On one hand, Ravish Kumar talked about how journalist and news channels are turning communal for their personal advantage and promoting communalism. On the other hand, he said "Earlier mob used to target Muslims, even now muslims are targeted but now even hindus are getting caught and killed by Mob". He also said that these mobs are of communal nature.
If we believe media houses Mob lynching is becoming a new normal in our country. While changing news channels we see “breaking news” flashing on screens and reporters telling about the incident. News channels decorate any incident in a way which could result in maximum TRP for their channels. Whether it is any scandal or any law order problem, it will be topped with communal touch, as it is evidently trending these days.
A journalist in any country has a responsibility of revealing the truth to all and not letting people be misguided. One of the very responsible prime time news anchor, Mr. Ravish Kumar, who claims to be non-communal, has said two very different things at the same time. On one hand, he talked about how journalist and news channels are turning communal for their personal advantage and promoting communalism. On the other hand, Ravish Kumar in his show said: "Earlier mob used to target Muslims, even now Muslims are targeted but now even Hindus are getting caught and killed by Mob". He also said that these mobs are of communal nature. His statement itself is communal and biased because these statements are baseless and not true.
Ravish Kumar clearly meant that these are Hindu mobs which have been created by Hindutva outfits supported by BJP to target Muslims. And he is certainly blaming BJP government for increased mob violence. We tried to dig deeper into this issue. Ravish Kumar's argument falls flat when Scientist and writer Anand Ranganathan pointed out on twitter about the instances of mob violence in 2016 when mob belonged to the Muslim community.
2016. Just 1 year. Instances of mob violence where the mob belonged to the Muslim community. [Please read the accompanying note.] pic.twitter.com/RVpcLt7PHM
— Anand Ranganathan (@ARanganathan72) June 27, 2017
Ravish Kumar consistently pointed out that this mob justice is a new phenomenon created by political party mainly BJP in recent years. Probably he has never heard of mob violence before 2014.
As per NDTV's report Awanish Kumar, HR manager at Maruti was killed by a mob in 2012. In the same year enraged workers of a private firm, Regency Ceramics, lynched its president K C Chandrashekhar after their union leader died following a lathi-charge by police.
Three youths were lynched in 2013 in Assam's Sonitpur district by villagers, driven by rumours of "dark and nude men" reportedly molesting women at night as reported by TOI.
In September 2009, an unmarried 37-year-old woman and her 60-year-old mother were killed by a mob of villagers on suspicion that they were Daayans, or witches. Witch-hunting is common among Dalits and other minority communities which sometimes result in mob lynching also. 2,097 such cases had been reported between 2000-12. Such kind of violence cannot be termed as communal as these practices can be seen in various
part of countries.
We pointed out these cases to highlight the fact that even though Mob lynching news has apparently increased but it is not something alien to us and which we got aware of only after BJP government.
However, it is true that mob lynching incidents related to cow vigilance have increased after 2014. According to reports, in the years 2010-2017, the maximum numbers of mob lynching incidents related to cow vigilance is reported in 2017.
At the same time, saying mob lynching is communal will not be true. One of the first widely reported instances of mob lynching based on bovine issues in recent times was based on a rumour of cow slaughter in 2002, where five Dalits from Haryana were lynched by a frantic crowd.
A new case of mob lynching was seen in Assam, two youths Nilotpal Das and Abhijeet Nath, while on a visit to the Kanthilangsho waterfall in the Karbi Anglong district were attacked by a crowd on the suspicion of being ‘child lifters’ and brutally killed on June 8. Indicating this incident Ravish Kumar said, now HINDUS are also getting caught and killed by Mob. However, Ravish Kumar forgot that this was not the first instance where Hindus were killed by Mob. Ravish Kumar should understand that the mob has no religion and they don't see religion before lynching.
Lynching has also occurred during riots or has been the instigating cause of riots (for instance in Muzzarfarnagar as well as in Kokrajhar). The barbaric caste system is the most glaring example of such acts of violence.
In the same show, while reporting Tanvi Shah's passport controversy Ravish Kumar showed the interview of Tanvi Shah and her husband while completely ignoring the other side of the story. He accused the passport officer Vikash Mishra of hate crime and termed him a bigot. He is clearly accusing BJP of spreading communal divide through WhatsApp and news channel and this passport officer is a victim of such propaganda being run by BJP. He also said that Vikash was not aware that Sushma Swaraj will not help him for his bigotry due to constitutional norms. Indirectly Ravish Kumar is trying to Say Sushma Swaraj helped Tanvi because she couldn't have publically supported a bigot created by her own party.
It is very unfortunate that journalist like Ravish Kumar is passing judgments in their show instead of reporting the news.
Update: One of our readers pointed out that the show was aired before Vikash Mishra's interview. We verified it and found that show was aired at least 8 hours after the officer's interview. ANI UP shared the tweet quoting Vikash Mishra at 12:41pm on 21st June while the show was aired at 9 pm on the same day.
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It often happens with us all, that we hear news, sometimes it sound unusual, sometimes we also know that this news can’t be true but because the news is all over the place, we eventually believe it. How many of you have heard news about mob lynchi...
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