Hindus are used to attacks on their religious festivals. It happened in the past during Islamic rule, it is still happening now despite partition and formation of two separate Muslim countries. During Aurangzeb’s rule, Hindus were not permitted to celebrate any festivals. Before partition, Muslims stone-pelted Hindu processions. Recent violence in Karauli, Rajasthan during Hindu New Year and subsequent attacks on Ramanavami processions in six states show a pre-planned, pre-meditated, well-funded campaign to instill fear and intimidate Hindus from celebrating their festivals in their own country.
Hindus were pelted with stones, and bricks, Hindu homes were burned to the ground, their businesses were left in ashes, calls to rape Hindu women were made, a 16-year-old boy, Shivam Shukla is battlling for his life while 60-year-old Kanaiyalal Rana lost his life in the violence.
While television news channels, newspapers, and news portals are all tracking, exposing, unearthing links to foreign hands, foreign funds, and links to terrorist groups like the Popular Front of India (PFI) are still emerging. State police in violence-hit states are hinting at a pre-planned conspiracy and sleeper cells. Many maulvis who instigated rioters have been arrested. Investigations are ongoing. With Hindus suffering increasing attacks on their festivals, Islamists, both Bharatiya and International from the likes of Rana Ayyub, Arfa Khanum, Meer Faisal, Zafar ul Islam to Khaled Beydoun, C J Werleman, to Suchitra Vijayan have made the anti-Hindu violence to ‘anti-Muslim’.
Twitter trends with hashtags #IndianMuslimsUnderAttack, #IndiaMuslimGenocide, #IndianMuslimGenocideAlert saw thousands of tweets posted calling for international sanctions against Bharat and Hindus. Many even joined in calling for an Islamic caliphate in Bharat. Party of Islamic Renewal, a UK based, Saudi Arabia influenced party openly called on Indian Muslims to wage jihad against ‘fascist collaborators’ and munafiq kafirs. Extending support to PFI, the party called BJP/RSS ‘Hindutva-Brahmin supremacists’.
The liberal-secular-Islamist cabal in Bharat blamed Hindus for provocation by entering ‘Muslim areas’. One Ex- Hindustan Times went a step further calling Hindus a ‘virus’. Opportunist, racist, bigoted politicians were quick to condemn ‘anti-Muslim violence’ and the ‘deteriorating human rights of Muslims‘ in Bharat. American based Jamaati-i-Islami fronts like Indian American Muslim Council, ultra-radical leftist groups like Hindus for Human Rights, Australia based The Humanism Project, academic professors, like Khaled Beydoun, Audrey Truschke, journalists like Alishan Jafri, Ahmed Kasim, Bollywood scriptwriters Hussain Haidry all came out in support of Islamists supporting an anti-Hindu Twitter storm.
Prominent Islamist news portals like Muslim Mirror, Maktoob Media, The Siasat Daily, Milli Gazette and TwoCircles.Net quickly called it ‘anti-Muslim, Islamophobic’ violence. For example, Maktoob Media’s Meer Faisal writing on Karauli violence says as Hindus were passing through to ‘Muslim area’ ‘provocative’ songs were played, while Shaheen Abdulla said Khargone violence was ‘large-scale anti-Muslim violence’. Then they say Muslim businesses were vandalised, implying Hindus perpetrated the entire violence.
Muslim Mirror in one report laments that only Muslims were caught as the state decided to “blame Muslims arguing that riots erupted after [Hindu] rally was attacked”. While a second Muslim Mirror article reported that only Muslim homes were demolished by the state after “Hindutva goons attacked and demolished homes, shops and other religious properties of Muslims in the area”.
Muhammed Rafi writing for TwoCircles.net called the violence “Anti-muslim hate marks Navratri” and further states that on April 10 and 11 “rabble-rousing Hindutva mobs intruded into Muslim localities, attacking and setting Muslim homes on fire”. The Siasat Daily blamed ‘Hindutva goons’ who ‘forced a Muslim family to chant Jai Shri Ram and gave rape threats to their sister’.
Syed Ali Mujtaba writing for Milli Gazette pins the blame entirely on Hindus. While he refuses to say who started the stone-pelting despite plenty of evidence, Hindus are accused of ‘entering’ Muslim-dominated areas and playing ‘provocative’ music. In the same news portal, Talha Rashid writes that since BJP was re-elected in UP, only one community has been ‘relentlessly’ targeted. There is no mention of hate speeches and genocidal calls by Maulvis and Imams against Hindus. In both the articles, truth has been white-washed, again, and Hindus have been blamed, again.
All the articles acknowledge the death of one person but neither the name nor the identity of the person was shared, implying the victim was Muslim. In truth, the victim was a Hindu, Kanaiyalal Rana. The selective, skewed, one-sided reporting is disingenuous, outright lying, victim blaming and narrative building to shield perpetrators. The aim is to make Muslims appear oppressed in Bharat, oppressed by Hindus.
This information warfare should not come as a surprise. Pakistan has been using information warfare very effectively against Bharat on the Kashmir issue. Outright lying, twisting facts, selective quoting of facts, and discarding inconvenient truths have been how anti-Bharat international perception of Kashmir has been built.
More recently, the Islamic State outfit (ISIS) has called its followers, supporters and sympathisers to give more emphasis on media warfare. With a friendly search engine like Google or Duck Duck Go and biased mainstream media, violence against Hindus can be buried easily and narrative-based news is given preference.
The target for information warfare is obvious – Hindus and Hindu Dharma (aka Hinduism). With 24% of the population, Islamists calling for a ‘Muslim-dominated’ area led to the 21st century’s bloodiest partition with around 20 lakh people losing their lives and millions losing their homes, businesses and family history, in the creation of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (which later split into two, forming another Islamic nation Bangladesh).
The provocation argument falls flat. There are numerous examples of Muslims playing provocative songs in front of temples while waving swords calling for ‘Ali to come kill kafirs’. This is a dangerous trend Hindus cannot afford to ignore. Today Muslims are around 15-18% of the population. Many areas are effectively no-go zones where even police fears to enter, exoduses are happening in city localities and villages dominated by Muslims, anti-Hindu pogroms, grooming/love jihad, land jihad, attacks on temples, UPSC jihad (infiltration of radicals in bureaucracy & police), and other attacks on peaceful Hindus living in their only remaining homeland have been steadily rising.
Zafar ul Islam, former Chairman Delhi Minority Commission, says Hindu festivals are now associated with violence against Muslims. It was the same Zafar ul Islam who threatened Hindus with invasion by Muslim countries after the anti-Hindu pogrom in Delhi 2020. Shivansh Saxena of Maktoob Media says Hindus festivals have become ‘chariot of the genocide of Indian Muslims‘, while Muslim Mirror fear-mongers that the Hanuman Jayanti celebration might lead to violence against Muslims.
What is the Hindu response? Hindus need to step back and assess their priorities. An MBA degree, a big house, and multiple cars are not of any use when mobs of 100s of jihadis attack your home. Learn self-defense, organise local neighbourhood groups, be in touch with local Bajrang Dal, VHP activists, legally arm yourselves for self-defense, and install cameras. More importantly, teach your children Dharma. However small, help other Hindus in need and to collectively raise our voices to expose the Islamic onslaught on Bharat and Hindus.
-By Stop Hindu Hate Advocacy Network (SHHAN)
