A Vikram Samvad (Hindu New year) procession in Bhagalpur district in Bihar was attacked with guns and stones, leading to a communal clash breaking out on Saturday.

As per a Zee News report –

“A clash broke out on Saturday between two groups in Bhagalpur in Bihar allegedly over a Vikram Samvat procession with songs and slogans. Several people, including six policemen and 12 others, suffered injuries during the clashes.

Following the clashes that reportedly went on for over five hours, there’s heavy police deployment in the area while the internet services have been snapped. According to sources, additional forces have also been called in from Munger. The areas most disturbed are Nathnagar and Mavalkhas.

The clashes erupted when a group of people reportedly objected to loud music during the procession and halt at Medninagar crossing. This led to a heated argument followed by violent clashes. The two groups even resorted to stone pelting at each other.

While several shops got damaged, a motorbike was also set on fire. Reports said that there were as many as 50 rounds of fire from both sides during the clashes. Three people who suffered serious injuries are undergoing treatment at Mayaganj hospital near Bhagalpur.”

Media Spin

The Zee News report, which is based on PTI inputs, goes on to add that the procession was taken out by BJP, RSS and Bajrang Dal workers – a fact picked up and amplified by almost all English-language outlets – to create an impression that it was the Sangh parivar bodies that ‘stirred up the trouble’.

Note – this attack on the new year procession has been widely reported in MSM precisely because of the involvement of BJP & RSS workers in it. It is similar to how the attack on the republic day tiranga rally in Kasganj, which led to death of Chandan Gupta, was reported – the fact that VHP & ABVP activists participated in the rally was stressed upon, with the clear subtext to readers that these organisations went ‘looking out for trouble’ and ‘instigating’ locals in Muslim-dominated areas.

Now, a few days back, another Hindu religious procession was attacked in a pre-planned manner by an Islamist mob in Barabanki, UP (close to the state capital Lucknow). However, apart from local Hindi news media, hardly any MSM outlet reported the news. Here is what a Google search throws up –

Compare this measly number of search results, with what we get for this attack on a New Years procession in Bihar –

For a naive reader, who consumes liberal media, it is easy to believe this subtle propaganda that Sangh bodies are the root cause of all communal conflict in the country. The strategy is simple –

1.) Just ignore all incidents where ordinary Hindus are attacked by Islamist elements. If the incident is impossible to ignore, just present it as a localised issue, and appeal political parties (read BJP) to not ‘communalise the issue.’

2.) If any rally/procession taken out by Sangh activists gets attacked, pin the blame on Sangh for being ‘trouble-makers’, and for dividing & polarizing society

3.) If an ordinary Muslim if attacked by any Hindu over a personal conflict, try as hard as you can to pin the blame on an organized Hindu group (gau rakshaks etc) – and even if there is no direct link to RSS, blame the ‘mahaul’ (atmosphere) created by RSS/BJP or the larger ‘saffron parivar’ for the crime. This is how the strategy played out in the Dadri case –

The above strategy ensures that any crime by Muslims is treated as just a law & order issue, unrelated to any organized group or ideology, but a crime by a Hindu against a minority person is directly attributable to RSS/saffron parivar’s ‘divisive’ ideology.

What this liberal media strategy effectively does is give a free pass to the Islamist network working through thousands of mosques & madrasas across the length & breadth of the country, which is fronted by hard-core communal organizations like Jamaat-e-Islami, Jamaat-e-ulema-Hind, Dar-ul-uloom Deoband, Raza Academy, Deendar Anjuman, Popular Front of India, Tamil Nadu Thowheed Jamath (TNTJ) etc. and the more ‘moderate’ political groupings like  Welfare Party of India, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) etc. These organizations are never put in the dock for spreading the Islamist doctrine of kafirs (non-Muslims) being inferior beings who are destined for hell. Their links with secular institutions and parties, leftist NGOs and evangelical missionaries (as long as missionaries keep far away from Muslim-dominated areas) further gives them the cover to operate under the radar.

And such is the slow choke applied by the Nehruvian establishment that hardly any organized Hindu institution other than Sangh survives today – Hindu Mahasabha is a pale imitation of its former self, Shiv Sena has withered away after death of Balasaheb, large Hindu temples and maths are fighting just to survive from the clutches of secular State, and most new-age gurus are wary of straying too far from secular boundaries of ‘acceptable discourse’.

Such is the cultural amnesia that Hindus suffer after centuries of colonial oppression that many don’t even know what traditions like Vikram Samvat (Hindu new Year) or Shiv Baraat mean. The Hindus who still carry that cultural memory, are usually associated with Sangh parivar in some form or other as they realize its importance as the last-standing influential socio-political organization receptive to Hindu concerns – ergo, more often than not, rallies / procession taken out for celebrating Hindu icons & events will involve RSS activists. But for our liberals, any attack on RSS-wallahs (or Sanghis, chaddis as they are pejoratively called) is kosher, because after all – ‘they asked for it’.

The hard truth is that Hindus today are standing on the razor’s edge, and contrary to the aggressive left-liberal propaganda there is no danger of any fascist Hindu Rashtra in the works. But there is a very real threat to a scattered Hindu polity (fractured along various lines – caste, region, language, urban-rural, ideology) which is under assault and is being slowly cleansed from or converted right across the country.

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