On Wednesday, Minister of Human Resource Development led by Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank committed a gaffe after it tweeted a post glorifying controversial ‘activist’ Malala Yousafzai who had spread fake news against India after the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir.
The HRD ministry had posted an infographic on micro-blogging site Twitter asking the social media users to recognize who he/she was. The infographic, part of the quiz “identify the author series” read, “Guess Who?”, while the post gave a hint to the users by glorifying Malala as a “famous female author, a Nobel Prize winner and an activist defending the right to education for women”.
It is important to note that Malala Yousafzai had indulged in propagating terrorist state of Pakistan’s false propaganda on Jammu and Kashmir soon after Modi government had scrapped Article 370 that gave special status to the erstwhile state.
Malala Yousafzai had resorted to fear-mongering and attempted to incite Muslims by falsely claiming that the precautionary restrictions placed in the state were impeding girl child education and also peddled lies in the process.
She had also parroted fake Pakistan propaganda after she attempted to sell ‘fiction’ stories as the reality of the state of Jammu and Kashmir following the revocation of special status in the state. In doing so, ‘Nobel laureate’ Malala was caught peddling lies by social media users and was also schooled for her ignorance on the ongoing issue.
The act of Ministry of HRD to glorify controversial pro-Pakistan activist Malala Yousafzai earned the ire of Twitter users on Thursday. Social media users called it ‘shameful’
What is wrong with MHRD! Who is working in this campaign? Shameful.
— The Bong Head (@TheBongHead) January 2, 2020
One user also called out HRD ministry’s ignorance regarding local heroes and accused the ministry of carrying public relation activity for Malala.
This nation doesn’t know of Kanaklata Baruah,a 17-yr old girl from Assam who was shot down by British for trying to unfurl national flag in a police chowk, BUT this nation needs to be forcefully fed to Malala’s PR-driven hagiography.
Hi @HRDMinistry ,who is running ur handle? https://t.co/Ah17QasGTc
— पिकाचु [5:0] (@ZLaTaNp1KacHu10) January 2, 2020
Another user asked why is HRD ministry approving and mainstream haters of India and also urged the BJP leadership to focus on the HRD ministry. Others expressed disappointment over the handling of such an important ministry in a bad manner for the past six years.
Why do you approve and mainstream haters of India ? When will this ministry get some sense at all ?@AmitShah will you ever be able to focus on this very important ministry who try their best to negate whatever you try to communicate ?
— yaji (@msyaji) January 2, 2020
HRD Min deleted the tweet on Malala. I’m sure there’ll be excuses like “it was an intern who posted it”, or “we’ve outsourced social media activity to an agency. Action will be taken”, etc. 6 years later, it’s sad there are still such inept people running official SM accounts.
— Tishtriyā திஷ்ட்ரியா (@tishtriya) January 2, 2020
in both Modi 1 & 2, HRD is worst performed ministry. forget changing education system, they even don’t know whom to promote. A hypocrite like @Malala who has always supported Pak in almost all matters is being promoted Morons Kuch kijiye is ministry ka @narendramodi @AmitShah ji
— Shekhar (@ckalaskar) January 2, 2020
As social media users condemned the glorification of Malala Yousafzai, the HRD Ministry realised its mistake and deleted the tweet.
Read: Malala Yousafzai tries to mouth off platitudes on Kashmir, gets called out by Netizens
This is not the first time that a govt handle has made such gaffes. It may be recalled that during the anti-CAA riots at Jamia Millia Islamia University, the official twitter account of PIB had posted in favour of Jamia’s violent protesters, which was later claimed as an “error by an employee”.
