Media’s selective outrage is disrupting communal harmony and fuelling distrust

 National capital has witnessed another gruesome murder. 25-year old Rinku Sharma was brutally stabbed. The images of a knife sticking out of his back, splashed across social media has explicitly exposed the barbarity of the crime. The grim ordeal of the youth and the brutality which has no parallels to the regular events of crime transcended the borders of regular scuffles.

The imprints of savagery pertaining to the incident imbued a sense of threat to life to the people living in the area. People in the immediate neighbourhood a visibly shaken. An accompanying video in the aftermath of the incident making rounds in the social media has reinforced the same.

Six years ago, when window panes of a church were broken by miscreants in the capital, liberal elite raised alarm. Joining the chorus, legacy media alluded that lives of minorities are under danger. Though investigations revealed that it was clear case of burglary, the panic-mongering has already spread like a wild fire. International media agencies too joined the band wagon and lashed out the government for seeding an environment of fear and insecurity in the country.

Back to the current incident and its roots, Rinku worked as a lab technician in Balaji Hospitals and took active part in donation collection drive for Ayodhya Ram Mandir. Divulging the sequence of events to the media, the family admitted that hostilities surfaced after they organised an event commemorating Ram Mandir Bhoomi Pujan at their home few months ago. Ever since, Rinku and his family were subjected to harassment by the Muslim neighbours.

Even as police ruled out communal intent to the incident, distressed, Rinku’s family insisted that the Muslim mob targeted Rinku for his association with the Ram Mandir drive. They dismissed the claims of a birthday party brawl and business rivalry snow-balling into this stabbing incident. They stated that they don’t own any business.

With the reports of incident becoming viral, the legacy media as usual give their regular spin to the even and tried desperately to undermine the brutality of the event. In an attempt to push it under carpet, they termed it as case of stabbing. In reality, a Muslim mob of 25-30 people barged into the house of the victim, dragged him out his house, pinned Rinku to ground and plunged the knife into his back. The mob included two women, stated a latest report.

A flare up of tempers couldn’t have led to a chilling cold-blooded murder that reminded of Jihadi stabbings in the West. The Hindu community in the area is incensed. Tensions have been brewing for sometime and the scuffle on birthday party as indicated in the Police report could have been the trigger.

But the Police has rejected the claims of the family and VHP. It dismissed the possibility of communal angle. So unlike in the recent case of Navneet Singh, where they discredited the Police investigation, the media immediately lapped up Police version. Media ruled that the attack is not a communal crime.  

Media’s default position of rejecting communal angle when the victim is Hindu and perpetrator is Muslim has become a regular affair now. Irrespective of facts, Indian legacy media has begun summarily postulating Hindu’s preponderance towards hate crime against Muslims. Accordingly, all the crimes that fall in this ambit are automatically escalated.

With time, media’s casual way of downplaying some incidents and amplifying others has now become more predictable. The proclivity of media to grade and classify violent events based on victim’s faith has now become a common place. Selective vilification of Hindu community is an offshoot of this prejudiced bias relentlessly propagated by the media and the liberal ecosystem. Resultantly, Muslim victimhood and Hindu demonisation have become hallmarks of secular India.

The dangerous precedent set by the media is now fuelling a diabolical narrative of majority Hindu harbouring hatred towards the minority Muslims and that the Hindus are pre-disposed to step up minor issues into dangerous communal riots.

The decibel level of outrage pertaining to any violent incident by the so- called saviours of human rights varies from deafening silence to international indignation accompanied by the exhortations of secularism is in peril depending on the faith of victim. No longer is a crime outrightly called out for its brutality. Harsh but true, this is the reality of the liberal media. Welcome to the land of Santana Dharma where Sanatanis are disparaged. 

To drive home this message, legacy media accentuates the crimes where Muslims are victims. The phenomenon of selective outrage and loud clamour for international propaganda support has been the cornerstone of the Delhi riots wherein even vested interest group pitched in eventually to peddle a narrative. Fortunately, Delhi police investigation busted the plot and stymied the sinister agenda of the entire ecosystem.

Throughout the course of the India’s history, it has sheltered people of different faiths who sought refuge and emerged as exemplar of a pluralistic society and revelled in the glory of its syncretic culture. It shone as a beacon of secularism in true sense. India has respected all faiths without any bias, ill-will or malice. But contrary to the value-system of the land, detestable motives are being imputed to the intent of the dominant Hindu majority, the Sanatanis, who are open-minded, accommodative and has been truly liberal in every sense.

Simply put, unlike the nations which sparred at the drop of the hat and invaded foreign lands to forcibly impose their faith, India “eschewed certitude and embraced scepticism” and disallowed the erosion of civilisational strength to be lost in the narrow religious wars. No wonder, while World was bogged down brutal religious wars, India turned into fountain head of innovations, scientific discoveries where art prospered and temples as seat of learning thrived. The land of Sanatana Dharma thus flourished for ages.

Reducing such a legacy and imputing motives to the culture of the land, the liberal media has been trying to sow seeds of disharmony. Unfortunately, the western educated, deracinated Indians fed with distorted history are now sucking up to this malicious agenda perpetuated by the liberal media. But the double standards of liberal media is not lost on the common man who is now defiantly hitting the streets for justice.

By portraying Muslims as the victims and Hindus as perennial aggressors, the media is not only defaming the Hindus but the country as a whole. In the process it is mainstreaming the violence of Muslims.

The deafening silence of liberal ecosystem now and in over 150 cases in the last two years where Muslim mobs wreaked havoc on Hindus has exposed their hypocrisy. People are now calling the bluff of the judgemental posturing of this so-called independent media

The seemingly inexorable vilification and demonisation of Hindus and has now reached an insane level. Common man is now vexed up with this ruthless selective crucification of one community. Instead of breathing life into democracy with unbiased reporting of facts, media has donned the role of a propagandist to peddle a narrative.

By sanitizing, shielding and downplaying the dangerous intent of one community and white-washing the communal angle of a crime, liberal media is now viciously misleading the people. By fuelling distrust and disrupting the communal harmony, media is nefariously fostering the agenda of vested groups.  

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