Gauri Lankesh is no more. She was killed by yet unidentified assailants at her home in Bengaluru on the night of September 5. She was a Naxal sympathizer and was known for her attempts to bring the Leftist terrorists into the mainstream. The 55-year-old Lankesh was the editor of a Kannada weekly ‘Lankesh Patrike’ started by her late father P. Lankesh. Throughout her life, she remained a bitter critic of, what the Left calls, ‘Hindutva’ and Hinduism.
Her death further widened the chasm between the Left and the Right in India. As is generally the case, the Leftists, who have their hold on the media, chose to turn her death into a political weapon against the Right. This is why within hours of her death, even before the Police could say anything, the Left and Rahul Gandhi had branded the entire Right-wing as the killer.
There is a Godse in every street of this country. She received threat from every possible right wing group. Ashamed yet India ? https://t.co/4kiorDvMrA
— Rana Ayyub (@RanaAyyub) September 5, 2017
Investigating Gauri Lankesh’s assassination can expose Sangh terror networks like Abhinav Bharat. Sadly, no agency will conduct it.
— Shehla Rashid (@Shehla_Rashid) September 5, 2017
What happened to #GauriLankesh is not murder. It is terrorism. If u speak against the Sangh .. this will be your fate .
— Tehseen Poonawalla (@tehseenp) September 5, 2017
Anybody who speaks against the RSS/BJP is attacked &even killed. They want to impose only one ideology which is against the nature of India
— Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) September 6, 2017
Even now, the Leftists in the public space are championing everything Lankesh stood for and accusing the right-wing of killing her. One of them is NDTV’s journalist Ravish Kumar. A question raised by BJP’s IT cell head Amit Malviya on something Ravish Kumar said has now angered the Left so much that they are trying to use everything in their power to troll Malviya and defend Kumar. Logic be damned.
This is what Malviya tweeted. The tweet contains Malviya’s question and a clip from a video in which Kumar is heard appealing to “his party” to demand an apology.
In the clip Kumar is heard saying
“Jab tak yeh vyakti maafi nahin mangega, aur mein apne party ke logon se kehta hoon ki yeh nationalist hindutva, nationalist nahin hai. Yeh hum sabko ek nagrik ke taur pe apne pradhan mantri se maang karni chahiye.”
पत्रकार की कौन सी पार्टी होती है? pic.twitter.com/oUdqqkniLO
— Amit Malviya (@malviyamit) September 10, 2017
It translates to, “…as long as this man does not apologize, and I would like to tell the people of my party that these nationalist Hindutva are not nationalists. We should demand this from our PM as citizens.”
Malviya was trolled in a matter of minutes, with many claiming that video had been edited.
Kiyna giroge malviya? Thoda to sharam karo. Itni bhi kyq chatukarita? Patrakarita karo chatukarita nahi
— Rajesh Srivastava (@srivrajesh) September 10, 2017
Edited video! Shame! Teri ghatiya harkat kisi din tere bhaari padegi @malviyamit kuch sharam karo
— Rationalist (@BeRationalist) September 10, 2017
this is another lie against rvish . why bjp need lies to defend bjp.
— sgk (@sgkforyou) September 10, 2017
Kitna paisa milta hai khud ke jameer ko bechne ka… Itna bhi mat giro ki ek din khud ke nazar me bhi na uth paao…
— Nishant Balgovind (@balgovind81) September 11, 2017
It is likely that by the word “party” Kumar was referring to the media fraternity who had gathered at the Press Club to mourn Lankesh and condemn her killing. But did Malviya “malign” Kumar, as the Leftist media claims? Did Malviya not simply pose a question? A question is but a question and one can ask any question! Isn’t that what the Leftists claim as their democratic right?
What is more of a surprise is the speed with which the Left-wing jumped to Kumar’s defense. At least one Left-wing media house quickly posted an article claiming that his words were taken out of context. Defenders from the Left in the media and elsewhere claimed that Kumar was not referring to any political party as was being insinuated in Malviya’s tweet. Some of them shared the entire video in which Kumar is seen speaking clearly indicating that Kumar was speaking at the Press Club and addressing journalists.
But the full video raises a series of questions. In his entire speech, Kumar kept the focus on a tweet posted by one Nikhil Dadhich who allegedly rejoiced at the death of Lankesh and used abusive words. Kumar was furious that the PM follows such a handle.
In fact, for a couple of days after Lankesh’s killing the Left-dominated media was too busy discussing Dadhich instead of criticizing the law & order situation in Karnataka. There was hardly a condemnation of Congress party leader and the state’s Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in the same manner in which the Leftists media personalities accused Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for the deaths of children at a medical college in Gorakhpur.
Everything in Kumar’s speech was about Dadhich and the PM. “Why is the PM following Dadhich?” is what he asks constantly at different intervals in different ways.
Of course, Kumar condemned the division of the media fraternity in the name of ideologies and, at the beginning, spoke condescendingly against Siddaramaiah for failing to find the killers of Kalburgi. But immediately points out about the condition of journalists in BJP-ruled state of Maharashtra. And then he keeps condemning Dadhich, the PM and connected the “thought” to the killing of Gauri Lankesh.
“What kind of face of Hindutva is this in which someone rejoices in someone’s death and the uses abusive language?” he asks. And then he linked the right-wing mentality to those who did not speak on behalf of the two women because of whom Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh went to jail.
Kumar is absolutely right in condemning anyone who rejoices at someone’s death and uses abusive language for the departed. But what is more important for a journalist with years of experience to discuss at this juncture – the killing of Lankesh and the obviously deplorable law & order problem in Karnataka, or a sick tweet by a Twitter user who the PM follows?
If PM Modi is responsible for every state where the BJP is in power, why does the media not ask Rahul Gandhi about the state of affairs in Karnataka where Congress is in power? Hypocrisy or ideology or both?
Why is the dominant Left-wing in the media not talking about who killed Lankesh and is diverting the lens on an entirely insignificant issue? And how can anyone blame the PM for following a handle which tweets something sick?
More importantly, how can Kumar forget the killing of 21 journalists before the assassination of Lankesh? Why did he not once mention any of those names during his speech?
Where was his voice or the voices of the media fraternity, which went into an overdrive following Lankesh’s death but were silent when journalists were just being bumped off in other states?
Rudimentary search, of tweets on the TLs of some Indian journalists active on twitter, on the brutal murder of their fellow journalists: pic.twitter.com/AmmfsZLYlj
— Anand Ranganathan (@ARanganathan72) September 6, 2017
And why is there no outrage when the Leftists abuse and issue threats to the Right or non-Left with impunity over Twitter? Why is it always a one-way street: the Leftists in the media claiming victimhood?
Who is responsible for this threat to my family & me ? Would you dare to write about this?
@ndtv @suhasinih @ajitanjum @JantaKaReporter pic.twitter.com/M2nfZV4G7z— Nikhil Dadhich (@nikhildadhich) September 7, 2017
He’s threatening to harm my children. सोच रहा है मैं डर जाउंगी! @OntarioChandiga pic.twitter.com/GR1X1R8jww
— Priti Gandhi (@MrsGandhi) September 7, 2017
With college dropouts chasing me, how could a school dropout not feel left out. Here he comes. He dribbles for the Express, apparently. pic.twitter.com/Y9ZSO1d4ZG
— Anand Ranganathan (@ARanganathan72) September 8, 2017
And where are the voices when the leaders from other parties and their loyalists (with verified Twitter handles) use gutter language with elected parliamentarians and the PM?
2.Incase you missed them, @mvadera, let me share the crass tweets Tehseen sent to @smritiirani. Awaiting your reaction on the same!! pic.twitter.com/OiHvuaPxzD
— Priti Gandhi (@MrsGandhi) September 7, 2017
Not mine but couldn’t help posting it. My apologies to the person concerned. He is the best in the “Art of Fooling!” pic.twitter.com/6BGz3lFtcf
— digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) September 8, 2017
Digvijaya Singh even defended the abusive meme by claiming that he “disowns it” and he “does not endorse this”. Not one liberal champion in the media condemned Singh’s tweet probably because abusing the PM is freedom of speech but calling out the lies of the Left is an affront to democracy.
इनके ट्वीट पे कोई सवाल या विवाद नहीं होगा. क्योंकि इनको @narendramodi फ़ॉलो नहीं करते?? pic.twitter.com/LCQ6UFzz4K
— Rohit Sardana (@sardanarohit) September 8, 2017
It becomes even more apparent when the Congress leader tweeted a fake news about Kumar allegedly insulting the PM in the speech delivered at Press Club. Truth is that Kumar did not insult the PM, so Singh deleted his tweet and even issued an apology to Kumar.
Will Ravish Kumar ask @digvijaya_28 why is he spreading rumors? pic.twitter.com/m4GNJC9Yfv
— Rahul Raj (@bhak_sala) September 8, 2017
रवीश ने प्रधान मंत्री के प्रति कोई अपशब्द का उपयोग नहीं किया यूट्यूब पर जो रवीश का भाषण था वह मैंने ट्वीट किया था। रवीश जी क्षमा करें।
— digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) September 8, 2017
During his speech, Kumar said that “some of us wearing black coats are pushing this country into issues that pit the Hindus against Muslims at 9 pm”. It was Kumar’s way of taking a shot at his own rivals in the media. In 2016 his channel, NDTV, aired a few minutes of ‘black screen’ as a way to show the “sad state of media”. The timing of the show – late February, to be precise – was important because that same month chants of ‘Bharat Tere Tukde Honge‘ were raised inside the JNU triggering a row that has since deepened the ideological divide in the country. In his show, Kumar sanctimoniously claimed that the media was dead because of “angry news anchors”, a reference to Arnab Goswami, who was then with Times Now, the channel which extensively talked about the JNU row and the extreme Leftist ideology which is hell-bent upon breaking India. Never before had NDTV aired a ‘black screen’.
A lot more questions come to one’s mind when we toe Kumar’s understanding of morality and ‘fake news’, something he mentioned during the speech.
Why was the Congress leader Salman Nizami not condemned by the Left for his fake claim that Gurmeet Singh was airlifted in the chopper used by Adani and connecting it to the PM?
Why is former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhat not criticized by the Leftist journalists for his shameful insult of martyrs by using their death toll to serve further his political ideology? Had a BJP sympathizer posted this, the media would have hounded him.
UPA: 171 soldiers killed in 10 yrs-17.1 per annum
NDA: 721 soldiers killed in 3 yrs-240 per annum
Bhakt: NaMo is 1400% more effective!:D
— Sanjiv Bhatt (IPS) (@sanjivbhatt) September 11, 2017
Why is it that only the people and not the Leftist media condemn the abusive language used by leaders of other parties?
And where did Kumar’s journalistic morals disappear when his own brother Brajesh Pandey, a Congress leader, was accused in a sex scandal? Pandey had to resign from the Congress in February 2017. Kumar’s defenders claimed that he cannot be held responsible for his brother’s alleged actions. True, but then how can the defenders hold the PM responsible for a Twitter user’s action? Where did the logic go this time?
Truth is that hypocrisy is what the Leftist media is a champion of. It is this one-sidedness which has angered the right-thinking (not right-wing) people of the society who simply want to see a powerful and united India. By telling one-sided tales, shaming Hindus, Hindu practices and Hindu traditions, and hiding the crimes when they are committed by a particular community, the Left-dominated media does the greatest disservice to both the nation and the profession.
Way to go @Chhabiy pic.twitter.com/VRxsx0S3lp
— Nupur (@UnSubtleDesi) September 8, 2017
And now let’s take look at Lankesh’s past and why the Left is accusing the right-wing of killing her without a shred of evidence.
Such was Lankesh’s hate against the Hindu religion that in 2012 she outright rejected it as a religion. “It is a system of hierarchy in society. Women are treated as second class creatures,” she was quoted as saying.
That her support for Naxal terrorists was opposed by even her brother is now known to all. She voiced her opinion through her own weekly called ‘Gauri Lankesh Patrike’ which she started after the fallout with her brother over ideology.
But you’d probably be amazed to know that such was her absolute hate for Brahminism that it cost her a friendship of 35 years. Actor Prakash Belawadi (of ‘Madras Café’ fame) ended the friendship when Lankesh made a casteist remark after the former joined the BJP as its media advisor.
“Even in a friendship, the lines are drawn. If you refer to a person’s caste, you cross the line,” Belawadi had told Bangalore Mirror, adding, “If you think it is so easy – you are not my friend if you vote for a particular party – it trivializes and cheapens that friendship.”
But what had Lankesh said that made Belawadi so upset? The Mirror report also quotes Lankesh commenting on the incident:
“I thought he shared my secular values. I am not a Congress supporter, but I don’t like the BJP’s divisive policies and communal governments. Given Modi’s history and the BJP government, which was the state’s worst in Karnataka, I was shocked that Prakash became the BJP’s media advisor.”
“I asked him why he was advising the BJP. He said he wanted to oppose the Congress. I said that is not enough reason to support Modi and I said this is when the wretched Brahminism in people comes out. He said it is time to part ways and ‘unfriended’ me.”
Read that again, Lankesh used the phrase “wretched Brahminism”. According to Lankesh, every Hindu who supports BJP is a “wretched” Brahmin. It is exactly this insult which Belawadi referred to as “crossing the line”.
If the insult of a Dalit is insult how can then the insult of a Brahmin not be seen as an insult? Politics, certainly but it is this one-sided hate-filled agenda against Hindus, supported by the left-wing intelligentsia and a select coterie of influential journalists in India, which has resulted in deep divisions in the society.
In the light of the speech delivered by Ravish Kumar, one is reminded of the 12 tweets of senior journalist Mohan Sinha on the media’s behavior following Gauri Lankesh’s assassination. The first two are very important for every true journalist to note:
2. How did you guys conclude that “fascist forces” were behind it? Did you have proof, evidence, eyewitness accounts? Or screw the truth?
— Mohan Sinha (@Mohansinha) September 6, 2017