By Ranjona Banerji
Is it worth it? Do you really want to know?
How a gathering of Hindu priests and religious leaders three spent days calling for genocide against Muslims and it barely got noticed, until Mohammed Zubair of Alt News put out a series of tweets? Not from the mainstream media, o no, ladies and gentlemen, o no.
The “Dharm Sansad at Haridwar from December 17 to 19 had several Hindus planning genocide, exhorting people to buy weapons and discussing how much weaponry it would take to kill all India’s Muslims. This “conclave” was organised by Yati Narsinghanand Giri, well-known for making “hate speeches”. Is a call for genocide “hate speech” or is it incitement to violence? Or do the rules change when a Hindu calls for violence?
The Wire: https://thewire.in/communalism/hindutva-leaders-dharma-sansad-muslim-genocide
As some of us watched the news unfold on social media aghast, on December 23, we waited for an explosion of outrage from the media, especially from our television channels. It was very slow in coming except for NDTV which was on it right away, condemnation and news coverage. Neha Khanna on India Ahead News was hardhitting. All other news media eventually got onto to it as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nYXaYSx56o
This morning, I went through the Twitter feeds of India Today, Times Now, Aaj Tak, News18, ABPNews just to check how they responded.
The biggest and most welcome surprise was Times Now: The two lynchings in Punjab, cricket, a fire in Kota got maximum prominence. However, anchor Padmaja Joshi in her evening show was scathing about the conference with full condemnation as was one of her guests who called out genocide incitement. Joshi was also very strong while taking with another guest, a woman dressed in orange who appeared to be justifying the conference. The eventual FIR filed against Wasim Rizvi for the conference was part of the news feed this morning.
India Today’s basic concentration of news was on the blast at a Ludhiana Court and on the rise of the Omicron variant. However, it did cover the eventual FIR filed by the Uttarakhand Police and a complaint made by Trinamool politician Saket Gokhale. This was couched as: Haridwar conference “triggers row”. This is a common journalistic deflection where you do not take on the event itself – Hindu priests calling for murder of Muslims – but concentrate instead on reactions from other people. However, anchor Preeti Choudhry did take on hate speech although she did start with “I don’t have much time” and then allowed her guest, a former IPS officer to discuss how no one, especially state governments, takes action against hate speech from “both sides”. Thus, while discussing open incitement to murder of Muslims by Hindus, we throw in how Muslims are also responsible. This blatant communalism was not contested by Chaudhry who didn’t as she admitted have much time.
News18, which for some reason still has its connection with CNN, did not appear to find the conference newsworthy. Thus, the Ludhiana blast, Covid, random celebrity news, cricket and the Congress in trouble in Uttarakhand were its main promoted news. Haridwar is also in Uttarakhand but never mind. The anchor who protects Hindus, Anand Narasimhan was rabbiting on about some UK MP. United Kingdom UK not Uttarakhand. Hindus calling for murder of Muslims cannot evidently be covered by the “Right Stand”.
I saw no more.
I wasted some time on ABP News and AajTak and was not disappointed because they clearly did not find calls for genocide newsworthy. I did learn that AajTak concentrates a lot on astrology and the zodiac every morning. News indeed.
NDTV has continued to cover the story.
However, and this is for all news coverage of the Haridwar conference. The so-called FIR by the Uttarakhand Police needs further examination. The main person named is Wasim Rizvi who recently “converted” Hinduism. He is not the organiser of the conference, which is Giri who is not named in the FIR.
The media might like to consider that to name a Muslim as the main offender in calls for genocide against Muslims by Hindu priests is just the Hindu state of the BJP in action. Uttarakhand is BJP-ruled and goes to the polls next year.
Should I even mention that in another world, the very call for genocide itself would have dominated all news and the Prime Minister and Union Home Minister of the BJP and members of the RSS would have been held up to scrutiny?
Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She writes on MxMIndia on Tuesdays and Fridays. Her views here are personal