On 13 March, a Hindu activist K Raju was hacked to death in broad daylight in Mysuru. On 14 March, BJP workers in Kerala were attacked by CPI-M leaving 3 Hindu activists in a critical condition. On the same day, a police horse was injured during a protest in Dehradun, Uttarakhand. How our national media covered these three incidents reveals a lot about their mindset.

First, lets talk about the injured horse, as most media bigshots are crying themselves hoarse on social media over this. Initial reports about the incident alleged that a BJP MLA Ganesh Joshi had “been caught on camera mercilessly beating the horse with a lathi”. As facts emerged about the incident, it became clear that the horse’s left rear leg was never hit by anyone but it got hurt when it hit a metal rod. Read this OpIndia piece for a complete analysis of this incident.

K Raju (37) was a Hindu activist and BJP worker who was brutally massacred by sharp weapons in broad daylight. He is said to have stopped the illegal construction of a masjid near his home in Kyatamaranahalli, which caused the murderous attack on him. Read this Hindupost report to understand how radical Islamist elements have been emboldened under Congress rule in Karnataka – Raju was the third Hindu activist to be murdered in Karnataka in just the last 6 months. Prashant Poojary (29), a flower vendor in Moodbidri, had been murdered in exactly the same manner as Raju in October, while D Kutappa (67) was killed in November during clashes over ‘Tipu Sultan jayanti’ in Madikeri.

Kerala is another killing field where Hindu activists are being targeted, this time by leftists –  Sujith was hacked to death a month back, Biju was grievously wounded a few weeks later; and 3 BJP workers critically injured during a protest march in Trivandrum on 14 March. Hindu activists are under vicious attack in other parts of Bharat as well – the murder of Hindu Dalit leader Arun Kumar Mahaur in Agra, UP being just the latest incident of violent attacks in UP, Bihar.

Media Bias/Censorship

We did a quick analysis of the front page of Delhi edition of two ‘leading’ national newspapers (Times of India, Hindustan Times), to see how the 3 incidents (murder of K Raju, attack on BJP workers, injured horse) were reported. Below are the findings:

The injured horse featured as a big column report on the front page in both papers at least once during this past week, while murders of Hindu activists got zero coverage on the front page. Let’s look at some of the other stories that made it to the front page of these ‘newspapers’ (additional commentary in italics by HinduPost) :

Times of India

• RSS Drops shorts, will pull on brown pants
• Anirban, Khalid ‘found guilty’ of communalism (note the quotes, questioning the guilt)
• Teresa will be saint on Sept 4
• Chargesheet filed against 35 FTII students
• Gay Sex Not a Crime, Says RSS, raises hope of Govt rethink
• 4 J&K students eaten in Rajasthan for eating beef (‘Right to Beef’ is a recurrent theme for all papers)
• Girls as Good as boys in maths: NCERTY Survey
• Rly blankets to be washed daily

Hindustan Times

• Khaki shorts out, brown trousers in
• JNU probe points to masked outsiders (fanning the conspiracy of IB men infiltrating the JNU event?)
• Mother Teresa to be canonized on September 4 at the Vatican (large column)
• RSS leader says gay sex is immoral
• BJP Leader who booked train for Modi in 2014 in fare mess
• Sri Sri Says it’s fine to pay compensation (HT has been aggressive against World Culture Festival)
• Paris Attack Suspect Arrested
• Piegons as air pollution monitors in London
• Dhoni’s ‘Scorpio Hummer’ to cost him a hefty fine

Reactions of media bigshots and even some economic ‘right-wingers’ over the injured horse, and their silence on the murder of Hindu activists, says it all –

When challenged, either these famous personalities contemptuously ignore the valid questions over double standards, or disdainfully term it as ‘whataboutery’.

Why no tears for cows?

Every Hindu in this country will say that what happened to the horse in Dehradun was bad, and if anyone is responsible for the incident, he/she should be punished. Hindus believe that animals have an atma as well; compassion towards all living beings is part of our moral code. Dietary habits might change from region to region, and consumption of meat is a person’s individual choice – but one animal that all Hindus love is the cow.

You can watch this video where Jaggi Vasudev ji provides his perspective on why Hindus don’t eat beef.  The bottom line is that 24 of the 29 states in Bharat have imposed restrictions and penalties of varying degrees on the slaughter of cows and other bovine cattle.

The inhuman and barbaric way in which cattle are treated by illegal traders would melt the heart of anyone, but not these media elites. Never once have they tweeted or commented when such barbaric incidents come to light – like this incident from Bareilly, UP where 17 cattle out of 22 stuffed into an oil tanker died due to suffocation, or this incident from Delhi  where trucks were seized that had cattle stuffed on top of each other –some with broken legs, chilly powder in their eyes or under the spell of sedatives.

Now, if someone is an activist to stop illegal cattle slaughter, shouldn’t the same liberal media that claims to be so disturbed over the plight of one horse, applaud that person? Well, Prashant Poojary risked his life to fight the illegal cattle smugglers, and perished in the most brutal manner – but none of our media bigshots had even a simple word of consolation for his aged parents. When that incident does find mention with them, it is to berate ‘extremist’ Hindus for trying to ‘communalize issues’

‘My’ Moodbidri vs ‘your’ Dadri; like ‘your’ 1984 vs ‘my’ 2002. We are living in crazy, dangerous times friends where hate begets hate.

— Rajdeep Sardesai (@sardesairajdeep) October 21, 2015

No outrage over Leftists’ murder of dogs and other torture

On 1st Septermber 2015, the first death anniversary of RSS worker E Manoj who was brutally murdered by CPI(M) workers, 3 dog carcasses were hung from the same electric pole where Manoj’s car had crashed during the assault on him. Not one of our national media bigshots had commented on this macabre act. But now they shed copious tears over an injured horse.

Never knew our Media z interestd in Animal rights until sterday or was it limited only 2 horses?#JungleRajInKerala pic.twitter.com/0sm53lfF81

— HaindavaKeralam (@HKupdate) March 16, 2016

What explains this dangerous media bias against Hindus?

Understanding media motives requires no rocket science, and the following facts should be plainly understood by all Hindus: Our media (especially the English language media) considers Hindu Dharma and by extension Hindu nationalism as the most dangerous force in this nation. They believe that Hindus should be perennially apologetic for their ‘oppressive religion & culture’ and ‘backwardness’. A good Hindu in their view is one who feels intense self-loathing for being born in such a ‘primitive, dirty society’, and considers even the faintest association with ‘extremist ideologies’ like Hindutva or Hindu nationalism as pure bigotry. Such thinking is a direct result of the decades of Nehruvian secularist & socialist conditioning & Western influence which our elites have been subjected to.

This extreme prejudice against Hindus, more than the ‘paid media’ accusation hurled at it,  is what drives our national media narrative, which in turn largely sets the agenda at a regional level as well. Every incident is evaluated from the lens of – “Could the facts of this incident strengthen the position of Hindu activists?” If the answer is yes, the incident is either censored completely, buried in inside pages, or distorted. The following matrix roughly explains the reasoning in editorial rooms while deciding how to report a crime –

So what should Hindus do?

If you are online, then there really is no excuse to fall for the media agenda. Follow social media handles and new digital outlets like IndiaFacts, OpIndia, MyInd, HinduPost etc. that regularly bust media propaganda. Validate any news report from multiple sources, and learn to read between the li(n)es – when media is hyping something, question what it is that they are hiding. Develop a discerning mind to understand the agenda of various news channels and media houses – NDTV, ABP News, Aaj Tak (India Today Group), Times Group, IBN, Indian Express, Hindustan Times are some of the most viscerally anti-Hindu media organizations around.  Yes, the situation is that grim.

Media is a tough business and the entry barriers are huge. Lack of awareness, knowledge and risk-taking ability in larger Hindu society also reflects in our business class not investing in this important area. When the Murthy family ends up funding a sophisticated Hinduphobe like Sheldon Pollock, one can well understand the deep rooted nature of the problem. But there are signs that a new narrative is emerging – it is the duty of each one of us who is aware to apprise others around them. This is not about supporting one political party or the other – it is a matter concerning the safety and well-being of Hindus everywhere. We must hit media where it hurts  – boycott of mainstream papers and TV channels which are biased against Hindus, while also supporting the emerging digital outlets can be an effective weapon in this information war.