In the first week of March, it seemed to be a free-for-all in attacking India in general and Hinduism in particular.
What had happened? Here is what I gleaned from news sources.
In an isolated area in the state Jharkhand, 300 km from its capital Ranchi, a 28-year-old Spanish/Brasilian woman and her 64-year-old Spanish husband had pitched their tent. They had travelled all over the world for some years and had come from Bangladesh on 2 motorbikes.
At 11 pm on Friday night, 1. March, a police patrol saw 2 foreigners by the side of the road. Due to the language barrier, the police couldn’t understand what they said.
The police took them to a community health centre 60 km away. ‘The Week’ mentions, that the two foreigners were in a position to ride on their own bikes to the health centre and were escorted by the police.
In the hospital, the woman told the doctor that she has been sexually assaulted by 7 or 8 men, who had attacked her husband, tied his hands and then, one after the other, raped her. The culprits also stole some of their belongings, including a diamond ring. But their main intention, she said, was to rape her.
The whole ordeal lasted from 7.30 pm to 10 pm, before the police patrol passed by. She gave her statement to the police in the health centre and also released a video on her Instagram handle that night. She meanwhile deleted the video.
Right after speaking to the woman, on Saturday morning, 2. March, the cops started interrogating suspects. Some confessed and were arrested already on 2. March. They spilt names of others.
Meanwhile all 8 have been arrested in record time.
The Hindu reported that the court took suo motu cognisance of the case, since this incident could reflect badly on the image of Bharat. A woman judge met the biker woman, and concluded that the victim is physically stable but mentally a wreck.
A cheque over 10 lakhs was handed over to them, and on 5. March, they continued their travel to Nepal “amidst heavy security” according to Times of India.
Incidentally, Dumka, the area where it happened, was earlier represented in the Assembly by the present chief minister of Jharkhand Hemant Soren, and the BJP, which is in the opposition in the state, attacked the Jharkhand government over failing law and order.
When I saw the tweet with the video, where the Spanish woman talks about her ordeal, 9 hours after it was posted by a Turkish woman, it had already 49 million views… this was incredible and highly suspect. I guessed, correctly as it turned out, that those who will be arrested won’t have Muslim names.
It looked as if a toolkit has been activated to demean the image of India, as it was done in 2012, after the Nirbhaya case. At that time, the news spread over the whole world like wildfire, and not the culprits stood accused as much as India and her (Hindu) culture.
At that time, the purpose was in all likelihood to try to equate India with Pakistan, which some months earlier, had got an extra bad name due to the Rotherham grooming scandal in which mainly Pakistani Muslims were the rapists. The propaganda against Bharat was fierce and successful. Most Westerners, who didn’t know India from own experience, mistakenly believed now that India has a huge “rape problem”.
The present Dumka case also spread like a rapid wildfire. The tweet by the Turkish woman alone got 210 million views in only 10 days!! This is impossible without massive manipulation. The case is not only all-over social media, but also mainstream media, including in Germany, where the newspapers didn’t even add “allegedly” before telling what terrible things happened in India ‘again’.
The gang rape may have happened, but nowadays one never can be fully sure. Neither a man’s nor a woman’s word should be taken as true, unless it’s proven to be true. Too many fake cases have been filed in Bharat. I got flak on Twitter, including personal insults, when I pointed out that some things don’t add up:
After such a terrible ordeal, the victim would have surely been greatly traumatised. Would she make a video about the incident in the same night for social media?
Is it possible that an hour after the brutal assault on her husband and 7 or 8 men forcefully raping her, they were in a position to ride their bikes for 60 km?
Another oddity: after they got the cheque and before leaving for Nepal, there seemed great bonhomie with the cop, with whom they made selfies. A photo is on Twitter. Incidentally, the bruise on her face had also disappeared by then.
And one more oddity: a Twitter user dug out an Instagram video by them from 18. January, where they narrate that after a 4 months and 14,500 km long journey through India after entering from Pakistan, they have reached Kanya Kumari, the southernmost point, and will now head for Australia. Why did they change their plans and how did they get back to the north of India so quickly?
I was concerned, that some local youths could have been beaten up to confess something that was not true. Unfortunately, this can happen. It happened in the Kathua rape case. Madhu Kishwar in her well-researched book “The girl from Kathua” brought out, among other valuable information, a painful incident, which left me truly shaken:
The 3 college roommates of Vishal, who was one of several accused, were tortured to sign a false declaration to implicate Vishal in the rape…
In the media posts regarding the case of the Spanish couple, two things stood out:
On one hand, the mainstream and social media went berserk against Indian culture, means Hindu culture, even though the culprits may not be Hindus, and on the other hand, many Hindus felt shame to be Indian and apologised.
The Economic Times had a headline:
‘All Indians should feel ashamed when…’: Singer Chinmayi Sripaada..
Why?
When a German criminal commits a crime, I don’t take the blame, neither is “Christian or German culture” blamed. It happens nowhere. Strangely in India of all places, which has a comparatively low number of crimes, many Hindus take the blame. And they don’t realise that it only encourages others to hit out more strongly.
For example, a tweet by one Daniel Haqiqatjou:
“When a religion worships deities whose mythology involves plenty of incest and sexual assault, this is what a society based on that religion looks like.”
My reply:
“We should indeed find out what a society based on Hinduism looks like compared to those, based on Abrahamic religions. To do this, data on crimes and the religion of criminals needs to be collected. I predict that Hindu society has the least crimes. And people even know it. You too.”
In India, crimes are comparatively low, yet media takes advantage of the huge population and confuses people.
For example, the Business Standard writes on rape statistics:
The number of rape incidents in India in per 100,000 citizens is 22,172 as of 2020 with 1.80 rape rate. It has an average of 87 rapes daily.
Regarding Sweden it says only: Sweden has a rape rate of 63.5 and about 5960 rape incidents in per 100,000 citizens.
Which country looks worse for a casual reader? It would probably be India.
Yet to break it down, it means, if India (130 crore population) was equal to Sweden (1 crore), it would need to have instead of 22,000 rape cases per year 780,000!! (6,000 x 130)
That’s how low India figures.
Many Westerners may say “Oh I never trust Indian numbers”… well, what to say. To Hindus it is obvious that the Hindu mindset based on Dharma is responsible for the low rank in crimes. Of course, to realise this, one needs to know what Hindu Dharma is about.
The question remains: why are those who direct Western mainstream media and have a hold on the algorithm in social media so keen to show India unfairly in bad light? Why are they not fair and reasonable?
Are they so ignorant and genuinely believe that Hinduism is a “beastly religion” as Winston Churchill infamously claimed? Or do they know the truth and fear that Hindu Dharma could put the organised religions out of business?
It would need a thorough research.
(The article was published on Mariawirth.com on March 11, 2024 and has been reproduced here)
