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This is what happened when Nitish Kumar was made the President of the Congress party

Hemant Bijapurkar
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This is what happened when Nitish Kumar was made the President of the Congress party

Recently pop historian cum Nehru bhakt Ramachandra Guha expressed an interesting desire. He called for a leadership change in the Congress, with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar leading the grand old party.

According to him, if this ‘fantasy’ of his becomes true, it would mean a match made in heaven as the Congress is a ‘party without a leader’ while Nitish is a ‘leader without a party’.

Even though such a fantasy might not come true anytime soon, I decided to imagine a possible Congress meeting with Nitish as a president. So here it goes:

Congress party is holding a regular meeting of the party’s top leadership at their 24 Akbar Road headquarters in Delhi, with all the leaders like Kapil Sibal, Digvijaya Singh, Shashi Tharoor, Salman Khurshid among others.

New Party President Nitish Kumar welcomes Yuva Margdarshak Mandal chief Rahul Gandhi, who had decided to spend a few days in India, and starts the proceedings:

Nitish Kumar: So good morning everybody, thank your for letting me take up the Presidency of your party on a trial basis, which can then be made permanent if the party finds my work satisfactory. So let us begin. I want to come to the most important issue – we do not have any alternative narrative to offer.

Rahul Gandhi: That’s not true. We always have alternatives ready.

Nitish: How?

Rahul: See, if the narrative that ‘Rahul Gandhi did not meet Chinese envoy’ doesn’t work, we offer an alternative narrative that ‘Rahul Gandhi indeed met Chinese envoy’.

Nitish: I am talking about narratives we offer to the people, not to the media. I mean we keep on opposing Modi and point problems, but we don’t say this is the solution.

Rahul: We have the solutions too – women empowerment, RTI…

Nitish: Okay let’s leave it for now. Let’s review our performance in the last assembly elections. So as I understand we could have formed a government in Goa and Manipur, with us being the largest party. Why didn’t it work out, Digvijay ji?

Digvijay Singh: Well, we were on our way to meet some independent MLAs, which would have meant more than enough support, but were lynched by a mob on route to our venue.

Nitish: Hain! Who died?

Digvjaya: No no nothing of that sort. Our car brushed with another vehicle and the drivers started abusing and slapping each other. We decided to claim that a lynching is taking place. We tweeted about it, counted re-tweets, and were busy replying to tweets. Cunning BJP took advantage of this and formed the government in the meantime by talking to the MLAs.

Nitish: Seriously? You thought making up stories about lynching was more important?

Digvijaya: You just said we have to offer narratives to people. We are offering the narrative of Lynchistsan. Now you have a problem with that. You sound confused. We need to appoint Rahul ji as the President. I am loyal to the family only.

*Digvijaya starts shouting slogans and everyone joins demanding Rahul Gandhi take over the party. But they realise that Rahul Gandhi had left for Europe in the meantime. They decide to let Nitish continue*

Nitish: Let’s forget the past. We have to plan for the future assembly elections. Gujarat. What are the plans Sibal ji?

Kapil Sibal: We are at second place in Gujarat. So we are planning to retain the position. There will be zero loss. After that, we can claim that BJP has rigged the EVMs and murdered the Indian democracy.

*Shashi Tharoor inexplicably starts coughing after hearing the word murder*

Nitish: That is okay, but what if we win?

*Everybody in the room starts coughing*

Nitish: Okay fine. Let us make long term plans. Amit Shah is touring entire country, we have to find a counter strategy.

Salman Khurshid: Rahul Gandhi is touring entire world. So we are already doing better on that count. And wait a minute, are you not supposed to come up with ideas that Rahul Gandhi ji and Sonia Gandhi ji, who is the mother of every Indian, failed to come up with?

Nitish: She is not my mother!

*this again caused all Congress leaders and workers present to stand up and start shouting slogans against Nitish Kumar. Salman Khurshid threatened to break away from the party and form Congress-S, while one worker took out gun and threatened to kill himself if Sonia Gandhi did not become President again* 

Just around then the Presidential candidate Meira Kumar walked in and said baith jayie, baith jayie, after which everyone stopped shouting and sat down. Nitish Kumar had left taking advantage of the din.

ISIS Jihadi gave his wife a ‘suicide belt’ as a wedding gift

OpIndia Staff
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ISIS Jihadi gave his wife a ‘suicide belt’ as a wedding gift

A dreaded ISIS terrorist from Morocco named Mohamed Hamdouch had reportedly given his Spanish wife a suicide belt when they were married sometime after 2014.

The Spanish woman named Asia Ahmed Mohamed had fled from her home in Ceuta, Spain in order to travel to Syria for joining the ISIS. There she married the dreaded Moroccan who was infamously known as the “Decapitator”. At their wedding she had received a suicide belt as ‘dowry’ by her husband.

Suicide belts are improvised devices which are packed with explosives and a detonator and are used by suicide bombers to blow themselves up. The motive behind the husband gifting the suicide belt is unclear and its also not known whether he expected his wife to use it, sometime in the future.

Asia, the wife and another woman named Fatima Akil Laghmich were arrested by Turkish authorities in December 2016 as they tried to enter Europe along with their children. They were extradited into Spain where they would face trial and then a possible prison sentence. This bit about the wife receiving a suicide vest was revealed on Tuesday.

Both the women who were married to Moroccan terrorists, had lived in ISIS controlled territories for more than two years. Both of them are being perceived as a potential threat to national security, for living voluntarily in ISIS territory and for getting indoctrinated in religious extremism. Plus they were believed to be in contact with very active members of the ISIS which could have resulted in them being used as “facilitators for the terror organisation in Spain”.

According to the Daily Mail report, both these women were under surveillance for two years before getting arrested.

Asia who was gifted the suicide vest had a son with the “Decapitator” before he was reportedly killed in action in 2015. She is believed to have married another Moroccan Jihadi, after her husband’s death.

Indian Paralympians left without money in Berlin as authorities fail to sanction funds

Hemant Bijapurkar
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Indian Paralympians left without money in Berlin as authorities fail to sanction funds

Indian Paralympic swimmer Kanchanmala Pande had to face a harrowing ordeal in the recently concluded para swimming championships in Berlin, Germany. Pande who is completely blind, swims in the S11 category.

According to Mail Today report, she and 5 other swimmers had a miserable time at the 3-9 July championships in Berlin as the sanctioned government money didn’t reach them on time due to alleged slip-ups by the Paralympic Committee of India (PCI).

Pande and her escort were reportedly granted sponsorship by the Sports authority of India but the PCI failed to give the grant money, leading to her having to bear all the hotel and food expenses. She had to pay about Rs 1.1 lakh for her fooding and lodging and also had to pay Rs 15,000 for applying for a visa.

This tournament was especially important as a good performance here was necessary in order to qualify for the world championships.

Failing to get the amount sanctioned, Pande who is an assistant in the Nagpur branch of the Reserve Bank of India, had to apply for a Rs 5 lakh loan. This apparently was not enough and she was soon left with no money.

Things reportedly became so bad that she had to travel without a ticket in a tram from the tournament venue to her hotel. This in-turn led to her being fined a further 120 pounds by the ticket checker. According to the report she had to beg and borrow money from kind strangers to somehow make do.

The Paralympic Committee of India (PCI) also messed things up on the logistic side. Pande had to write to the International Paralympic Committee, only after which she was provided with a coach. The coach who was finally allotted turned out to be no good. The coach Kanwaljeet Singh used to allegedly go missing during the main events and also had initially asked the athletes to pay the 90 Pound participation fee.

The PCI also failed to register her in the right event. Even though her preferred event was the 100 m backstroke event, they had got her registered in the 50 m event instead.

But thankfully things got sorted out in time and she heroically qualified for the World Championships in 4 different events which were, 100m Freestyle, 100m Backstroke, 100m Breaststroke and 200m Individual Medley. She also managed to win a silver medal in the Individual Medley.

The Paralympic Committee of India after being questioned looked like deflecting all the blame onto the Sports Authority of India, which it claims delayed sanctioning the required amount due to which it couldn’t be passed on to the swimmers in the right time. This apparently was no fault of the Sports Authority of India as the account number given by the PCI was reportedly blocked which led to the delay.

The Vice President now has assured that the swimmers would be refunded all the money and the issue with the coach would also be addressed.

This incident drew a sharp response from Olympic Gold Medallist, Abhinav Bindra:


This elicited a response from Sports Minister Vijay Goel who assured action:


Even though the Paralympic committee was pretty irresponsible when came to this whole affair the government may not be able to take any outright action against them. Doing so might be perceived as government interference by International bodies and can lead to possible suspension of the Indian body.

On this grounds, the Indian Olympic Association was suspended in 2012 which had meant that the Indian athletes had to commence participation in the London Olympics under the Olympic flag.

How media invented ‘bilateral talks’ controversy between India and China

Sambit Nayak
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How media invented ‘bilateral talks’ controversy between India and China

On Monday, Congress found itself in an extremely embarrassing situation when in a series of flip flops, Congress first denied Rahul Gandhi meeting Chinese ambassador and had to retract later when Rahul Gandhi’s office clarified that Rahul Gandhi had indeed met Chinese ambassador.

What is also noteworthy is that, the Chinese embassy, which had released a press note briefing their meet with Rahul Gandhi has deleted the page after Congress’s denial.

What exactly was their motive and why they wanted to hide this is something that should have been dissected and debated. But, instead of discussing this, media houses like The Hindu tried to deflect the situation by putting Indian government in the same situation.

It insinuated that Government of India has also done similar flip flops in the recent past vis-a-vis China, thereby trying to monkey balance the issue, further implying that Rahul Gandhi or Congress was not the only organisation to be blamed.

Let us look at the facts of India-China issue.

G-20 summit for 2017 was scheduled to be held in the German city of Hamburg starting 7th July. As, all leaders of all BRICS nation were already attending the G-20 summit, they decided to hold an informal meeting as a run up to the official BRICS summit to be held later in October in China. China being the host country this year, the informal meet was held under the chairmanship of Chinese President Xi Jinping. Here is the official press release of MEA, India on the proceedings of the meeting that was held.

As, the border situation in Doklam, Sikkim is tense, situation was not conducive for a bilateral talk between India and China. Both Indian and Chinese official clarified the same in no unclear terms.

To quote, “And the official spokesperson of Indian Ministry of External Affairs did not mention any Sino-India meeting while listing out PM Modi’s bilateral engagements on the sidelines of G-20 Summit.”

MEA has also officially denied reports of China “cancelling” any bilateral talks with India. Something which was not scheduled to begin with can not be cancelled.

Indian media however have invented something which never existed. Consider the below tweet from Vijaita Singh, Senior Assistant Editor of The Hindu:


Now here is the fun fact: the entire assertion of Vijaita Singh is based on imaginary lines.

Vijaita begins her tweet by saying “India says”. Any sane minded person will comprehend that someone from MEA or PMO has officially said this when a quote begins by “India says”.

Irony is, the article neither quotes nor has any press briefings by any Indian official. All that it has is a tweet by the official handle of MEA, India which in clear and no ambiguous terms says that it was an “informal” gathering of BRICS leaders:


So no where it states that there was a “bilateral” meeting. It also doesn’t suggest that Xi and Modi met for a “meeting”, however informal that was. It was an “informal gathering” of leaders where Modi and Xi had a conversation on a range of issues.

So, where is this “India says bilateral meeting took place between Xi and Modi” coming from? Why the headline suggests that China denies bilateral meeting. For someone to deny, one has to assert something which will be denied. When India has not said that any bilateral meeting took place – and that has been the stand from the beginning as we saw earlier – where is the need or scope to deny it?

When questioned on, where in the article, MEA, India says that there was a bilateral meet, this was what Hindu’s Senior Assistant Editor replied to me on Twitter:


While I give her full marks for politeness and for responding, unfortunately I will have to give zero for comprehension and logic. As you can see, the highlighted part (highlighted by Vijaita) is no proof of India saying or claiming that a bilateral meeting took place.

Also, she may not be the only one spreading this misinformation about the incident. Here is the Executive Editor of NDTV trying to paint as if the situation was all messed up, when the only thing that appears messed up here is the comprehension of journalists:


We have seen various ways in which media creates controversies that never existed. In this case, the modus operandi was – first create an imaginary claim that Modi and Xi are going to have a bilateral talks, even when both countries have categorically denied it, then ask questions whether the bilateral talks took place, and conclude that “China denied any such meeting took place” as if India had requested and China denied. Of course any person will deny your imaginary claims.

Whether it is the comprehension of journalists, who mistook “an informal gathering of BRICS leaders” as a “bilateral meeting” or there is a malafide intention behind such cleverly worded articles and tweets is something I leave for the readers to decipher.

Come clean on corruption charges: Nitish Kumar on Tejashwi Yadav

OpIndia Staff
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Come clean on corruption charges: Nitish Kumar on Tejashwi Yadav

In the wake of widening probe by central agencies against the family members of Lalu Prasad, including his deputy Tejashwi Yadav, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has refused to join the RJD’s “political conspiracy” babble.

In fact, Kumar who is also the JD-U president, has reportedly said that those facing corruption charges should come clean by giving fact-wise reply to public.

Kumar while chairing JDU state executive meeting at his official residence of 1, Anne Marg is believed to have told his party colleagues. “What has been said so far may have satisfied your constituents, but it is inadequate to convince the public,” Kumar has reportedly told his party colleagues. “They should come out with fact-wise reply in public.”

Kumar also said that whenever there were allegations of corruption levelled against any JD-U leader, his party had taken “necessary action”.

“RJD will have to take action against its leader. It is for RJD to act against Tejashwi as he has been named in an FIR by the CBI,” Kumar reportedly said in the party meeting.

“JD-U’s strength lies in the goodwill that Nitishji has acquired by reviving development in Bihar. He will never compromise his stance of zero tolerance on corruption. The only thing which he has earned in his entire political career is a clean image and he will continue to maintain it come what may,” JD-U general secretary Sanjay Jha, a close aide of Nitish Kumar, said.

Tejashwi Yadav, along with his mother Rabri Devi, is among those named in the CBI FIR in connection to irregularities in awarding tenders for maintenance of hotels in Ranchi and Puri during Lalu Prasad’s tenure as the Railway Minister. Other members of Lalu Prasad’s family are also facing corruption charges for illegally acquiring properties and lands in different parts of the country.

The RJD, on the other hand, ruled out the resignation of Tejashwi Yadav. “Why should Tejashwi resign? Has he indulged in any corruption in his Ministry? So why this talk of zero tolerance with corruption being raked up?” RJD chief whip Lalit Yadav told reporters.

Meanwhile, the BJP has sent fillers to Nitish Kumar. “Bihar BJP chief Nityanand Rai has said that the party is ready to provide outside support to JDU to form a government in the interest of the state, if Nitish Kumar decides to walk out of the Grand Alliance,” Bihar BJP vice-president Devesh Kumar said.

Man tries to open aircraft’s emergency exit while it was preparing to land

Hemant Bijapurkar
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Man tries to open aircraft’s emergency exit while it was preparing to land

A major tragedy was averted on Monday night after a man named Aftab Ahmed tried to open the emergency exit door of an Air Asia flight just as it was preparing to land in Ranchi.

Thankfully the flight crew and some other passengers somehow managed to restrain the 32 years old man, but they suffered injuries as a result. Ahmed, who apparently is a resident of Ranchi, was handed over to the CISF after the plane landed safely.

The Air Asia flight had reportedly taken off from New Delhi and at about 9:50 Ahmed suddenly felt the urge to open one of the emergency exits. After the incident, people started wondering if there was a sabotage angle to the whole incident.

The CISF then informed the nearby police station which proceeded to interrogate him. Media reports suggest that the police has reached the conclusion that the man was mentally unstable. The man reportedly was undergoing treatment at AIIMS in Delhi and had prescribed medicines in his possession.

The police then informed Aftab’s father, after which he was admitted to a local hospital.

In the past there have been instances of people wanting to open emergency exists and cockpit doors. Interestingly they have also succeeded in their endeavours in the past. In February a passenger had opened an emergency door on an Indigo flight while the plane was preparing to take off, leading to a person getting injured. A passenger had done the same in China in 2016 because he apparently wanted to get some fresh air.

People shocked by reports of local Kashmiris laughing at bullet ridden Amarnath yatris

OpIndia Staff
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People shocked by reports of local Kashmiris laughing at bullet ridden Amarnath yatris

While the nation was grieving for Hindu pilgrims killed in terror attack in Kashmir, the Home Minister was celebrating ‘Kashmiriyat’. He was so much in love with this idea that he decided to blatantly distort a statement of a private citizen, which led other seasoned distortionists to hound her into deleting her Twitter account.

Now less than 24 hours after Rajnath Singh celebrated the so-called ‘Kashmiriyat’, disturbing reports have emerged about inhuman behaviour some locals displayed after the Amarnath terror attack took place.

According to a Dainik Bhaskar report, an injured pilgrim named Rajesh Naval recalled that there were a few shops near the site of the attack. As the injured women and elderly cried for help, rather than coming out and helping those in need, the shopkeepers simply decided to stand and laugh at them.

Yes they were laughing at the pilgrims who were reeling in enormous pain, both mentally and physically.

This report absolutely shocked people:


While most people where shocked, some decided to shoot the messenger.

A person named Nikhil Wagle, who is a journalist, claimed that the newspaper was lying. In fact, he demanded legal action against Dainik Bhaskar, though he did not provide any reason why he thought the newspaper was wrong.

While media reports can indeed turn out to be false, some reason has to be provided before making such judgments and demand. In absence of that, the motive to distrust anything (in this case, a victim’s testimony) that paints some Muslims as bad human beings, while propagating every unsubstantiated claim that paints Hindus as aggressors is to send Hindus on a guilt trip.

Rajnath Singh distorts tweet of a woman, throws her to online lynch mob

Rahul Roushan
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Rajnath Singh distorts tweet of a woman, throws her to online lynch mob

When at least seven Hindu pilgrims were massacred by Islamic terrorists in the Kashmir valley on the first Monday of the month of Shraavan, it elicited widespread grief and anger in many.

Kashmir valley had already seen horrible acts by the Islamic beasts in recent past with killing of an unarmed Army jawan Umer Fayaz and gory public lynching of DSP Ayub Pandith, which also had elicited anger and people wanted the killers to be brought to justice.

The attack on unarmed Amarnath Yatris, who had gone to Kashmir out of their devotion to Lord Shiva, added to this already fuelling anger. The fact that most of those killed were women infuriated people even more, who wanted the government to bring the killers to justice.

While the common man was angry, the secular-liberal establishment was busy worrying about a myth called Kashmiriyat. It infuriated the angry people even more.

Did Hindu lives not matter? If a Hindu is killed in Kerala, people talk about “political context”. If a Hindu is killed in West Bengal, people worry about “BJP may benefit”, and now when Hindus have been massacred in Kashmir, the immediate concern becomes “Kashmiriyat”.

The Home Minister of the country, especially when he is from a political party alleged to be the only party concerned about Hindus, is expected to understand this anger and assuage it. However, the Home Minister too decided to pontificate about Kashmiriyat, instead of talking about strong response and attack on the faith of those who wanted a glimpse of Lord Shiva in Amarnath caves.

This infuriated people even more. And one of those who expressed this anguish in strong words was author and content professional Shuchi Singh Kalra, who wanted the Home Minister to drag out the terrorists and kill them instead of offering politically correct soundbites:

Tweet by Suchi Kalra
The angry tweet, which was used by Rajnath Singh to earn liberal cookies.

It is clear that Shuchi was demanding action against the terrorists. She was not even dismissing the concept called Kashmiriyat – which we at OpIndia.com dismiss as an imaginary construct – but she was just telling the home minister, in angry words, that the priority has to be of teaching the terrorists a lesson than giving lessons in Kashmiriyat to the common citizens.

But our Home Minister decided to distort her view. Not only he reiterated his romantic support to an imaginary idea – which he is fully entitled to – he virtually accused Shuchi of branding all Kashmiris as terrorists when she was clearly not making any such claim.


How is Shuchi being any different in her demand than senior BJP leader and current External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, when she had demanded to “bring 10 heads from Pakistan” to avenge the death of one Indian soldier? Even though Swaraj had not explicitly mentioned heads of Pakistani soldiers or terrorists, any sensible person would know that Swaraj definitely was not calling for heads of any ten random Pakistanis.

Good that Rajnath Singh was not the Home Minister back then, else he would have branded Sushma Swaraj a hateful violent troll wanting to kill entire Pakistani cricket team except the wicket-keeper, maybe because he used to drop catches.

We all know what a humanitarian and compassionate person Sushma Swaraj has turned out to be. But she could easily have been branded a genocidal maniac if her words were twisted back then (and I am sure many would have attempted to do that).

That’s what Rajnath Singh did and he succeeded in his attempt. He twisted Shuchi’s words and indulged in virtue signalling. This gave the secular-liberal mob a reason to pounce on Shuchi. With Home Minister’s distortion of her tweet, she was branded a “violent hateful troll” who wanted a genocide in Kashmir.

This online lynch mob not only harassed her by calling her such names, they even tagged her employer MakeMyTrip, in an attempt to take away her job. This is typical of a secular-liberal mob. They not only kill your character, they try to kill your source of livelihood too.

Once the hounding began, Shuchi not only deleted the tweet, she deleted her Twitter account itself, but the bloodthirsty lynch-mob was not satisfied. The news portals controlled by this lynch-mob churned out one report after the another, and a self-accomplished woman was defamed and humiliated, just because she was anguished at deaths of some innocent pilgrims.

While a private citizen had to go through this organized bullying and character assassination, the Home Minister basked in glory and collected character certificates from people who are closet Jihadist and professional distortionists i.e. journalists.

If the objective of Home Minister Rajnath Singh was to get applaud from the mainstream media and from people who are scared of a common man’s views, he has succeeded. But he has failed as member of a party that is supposed to understand the digital medium and value online support.

He has also failed as the guardian of common citizens, for he, instead of assuaging anger, threw a woman to wolves.

Is this the way a Home Minister is supposed to behave when a common citizen expresses his or her anger? Was it so difficult to ignore the tweet if he doesn’t share the same grief and fury over killing of fellow citizens? And what should we conclude if the Home Minister from a so-called nationalist party doesn’t feel the same pain and fury?

Mannargudi Jeeyar Swami – a Hindu Acharya being targeted by vested interests

Guest Author
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Mannargudi Jeeyar Swami – a Hindu Acharya being targeted by vested interests

Sri Chendalankara Sampath Kumara Ramanuja Jeeyar is a Sri Vaishnava sannyasi and the pontiff of the Mannargudi Chendalakara Shenbaka Mannar Matha. Pontiffs of Sri Vaishnava Mathas are referred to by the title ‘Jeeyar Swamigal’. Jeeyar Swamigal is popularly known as the Mannargudi Jeeyar, after the town the Matah operates out of.

The line of succession at the Mannargudi Matha was broken and the pontiffhood was vacant for 125 years before the current seer was ordained.

In his pontiffhood, along with his regular religious and cultural duties, the Mannargudi Jeeyar has taken it upon himself to reach out to Dalit communities and the most marginalized groups such as the Arundhatiyar, who very often live in segregated colonies in villages. Many of them are landless and work as casual labourers in agriculture and small industries. A good number are also employed in traditional occupations of public conservancy, leather and in cremation grounds.

Another cause dear to the Mannargudi Jeeyar is that of cow protection. The Matha runs a goshala taking care of 51 cows under his supervision.

Outreach to Dalit communities

The Mannargudi Jeeyar frequently visits colonies of marginalized Dalit communities. He conducts Lakshmi Pujas there and makes it a point to interact with children and visit homes in the colonies.

He has given Pancha Samskaram – an initiation into the Sri Vaishnava community for lay worshippers – to hundreds of people, including people from the most marginalized Dalit communities.

He openly speaks against conversion activities by other religions and insists on Hindu unity.

During the floods in 2015, the Matha under the direct supervision of the Jeer engaged in rescue and relief mission in Cuddalore, one of the worst affected districts.

It has been documented that natural calamities are seen by proselytisers as an opportunity to find new converts. A case in point is the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, after which many coastal communities in Tamil Nadu saw many new converts.

Intervention to stop conversion effort

A Bhadrakali Amman temple in Kallimedu village, Nagapattinam District had some dispute regarding offering of mandagapadi (custom where the village deity visits streets/homes in the village). It remained deadlocked for years.

Some elements tried to escalate this into a Dalit-Caste Hindu clash and tried to get the Dalits of the village to convert. The Mannargudi Jeeyar visited the village, called all communities to the temple, performed a Lakshmi Homam and reiterated the need for Hindus to stay united.

Interesting aside – the English language media chose only to highlight the conflict and escalation, but chose to ignore the resolution brought about by the Mannargudi Jeeyar.

Vested interests decide to target Swami for his work

Obviously, these outreach activities are irksome to various interests

  • Religious groups that focus on converting people from marginalized groups in the Hindu fold
  • Political parties that view Dalits as vote banks and that would view any outreach by Hindu leaders as an attempt to cut into their influence among Dalit communities.

They have been looking to get back at Jeeyar Swami for long, and finally they got one thanks to the ‘cow vigilantes’ narrative being pushed by the media.

Recently, Mannargudi Jeeyar was attacked by violent mobs of Islamist and communist elements. It is fast being twisted into a case of gau-raksha vigilantism. It is our intention to place the facts before the public before the event is beamed through Mainstream Media’s ‘reality distortion lens’.

What really happened

On June 29th, the Mannargudi Jeeyar was travelling near Palani in Tamil Nadu when he saw cattle being transported in cramped conditions. He brought the van to the Palani police station and lodged a complaint demanding that the transport be carried out in conditions fulfilling norms of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act.

Members of Communist organizations, Islamic organizations and the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK – an electoral party that claims to be Dalitist, Periyarist and crusading for Dalit human rights) arrived at the police station and started protesting. Even the left-leaning newspaper The Hindu has reported this incident without the usual distortion (screenshot).

Fearing for the Mannargudi Jeeyar and his entourage’s safety, the police took them into the station premises. (Tamil report in leading daily, Dina Thanthi).

In the meantime, activists from the Shiv Sena and RSS also arrived at the police station. Appropriate transport was arranged for the cattle. However, the group of Islamist, Communist and VCK cadre are reported to have indulged in stone throwing, because of which Ashok, a Shiv Sena activist, was injured.

Media distortion begins

The first step in the distortion began with a reference in a recent Frontline long-form essay. This was unattributed and the Mannargudi Jeeyar is left unnamed, since the essay appears too soon after the incident.

Clearly the intention is to pave the way for a later full-fledged distortion. The first steps were then made by VCK cadres on social media.

A complaint requesting appropriate transportation for cows has been twisted into an attempt at ‘disrupting communal harmony’.

The Facebook page of this particular individual claiming allegiance to the VCK reveals some interesting information about his views on the Indian State and he has also posted inflammatory content on the anniversary of Burhan Wani’s 1st ‘death anniversary’.

Once the distortion was spread on the social media by hateful groups, it has now been picked up by the allied elements in the mainstream media.

India Today has published a report out of Chennai, labelling the Mannargudi Jeeyar as a ‘self-acclaimed godman’ and mis-representing his complaint. Notably, they mis-represent the people opposing the Mannargudi Jeeyar’s complaint as cattle transporters’ even though it is clear that they are cadres from VCK and Islamist organisations. This is obviously filed by reporters who only had second-hand information about the incident.

A Hindustan Times report is relatively less negatively disposed towards the Mannargudi Jeeyar, but it still does not identify the persons injured in the stone pelting.

While The Hindu and Dina Thanthi are news outlets with presence on the ground in Dindigul, where the incident occurred, one wonders what the sources of India Today and Hindustan Times reports were. And one fears what else is there in the future.

It is clear that Mannargudi Jeeyar is being targeted mainly for his activities like his outreach to the Dalit community. Elements in the English language media have many times openly declared that they should focus on caste fault-lines, especially around Dalits, to defeat what they brand as ‘Hindutva’. Anyone trying to work towards eliminating these fault-lines risk being seen as people who are denying them an opportunity to defeat Hindutva, and perhaps Mannargudi Jeeyar Swami is being punished for this.

(report compiled by @dasyavevrka,  @paanchajanyaa, @Maha_Krish, @zeneraalstuff)

Media paints a converted terrorist as Hindu to propagate ‘Saffron Terror’ narrative

OpIndia Staff
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Media paints a converted terrorist as Hindu to propagate ‘Saffron Terror’ narrative

Since Monday, the Indian media has been abuzz with news headlines like:

  • Hindu LeT terrorist arrested in Kashmir [TOI]
  • Lashkar-e-Taiba has a Hindu face, his name is Sandeep Sharma [DNA]
  • What We Know About Sandeep Sharma, the Hindu LeT Militant [Quint]

All these articles reported that a Hindu man named Sandeep Sharma had become part of the terror organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba and was responsible for a variety of crimes like robbing banks, ATMs, snatching weapons and even killing cops.

He was dubbed as as the first Hindu Lashkar ‘militant’ by the media which reported that he hailed from Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh. The DNA article even carried an analysis which stated that “The fact that a Hindu is enlisted in the ranks of jihadi terrorists is a cause for major concern for the security authorities, since profiling Islamic terrorists now becomes trickier than before”. 

Media reports also claimed that the ‘Hindu terrorist’ Sandeep Sharma used to operate under the alias of Adil and used to live with two identities. So going by the reports, he was a Hindu who was using a Muslim name only to execute his work under multiple identities.

It was soon picked up by various individuals to insinuate the whole “Hindu terror” narrative:


The truth though seems to be completely different from what is being portrayed by a section of the media, especially the English language media.

According to reports [1][2] Sandeep had joined the terror organisation, after converting from Hinduism to Islam. According to these reports, incidentally appearing in local Hindi media, Sandeep had relocated to Kashmir in 2012 to work as a welder.

The reports then claim that he in that period fell in love with a Kashmiri girl, after which he changed his name to Adil by converting to Islam.

His foray into crime reportedly began when he met Kulgam resident Saheed Ahmed and those two along with Munib and Muzaffar Ahmed founded a gang. Then after indulging in criminal activity for some time, came in contact with Lashkar terrorist Shukar Ahmed, which ensued Adil/Sandeep’s association with the terror outfit.

Adil used to use both his Muslim and Hindu name to confuse the security agencies, which made it even difficult to track. However, there was no doubt that he had renounced Hinduism and become a Muslim.

Yet, for the English language media, he was “Hindu terrorist”.

This instance of terror organisations luring converted Hindus is nothing new. We had earlier reported how ISIS and its offshoots have been involved in targeting converted Hindus to spread terror operations in the Indian subcontinent. This included the 52 ISIS operatives who had been arrested by the NIA, out of which 15% were found to be converts from Hinduism and Christianity.

People were irked by this blatant misinformation spread by the media and reacted:

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