The year 2019 witnessed a massive Battle of Narratives. It also witnessed the collaboration between the mainstream media and opposition parties to target the ruling dispensation without even bothering to hide their intentions. However, despite the continuous barrage of propaganda directed against the NDA government, the ruling dispensation still managed to come out on top every single time. In this article, we look at the 5 big Narrative battles of 2019 and the manner in which the propaganda was defeated.
1. The ‘Jai Shri Ram’ Fake Hate Crime Hysteria
In 2019, there was a spate of ‘hate crimes’ which gained great press coverage. However, despite the media hype, they turned out to be fake. In spite of that, such stories continued to fly thick and fast to build the narrative of ‘Dara Hua Musalman’. We documented a list of a dozen fake hate crimes, some of them with ‘Jai Shri Ram’ knitted into their story. In most of these cases, the crimes that were committed, if any, had nothing to do with the religion of the victims but they were deliberately distorted in order to turn them into communal crimes. The list of fake hate crimes can be read here.
In other news, IndiaSpend’s faulty FactChecker.in, which was infamous for having a track record of manipulating facts to suit their preconceived notions and agenda has finally decided to shut their propaganda shop ‘Hate Crime Watch’ after being exposed several times for Hinduphobia and bias. Faulty FactChecker.in announced that they are ‘moving’ their propaganda machinery ‘to a new home’ and effective and immediately ending their association with it. They claimed that they had identified a ‘gnawing gap in crime reporting’.
2. ‘Dara Hua Musalman’
A lot has been said over the narrative of ‘Dara Hua Musalman’. The secular camp has carefully constructed the narrative with its abundant resources, initiatives have been launched which maintain a dubious ‘hate tracker’ record to further the narrative.
We have often seen how crimes involving a Muslim and Hindu where Muslim is victim, at least as reported, take mammoth proportions as the ‘liberal’ coterie scream “Hindu extremism” at every given pretext. The attempt to create a narrative that India is a majoritarian state that heaps atrocities on its minorities, especially Muslims, is rampant.
The basic premise of the ‘dara hua Musalman’ narrative is that the individual Muslim is scared to profess his religion in Modi’s India and is under attack for no other reason but because they are Muslims. That the Muslim community is docile and powerless in front of the Majority Hindu population that has turned fascistic after the Prime Minister came to power.
To further this narrative, every crime by a Hindu, even ones not motivated by religious motivations are amplified and hate crimes committed by Muslims in the name of their religion are ignored. The “secular” narrative is hurt by the truth and thus, the truth is often hidden under the rug.
To bust this narrative, we documented 50 genuine hate crimes committed by Muslims against Hindus that bust the narrative of ‘Dara Hua Musalman’. There are several incidents that we may have missed in this list, nonetheless, this list accurately represents the larger picture of how crimes committed by Muslims often don’t feature in the outrage priority list of the “liberals”. The entire list can be read here.
3. Dalit-Muslim Unity
Politicians from the so-called secular establishment have been making a concerted attempt to create a ‘Dalit-Muslim unity’ narrative. The mainstream media, its propaganda wing, has been aiding their efforts by furthering a favourable narrative. However, as the results of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections have amply demonstrated, such efforts are destined to fail.
We documented the ‘community crimes‘ committed by Muslims against Dalits in recent years that make the much fantasized ‘Dalit-Muslim vote-bank’ nonviable. We documented 25 such hate crimes that can be read here.
Furthermore, only yesterday, Shehla Rashid demanded that Dalits sacrifice a portion of their reservations by accommodating ‘Dalit Muslims’, a category that does not exist in the real world.
4. The Fake Narratives over abrogation of Article 370
A host of fake news was peddled after the abrogation of Article 370 by the mainstream media. And regularly, their narrative was busted by the Indian Government and other media outlets. As early as merely three days after the abrogation of Article 370, the USA had to come out and deny a report published in The Print that claimed that the Indian government had briefed them about their decision to abrogate Article 370.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta cited an OpIndia report in the Supreme Court which debunked the lies being spread by IndiaSpend on the Kashmir issue. The OpIndia report that Solicitor General was referring to in the Supreme Court was an article that debunked the lies spread by IndiaSpend and The Wire after the abrogation of Article 370. In the article, IndiaSpend had twisted data and laced it with lies to claim that mental health issues were on the rise in Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370. The OpIndia report can be read here.
The Liberal Establishment spread numerous lies regarding the abrogation of Article 370 that include the claim that the effective repeal of Articles 370 and 35A nullify the Instrument of Accession signed between JK Maharaja and India and Manmohan Singh’s blatant lie that the Congress voted in favour of the abrogation of Article 370. The J&K administration also rubbished an India Today report that claimed that SPOs in Kashmir may be involved with terrorists and their weapons had been seized.
5. The Anti-CAA Campaign
From the very beginning, it was obvious that the anti-CAA protests were driven primarily by Islamic Extremists and political parties and they were not ‘spontaneous’ as they were made out to be. However, the mainstream media continued to project the protests as ‘secular’ and ‘spontaneous’.
OpIndia exposed the manner in which the Congress party was instigating protests across Universities. We also exposed the unholy nexus between Islamic Fundamentalists, ‘Urban Naxals’ and foreign funded NGOs behind the anti-CAA campaign. The anti-Hindu and Islamic Extremist nature of the protests were exposed by the protesters themselves. We documented 9 such occasions when the protesters revealed the ugly hatred that is driving them. It was also revealed that the Jamia ‘Shero’ had given a call for Jihad before violence erupted across the national capital. We also documented why the Jamia Milia Islamia University could not be disassociated from the violence that erupted across Delhi and why the entire campaign was Khilafat 2.0.
The mainstream media narrative over the anti-CAA protests collapsed so spectacularly that the entire edifice of the Liberal Establishment is falling apart. The alliance between Islamic Extremists, Secular Political Parties, the Mainstream Media and the Leftist Intelligentsia is falling apart as has been demonstrated by Shashi Tharoor’s backtracking and Shehla Rashid’s Twitter meltdown.
