AMENDRA K SINGH - ARTICLE

The Western media has, almost without exception, painted India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (‘BJP’) as a Hindu extremist party.

An increasingly common tactic of Western media is to use persons of Indian appearance, or with Hindu-sounding names, to write disparaging articles on India, Hindus and the BJP.

These scribes are contemptuously referred to by many non-Anglicised Indians as brown sepoys.

Brown sepoys almost invariably have a contempt for their own culture and civilisation; and/or make a living out of peddling vile against India and Hindus.

The latest hit-job by the Western media has been by the Australian tax-payer funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Avani Dias and Som Patidar have written an article, published on 10 March 2022, headed ‘How a Hindu warrior priest, whose fans include Craig Kelly, is climbing India's political ranks.’

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-10/hindu-warrior-priest-climbing-indias-political-ranks/100895598

The article has two principal themes:

a) That the BJP, and Yogi Adityanath’s (‘Yogi’) BJP led government in Uttar Pradesh (‘UP’), are hard-line Hindu extremists; and

b) That Muslims are being persecuted in India and particularly in UP.

There is no original investigative research in the article. It does not appear that the authors have interviewed anyone. Rather, the article appears to have selectively cut and pasted random quotes from various sources, freely available on the internet, to support its themes.

The piece contains no interviews with Yogi, any of his Ministers, any parliamentarians, party officials or party workers.

It also contains no objective content about Yogi or any insight into why UPites returned Yogi to power for a record second term.

It is a disgrace that Australian tax-payer dollars are being used to fund what is essentially propaganda masquerading as journalism.

I will now explain in detail why I have arrived at the view that I have.

What the article misses

Firstly, the article is notable more for what it omits to say about Yogi’s government, than what it says about it.

I spoke to several Hindi language journalists who traveled through UP during the elections. I also viewed more than 20 videos (in Hindi and English) and numerous articles about the UP election campaign and its results. Links to some of those can be found below.

The overwhelming consensus among Indian journalists across the board was that Yogi won primarily because of a combination of the following reasons:

• A phenomenal improvement in law and order (‘criminal gangs have been neutralized’; ‘Our wives and daughters can now walk on the streets at night without fear’).
• There have been no communal riots.
• The Pradhan Mantri Gareeb Kalyan Ann Yojana which provided free rations during the Covid pandemic to every poor household with basic necessities such as grains, pulses and cooking oil. The UP government claims this reached 150 million people.
• The state government complementing the Central government’s scheme of providing housing for the poor. The BJP claims that under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, 4.2 million houses have been built, while under the Mukhyamantri Awas Yojana, over 100,000 houses were built.
• Implementing schemes to bring and supply electricity to each village; and provide free electricity to the poor.
• Implementing schemes to bring tap water into each village.
• Implementing schemes to bring toilets into each house.
• Implementing the ujjwala scheme that provides free gas cylinders (and regulators) to every low-income household. The BJP claims that 16.7 million have benefitted under this scheme.
• Implementation of direct cash transfers into the bank accounts of the poor.
• Making speedy payments at record prices to sugarcane and other farmers.
• Providing direct payments to other farmers for items such as fertilizers.
• Incentives for education.
• Incentives for marriage of girls.
• UP having the highest number of tests and vaccinations; and being among those with the lowest positivity rates during the Covid epidemic. The UP government claims that it has administered the COVID-19 vaccine to 90 million people.
• The Yogi government ranks number 1 in implementing 44 central government schemes.
• Yogi is incorruptible.
• Yogi works long hours every day without a holiday.
• A broad cross-section of voters, cutting across caste, social/economic status and regions, voted for the BJP and its allies.

I could find no policy or scheme of the Yogi government (or the Modi-led Central government) discriminating against Muslims or other minorities.

The ABC article would have you believe that the only reason Yogi won is because the Hindu voter has suddenly become a Hindu supremacist.