethnic cleansing of Reang (Brus) tribe (native Hindu tribes of Mizoram state in India), or more than seventy murders of Hindu political activists in West Bengal despite resulting from a larger scale of violence and resulting in a larger number of deaths than other covered events. Why? Because the victims are Hindus and perpetrators from certain proselytizing religions. When the Shaheen Bagh related riots broke out in New Delhi this year, there was damage done and caused to by both communities and yet every major media outlet published stories painting Hindus as some kind of hatred-driven violent perpetrators while white-washing or straight up ignoring all the death, injury and tragedy caused due to the communal Islamic elements. They totally ignored multiple episodes of unilateral violence against Hindus by anti CAA mobs all over India in the preceeding three months.
The Western media conveniently ignored and watered down the reprehensible role of Tablighi Jamaat, a large Muslim organization in spreading the corona virus in India by defying the Federal lockdown orders despite pleas from the government and senior police officers leading to explosion of COVID-19 cases in India. There are media reports and now deleted YouTube videos in which the group’s leader Maulana Saad told followers to defy the lockdown and social distancing guidelines imposed by the government to fight COVID pandemic. The Western media not only whitewashed the 15 incidents of violence against the health care professions and police ranging from spitting, lewd behavior, assault, stone pelting and firing by some Muslims and some missionaries of Tablighi Jamaat during the COVID pandemic, but also accused India for its high-handedness in implementing quarantine, lock down and screening.
The threats to media outlets and journalists for criticizing Tablighi Jamaat and the murder of a Hindu man for criticizing Tablighi Jamaat of its illegal congregation and non-cooperation with health care workers didn’t enrage the western media. The doubling time of COVID cases has worsened from 7.4 days to 4.1 days and 65% of new cases were related to Tablighi Jamaat’s congregation according to a report in Times of India on April 3, 2020. None of these facts were picked up, let alone spoken against by the shining symbol of democracy and sympathy that is the mainstream western media.
Millions of poor people (both Hindus and Muslims) are suffering because of loss of jobs and increased struggle to feed their family due to the lockdown to fight the COVID pandemic. Even the poorest of the poor are helping in the fight against COVID. Unfortunately, efforts to control the pandemic have been compromised, duration of expected suffering of the poor has been prolonged, and the risk of disease and death elevated predominantly due to the non-cooperation by many Tablighi Jamaat members. The western media is accusing Hindus of Islamophobia, while ignoring the fact that the despicable actions of a few thousand Tablighi Jamaat members have increased the chances of infection to millions of innocent people — both Hindus and Muslims.
There is an enormous difference in the media coverage and the projected narratives depending on the religion of the victim and the perpetrator.
The population of Muslims in India has increased from 9 to 15 percent but the population of Hindus in Bangladesh has decreased from 28% to 8.9%.
What does it tell you about Hindus, India and neighboring Islamic countries? Nobody is perfect. Who is more tolerant? What narrative do you see in the media? We must vehemently condemn and report ALL acts of violence equally.
Why do we see so much cherry picking and selectivity in the Western media?
Shouldn’t the Western media introspect to see the racism and discrimination in their agenda driven reporting about India and Hindus? Their biased reporting makes me ponder things like, “Are Hindus not equal human beings?”, “Why don’t they give equality and justice to Hindus in media coverage?” and “Is there not a sliver of propriety or sense of truly fair reportage left in the self-proclaimed fourth estate of Western democracy?”.
I leave these questions feeling dejected, but not defeated and something tells me the same rings true at different levels for the more than Billion plus Hindus in the world.
