On 11th May 2016, a video was released by Reuters showing few members of a rightwing political ( so-called Hindu protector) organization, holding a spiritual ritual in the streets of New Delhi and praying Hindu Gods to let Donald Trump win. Donald Trump is leading the Presidential primaries for Republicans and supposedly holds strong anti-Muslim agenda which help him to get considered as the rising star in the eyes of some of the blind Hindu supporters ( or say anti-Muslim supporters). Since then, this news spread like the fire in the jungle and has been covered by hundreds of newspapers and media channels from all over the world. According to an article published by Storypick, the number of supporters involved in this campaign was only 12.
Image Source
Though most of the popular media houses described this news as a “supportive campaign” by an Individual Hindu group. The Washington Post decided to take a different path and titled this news in such a way that it appeared targeting all Indian Hindus as the supporters of Donald Trump.
Here is the snapshot of the headline by The Washington Post:
Dear Washington Post, Do you think that being a Hindu ( let’s put it this way just for the sake of simplification ), am I offended by your headline? No! at least, not me.
But I really feel sorry for you for being so accurately incorrect. Or, was it just to get viral visits on your website? Being an established and hugely popular daily newspaper since 1877, I don’t think this should be the perfect reason for you. So, the most satisfactory reason appears to be this:
“You are either misinformed or misguided.”
The Hindu population is over 1 Billion in the whole world and almost 95% of Hindus lives in India only. I am not denying that there must be some Muslim haters in India similar to haters of every other religion in every other part of the world but it doesn’t mean we ( again considering myself as a Hindu for the simplicity) all hate Muslims and then how many of us do you really think even know that Donald Trump is an anti-Muslim leader ? Okay, leave it. just tell me how many of us have even heard of this name “Donald Trump” ? India’s literacy rate is still not that high that we all Hindus can afford to discuss and taking interests in the politics of other countries. But yes, if you would have made a funny film on him, there might be a chance that he could really be that popular in India as perceived 🙂
Image Source: Irish Mirror
And let me say this quite frankly. In India, McDonald’s is still way more popular than Mr. Donald and I think that may be a big reason that many Indians are supporting him just because they think that perhaps he is the real McDonald’s. In fact, they both look happy and funny. Isn’t it? ( you know that I am kidding. Right? )
Image Source: Daily Finance
Now, let’s talk little about this so-called “Hindu Sena” group. This is a self-proclaimed group of Hindu Protectors, being headed by Vishnu Gupta, the founder and national president of this group who is infamously known for his Radical Hinduism and intolerance towards Secular and anti-Hindu forces. According to Wikipedia, he has been detained several times since 2011 due to his protests against secular and Islamists in India and because of his involvements in many anti-social activities. Are you saying that he represents ( we) all Hindus, just because he prays Hindu Gods and speaks against Muslims? Then what’s the psychological difference between you and those who believe that “Islam” is the religion of terrorism, just because there are few Muslims who kill others in the name of God “Allaah” ?
Are you saying that this guy represents ( we) all Hindus, just because he prays Hindu Gods and speaks against Muslims? Then please tell me, what’s the intellectual difference between you and those who believe that “Islam” is the religion of terrorism, just because there are few Muslims who kill others in the name of God “Allaah” ?
Let’s look at the headlines of the articles published by many other popular publications houses for the same story.
BBC writes:
India Hindu group prays for Donald Trump win
The Wall Street Journal answers:
Why an Indian Hindu Group Is Praying for Donald Trump’s Victory
Time writes:
Right-Wing Hindus in India Are Calling Donald Trump the ‘Lone Protector of Mankind’
The Huffington Post India writes:
Hindu Outfit Prays For Donald Trump At Jantar Mantar, Hopes He Will Go To War With Pakistan
At least, these publications didn’t appear to target all Indian Hindus for this. Now let’s look at the Washington Post story again ( here is the link ). At the time of writing this post, there are total 13 comments under this article and all of them are hate messages against each other’s religion. This is how one bad story impacts our society. It didn’t mean that all haters will stop hating if we won’t provoke them but it’s just that, this kind of misleading story surely gives rise to the number of haters.
Vimlendu Jha, the well-known environmentalist and the founder of organization “Green the Gap” reacts to this story:
The Media Professional, writer, and Twitter Influencer Harini Calamur tweets:
AP should realise that 12 of out 827 n Hindus is 0.000000145%. #BasicMaths
Most of the rest couldn’t care lesshttps://t.co/mv5cTe6c4D— Harini Calamur (@calamur) May 12, 2016
The Washington Post has again published an article on the same topic but with a different title at this link. This time, the title is :
Hindu nationalist group says ‘only Donald Trump can save humanity’
These two stories, both run by The Washington Post and both covering the same topic have mainly two differences. One is, of course, the headlines and the other is the fact that one of these two articles has inserted a copyright note at the end of the article stating that all rights are reserved and this material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Guess which version of the story has the copyright notice at the end?
Note: This story has been written in an unbiased way and we don’t hold any grudges against any religion, media houses or even the thought process but we have all rights to disagree with it.
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