On Friday, Rana Ayyub, a donation fraud accused and a known anti-Modi detractor, received endorsement and support from Press Counsellor at the Embassy of Pakistan in Washington DC over her propaganda article in Washington Post raising questions over India’s democratic credentials.

“Calling upon Int. community not to remain silent, @RanaAyyub warns that “a much darker narrative is starting to define Modi’s India. India is not a healthy democracy. Modi is enflaming hatred of Muslims in India, as the world looks the other way,” Sarfaraz Hussain, a press attaché at the Embassy of Pakistan in Washington DC, tweeted.

While the support from a Pakistani attaché illustrates the kind of fan following Rana Ayyub has garnered with her prejudicial journalism, which often involves relying on fake news and distortions of facts to support her narrative, the Pakistani diplomat’s endorsement of her article sums up why Pakistan is perpetually plagued by economical and political crises.

Pakistan is tottering on the verge of an imminent financial collapse, with its economy facing tremendous pressure from sky-high inflation. The country is struggling to pay its debt and has attracted low foreign investment for its notoriety of being a safe haven for all hues of terrorists and troublemakers. 

The country is also afflicted by chronic political crises, most notably with protests sweeping across the length and breadth of the nation following the arrest of former PM Imran Khan. Widespread protests erupted in different parts of the country, with angry protesters attacking military institutions, including the Army GHQ in Rawalpindi, the defacto power centre of Pakistan.

At a time when Pakistani diplomats must assuage international concerns about protests giving way to a potential civil war between the government and Khan’s supporters, the Press Counsellor of the Embassy of Pakistan in Washington DC is busy sharing a propaganda article that vilifies India’s democratic track record and its respect for plurality.

The misplaced priorities of Pakistanis and their fetish to define their existence in opposing India are clearly taking a toll on Pakistan’s internal situation, which remains precarious and ripe for yet another military coup. Even its foreign policy is rooted in its obsession with India and internal matters in India, lecturing New Delhi on the welfare of its minorities, even as religious minorities in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan remain on the verge of extinction.

Half-truths, scaremongering, and polarising rhetorics define Rana Ayyub’s article in Washington Post

Having said that, it is important to objectively scrutinise Rana Ayyub’s vicious article that casts aspersions on the health of democracy in India and insinuates that India is on its inexorable march to fascism. 

To begin with, there are no obvious signs that India is sliding towards an authoritarian rule of governance. In fact, in the recently concluded assembly elections in the South Indian state of Karnataka, BJP’s primary rival, INC, seems to be in an advantageous position to form a government in the state, several exit polls predicted. 

India continues to be a thriving democracy, with the power of choosing their leader resting securely in the hands of the voters, who decide their political fate by exercising their right to vote for the political party of their choice. Earlier this year, the BJP lost two elections–the MCD polls in Delhi and the assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh. The result saw a peaceful transition of power from the incumbent BJP to the incoming political parties. Yet, the likes of Rana Ayyub continue to resort to stoking fears, scaremongering over the future of democracy in India.

Ms Ayyub highlights many political rallies in Maharashtra in the last few weeks, dubbing them anti-Muslim hate rallies. According to the donation fraud accused, any rally where political leaders, primarily from the BJP, assert their Hindu religious identity and vow to suppress Islamist tendencies that seek to turn India into an Islamic country on the lines of Arab nations becomes an anti-Muslim hate rally.

Ms Ayyub conveniently blurs the distinction between anti-Muslim and anti-Islamist, raising unfounded fears of persecution among the Muslim section of the population and playing to the anti-Modi gallery, which has been yearning to dislodge PM Modi from the highest office in the country ever since he assumed the office in 2014. 

The Washington Post article by Rana Ayyub is replete with half-truths, propaganda, and suppositions, which reflects the brand of journalism that the donation fraud accused has been historically associated with. The journalist had long wailed that she had ‘sting tapes’ as authoritative proof of Gujarat Riots conspiracy but has, so far, not managed to upload them online in this age and time of digital and social media. The Supreme Court of India had in 2019 trashed her book ‘Gujarat Files’, which she claims has damning proof of the Gujarat Riots conspiracy, as based on surmises, conjectures, and suppositions with no evidentiary value. 

In her Washington Post article, Ms Ayyub expediently mentions the burning of a mosque in Bihar during the Ram Navami celebrations but fails to mention possible causes behind the incident. Since last several decades, Ram Navami celebrations, when Hindus commemorate the birth of Lord Rama, are marred by violence carried out by Islamists who detest idol-worshipping and are opposed to kaafirs celebrating their festivals. Ram Navami processions have increasingly come under attack from Islamists who would pelt stones at the Shobha Yatra, injuring devotees of Lord Ram and touching off a spiralling round of communal strife. 

Like every year, this year too, several places across the country, Ram Navami processions came under attack on tenuous pretexts like being carried out through ‘Muslim areas’, meaning Muslim-dominated regions, the use of DJs in the Shobha Yatras, or the chanting of seemingly harmless slogans such as ‘Jai Shri Ram’ in the vicinity of a mosque. Such flimsy excuses are then used by the likes of Ms Rana Ayyub and other ‘intellectuals’ who vilify the victims as aggressors by throwing labels of Islamophobia, hate speech, etc., to project their guilt.

There have been several attacks by Islamists during Ram Navami in different parts of the country. But somehow, not a single one of them merited mention in Rana Ayyub’s diatribe against India’s democratic health in her latest column for the Washington Post.

Though Ms Ayyub accuses the BJP and its leaders of peddling hate, she does not shy away from relying on polarising rhetorics. In her article, Ms Ayyub describes the Babri structure that was levelled by kar sevaks in 1992 as an ‘iconic mosque’, even though the evidence collected by the Archaeological Survey of India, historical accounts, and Hindu beliefs associate it with an erstwhile temple, the birthplace of Lord Ram, which was destroyed during the time of Mughal emperor Babur and a structure was built on its ruins. 

The Supreme Court of India ended the centuries-long dispute and handed over the land to Hindus for building a temple to Lord Ram. Ms Ayyub seems to have a problem with that, too, as she took offence at the Modi government for fulfilling its poll promise of consecrating a magnificent Ram Temple at the site where it previously existed before the Mughal invasion of India.

The article also includes observations made by Justice Joseph recently when he criticised state governments for not taking action against instances of hate speech. In March 2023, several media organisations reported that Justice Joseph was smiling when SG Tushar Mehta argued that a DMK leader had called for butchering Brahmins. When SG Mehta pointed out that this (idea of butchering Brahmins) is not a matter that should be laughed at, Justice Nagarathna asked what made him (DMK leader) says so. Justice Joseph then asked if he knows who Periyar is. SG Mehta said that just because it is hate speech, it cannot be pardoned because it is said by someone famous, Bar and Bench reported.

Ms Ayyub also lamented over Uttarakhand CM’s vow to end land jihad, describing it as inflammatory propaganda against Muslims. But several media reports point to an organised attempt by Islamists to usurp land and use it for religious purposes or to effect a demographic change. And not just in Uttarakhand but in several places across the country, the instances of ‘land jihad’ surfaced. In Surat’s Adajan area, permission to construct a building was obtained by one Raihan Heights project, next to a temple by ‘temporarily’ bringing up a Hindu partner in a Muslim-owned enterprise in what appeared to be a bid to hoodwink the law.

Similarly, an incident of ‘land jihad’ was reported from Bharuch as well, where Jains and the Hindu community were forced to leave the neighbourhood over violence, harassment, and other things. In many affected areas by land jihad, the Islamists forced the natives to sell off their lands and properties and effect a demographic change in the neighbourhood, settling their co-religionists and homogenising the once-secular fabric of the region.

In another instance in her article, Ms Ayyub expressed dismay at a statement made by BJP leader Satya Pal Singh Baghel, who said one could count tolerant Muslims on fingers. While she spends a large amount of her time demonising and slandering BJP leaders and supporters as intolerant and bigots, she gets agitated when she gets replied to in the same language and blamed for stoking interfaith tensions.

It bears noting that Ms Ayyub is yet to condemn the death of Kamlesh Tiwari, a Hindu Samaj leader murdered by Islamists in 2019 for his remarks on Prophet Muhammad, made four years ago in 2015 and for which he served jail time. Ms Ayyub is also yet to condemn the vicious death threats directed at former BJP leader Nupur Sharma for defending her faith on a TV news channel, which triggered Sar Tan Se Juda violence after Alt News’ Mohammed Zubair dog whistled Islamists against her for her remarks on Prophet Muhammad. Ms Ayyub has not yet condemned the murders of Kanhaiya Lal, Umesh Kolhe, and other Hindus, who were brutally hacked to death by Islamists for extending their solidarity with the beleaguered former BJP leader.

Yet, Ms Ayyub gets offended when a BJP leader says that tolerant Muslims could be counted on fingers. Rather than considering it provocative, Ms Ayyub should introspect on how extremists have come to represent her community and how polarising rhetorics by ‘Muslim intellectuals’ have contributed to reverse polarisation among Hindus and increased a sense of religious consciousness among them, which hitherto was confined to their private spaces.