While many media outlets and left-leaning journalists are hell bent on maligning the Kanwar Yatra by painting the yatris as hooligans and miscreants, Business Standard yesterday shared a tweet with their article on Kanwariyas and their projected numbers expected to gather at Haridwar this year. The Tweet claimed that 30 million Kawariyas are to gather in Haridwar which is 7% of India’s total labour force and 7.3% of total employed people in the country. They posed a question that what do the numbers tell about India’s employment situation.
The tweet seemed to be insinuating that Kanwariyas are unemployed and a waste of the nation’s resources. This did not quite go down well with the Twitter users.
Twitter user Ashish Chandorkar had replied that it shows that for Hindus, practising their faith is beyond mundane routines and it is beyond the comprehension of newsrooms.
3 crore kanwars converging in Haridwar means that faith is bigger than life’s mundane routines and newsroom excel sheet crunching. Deal with it. https://t.co/priJ5LpnG3
— Aashish Chandorkar (@c_aashish) August 14, 2018
Some tried point to the fact that Kanwar Yatras are about faith and people take leave and plan for it.
It takes min 5K to complete Kanwar for a person who stays in Delhi. That includes fare from Delhi to Haridwar, money to stay 2 days in Haridwar. How can someone afford to spend 5K if he is unemployed & if he is spending without any issue then it means he has a source of income. https://t.co/o2ry5QExuV
— ?? (@AndColorPockeT) August 14, 2018
It’s a pilgrimage just like Haj, no?
Why then, have these statistics to dubiously project ‘employment’ or ‘unemployment’?
They could have taken ‘leave’ for a pilgrimage instead of a ‘holiday’, no? lol https://t.co/CzKOqY6Rq3
— Amrita Bhinder (@amritabhinder) August 14, 2018
Many even called out the blatant Hinduphobia displayed in the tweet which targetted a Hindu pilgrimage whose expenses are borne by the pilgrims themselves.
That we need to make serious efforts to awaken the dormant Hinduism of remaining 92.7% of Indian workforce????? https://t.co/ZAa8MPGgOc
— saket suryesh (@saket71) August 14, 2018
Waiting for an article on the millions who travel for Haj and the general employment situation in the Islamic world. https://t.co/uDm2cpz2j9
— ସ୍ବରୂପ ଦାସ (@swarupdas) August 14, 2018
Columnist Shefali Vaidya taunted that rather than the employment situation in the country, Business Standard should worry about their ‘editorial situation’.
Dunno about the ‘employment situation’ in the country, but this tweet sure reveals a lot about the ‘editorial situation’ of BullShit India!! https://t.co/3Z7YYrdqzR
— Shefali Vaidya (@ShefVaidya) August 14, 2018
This is not the first time media has shown Hindu bias and Hinduphobia. We had seen how the racist Washington Post India head was seen displaying her Hinduphobia on Rudra Hanuman image. Reuters, too, had displayed its blatant Hinduphobia by comparing Hindu Swastika to the Nazi Hakenkreuz. We have also seen digital media outlets use feminism and liberalism to push religious bigotry.
