Somehow all this responsibility goes for a toss if a Muslim couple were to claim something similar. Recall how allegations of many Muslim men who cla… - Rahul Roushan

Similarly, in June 2019, in the Hauz Qazi area of Delhi, a Muslim mob had attacked Hindu shops and homes as well as vandalized an old Durga Mandir, after a fight over parking space turned ugly and communal. The mainstream media not only decided to downplay the incident, especially the desecration of the temple part, they entirely ignored the wails of a poor Hindu couple whose son had gone missing for over a day. The parents had filed a police complaint for their missing son and insisted that their son was kidnapped by Muslims. The mother was crying inconsolably while the father threatened to commit suicide if his son was not traced. Despite a police complaint and parents sobbing right in front of them, no mainstream media journalist reported about their claims. The incident came to light via social media, and subsequently some ‘pro Hindu’ publications, including OpIndia, picked it up after talking to the parents and having a look at the FIR. Later, when the son was traced and found to be safe, the mainstream media journalists behaved as if their decision to ignore the incident was justified and ‘responsible’. They claimed that they were waiting for verification and confirmation from the police and did not want to worsen an already volatile environment. So responsible!

In such a scenario, responsible journalism meant airing reports about how the lives of common people were being negatively impacted by the VHP drama. It also meant airing reports that argued that people didn’t care about mandir politics. It would have been the best to air reports about Hindu–Muslim unity to show how the VHP didn’t have any popular support and how they were dividing people... The local reporter had sent a report about some Muslim garland sellers who used to supply garlands to a few temples in Ayodhya. The report claimed that these garland sellers had been doing this job over many generations and they didn’t want their work to suffer. In fact, the handwritten report claimed that the garland sellers didn’t want to stop serving the Hindu temples, as they apparently derived some divine pleasure from it. Do note that what was aired was fabrication and manipulation, but it was a fair thing to do because in our minds we were acting responsibly. I had essentially helped create a fake Hindu–Muslim harmony story, similar to the various stories I had grown up hearing. This is how a particular narrative is kept alive. You don’t even realize that you become an active player in keeping this narrative alive. The story was aired multiple times on the TV channel. It was a script I had written and it had my voice-over too. Again, I received rewards that come naturally when you toe a particular line. That’s how the system itself is designed to perpetuate a particular narrative.

This was because his haters, like always, were hyperactive in shielding Muslim aggression, and ended up exposing the double standards of Indian secularism. Not only that, they elicited reactions that made an average secular Hindu feel like an ‘Internet Hindu’. The Hindu identity in me too was triggered due to these incidents.