People bash Ram Guha for playing victim after making unsubstantiated allegations

Ramchandra Guha

Pop-historian Ramachandra Guha was today served with a legal notice over his statements in media outfits, where he linked the Gauri Lankesh murder to the RSS and the BJP. This legal notice was served by Karunakar Khasale, the Secretary of Karnataka BJP Yuva Morcha.

According to reports, his statements in Hindustan Times and Scroll played a big role in him getting that legal notice. In an interview given to Scroll (the leftist propaganda blog), Guha reportedly had stated that:

It is very likely that her murderers came from the same Sangh Parivar from which the murderers of Dabholkar, Pansare and Kalburgi came.

The ruling dispensation in Delhi has created a climate of hate and intolerance. Their bigotry is reinforced and enhanced by jingoistic TV channels who spread a climate of hate and discord and suspicion and demonise their opponents and call them anti-nationals

It should be noted that police has not been able to identify and track killers, whom Guha conveniently links to “Sangh Parivar”. Perhaps Guha is also a part-time detective or full-time propagandist, apart from being a pop-historian.

The notice also mentioned a Hindustan Times article he had written titled, “Gauri Lankesh killing: Undermining democracy, one writer at a time”. This is an excerpt from that article which contained a similar claim:

Even if the BJP or the RSS is not directly involved in this and similar murders, there is little question that the ruling dispensation has enabled a climate of hate and suspicion that makes such targeted killings of writers and scholars possible.

Apart from now being considered defamatory, the article was also considered incomplete by some:

https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/907240925469872131
The Notice claimed that Guha had deliberately made such statements to bring disrepute to the BJP with an ulterior motive. It also claimed that the statements were “accusative and defamatory in nature”.

The notice asked Guha to unconditionally apologises for his statements within 3 days, otherwise civil or criminal proceedings would be initiated against him.

But rather than apologising for his statements, Guha started to play the victim card:

https://twitter.com/Ram_Guha/status/907233928817336321
This ‘stance’ by Guha didn’t receive a warm reception:

https://twitter.com/Nesenag/status/907234543144280065

https://twitter.com/rajudasonline/status/907234286087979008

https://twitter.com/IndiaSpeaksPR/status/907235652768591872

https://twitter.com/smitabarooah/status/907239949056974848

https://twitter.com/padhalikha/status/907240510644822016

https://twitter.com/SandipGhose/status/907234802515959810

OpIndia Staff: Staff reporter at OpIndia