The Hinduphobia of the mainstream media once again stood exposed when in a report highlighting the alarmingly high rate of child marriages prevalent among the Muslims in the state of Kerala, India Today used the image of a Hindu girl in what appeared as an attempt to mislead the readers.
https://twitter.com/IndiaToday/status/1106530487533625345?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
The report published by India Today quoted a report of the State’s Economics and Statistics Department which provided the maternity data of the year 2017. The report claimed that the State has a large number of mothers, 22,552 precisely, below the age of 19 years. Out of these 22,552 mothers 17,082 were Muslims, 4,734 were Hindus and 702 were Christians. It is sufficiently clear from the data provided in the report that the problem of child marriage largely existed among the Muslim community as compared to the Hindu community. In fact, the number of underage mothers among Hindus was nowhere close to the numbers belonging to the Muslim community.
Yet India Today chose to use the image of a Hindu girl while reporting on a problem which existed on a much higher level among the Muslims. This act of apparent Hinduphobia angered the people on social media who called out India Today for misleading the people. Here are some of the Twitter reactions:
Some people shamed India Today for using a misleading image.
https://twitter.com/jituroyal8/status/1106551288316067840?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer
https://twitter.com/ManikGup92/status/1106636550224244736?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer
Some questioned India Today for using the image of a Hindu girl while the numbers speak otherwise.
https://twitter.com/savitha_rao/status/1106805288491872256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer
People accused the media of defaming Hindu religion and not stating the truth.
https://twitter.com/Dheeraj4Hindu/status/1106593771481755648?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer
It is often seen that certain section of the mainstream media does not miss an opportunity to demean Hindus by selectively reporting on the issues existing among Hindus while the same section of media conveniently ignores the ‘truth’ when it concerns the Muslim community.