Heres are a few good examples of how the media especially from the left which claims to be at the forefront of anti-Racism suddenly reincarnate into Churchill with the British Raj syndrome when it comes to India and those damn pagan savage Hindus .
Hi, The Independent,
We came across one of your articles today Elderly Muslim man beaten and has beard shaved by men chanting Hindu slogans. In that article it says,
‘The Independent could not confirm the authenticity of the videos.’
but you still end up publishing it? what type of policy is that?. So anyone makes up any hinduphobic articles against POC Hindus so it’s ok, is it? So you want to see conflicts in the streets of London between Muslims and Hindus after pushing something you can’t even prove if it’s really true ?
Further in the article its claimed ‘ He says the men forced him to shout Hindu nationalist slogan “Jai Shri Ram” (glory to Lord Ram, a Hindu deity).’ Since when has the ancient religious slogan ‘Jai Shri Ram” become a ‘Hindu nationalist slogan ‘ ?
Do even do your research or you just find a convenient colonized brown hinduphobic native to cover up your own Hinduphobic racism? We even protested outside the Independent back around 2002-3 because of the
one-sided hinduphobic reports from your paper .
The weekend Editor then had assured us then he will look into it , But nothing changed but got worse over the years and recently has gone overdrive since the Covid Situation in India with even some news
stories about Hindus having cow dung baths where you didn’t have the decency to point out this is not all Hindus let alone use the Hindu label in it. There’s been murders of Hindus by right wing Islamists did you publish them also ?.
It takes one back to the time when some of us use to get racist taunts for eating curry as it ‘stinks’ according to the racists. That’s the type of narratives your paper puts out on Hindus that racists can attack Hindus with .
We want a response from your editorial team on the policy on India and Hindu-related stories and the Hinduphobia your push out including the one mentioned and on your one-sided and the many other hinduphobic articles. We are ready to meet up to discuss this further .
We will take further action including about your papers undertone hinduphobic racism if our grievances are not taken seriously.
Thanks HHR
The Independents Reply,
I was very sorry to receive your complaint about this article, not least as you suggest that The Independent has an anti-Hindu agenda. I can assure you in the strongest terms that this is not the case. We have no religious affiliations, not any religious agenda, and we do our best to cover events as even handedly as we are able.
There are times when we make mistakes, and there are times when readers are upset and annoyed by our coverage because of its content – often as much as by the way it is reported. But I think it is only fair to say that this does not constitute religious bigotry on our part.
In terms of the story in question about Abdul Samad Saifi, it strikes me that the author has been at pains to use the term’s ‘alleged’ and ‘claimed’, and has not taken the allegations as fact. When I read the story it seemed clear to me that the author was trying to convey the fact that while the attack appears to be being presented as a religious one, that is not yet proven. This is reinforced by the statement at the end of the story from the police spokesperson, which would tend to suggests it was a personal, and not a religious matter. That it looked like, or was made to look like, a religiously motivated attack, seems to me to be beyond question. And given that the video relating to the attack has gone viral, on social media, and the issues it raises (or appears to raise), it strikes me there is a clear public interest in reporting this.
As far as the words ‘Hindu nationalist slogan’ are concerned, I will discuss with the author of the article their reason for using that term, and come back to you on that point.
I am genuinely sorry if you feel that The Independent has had an agenda for the past couple of decades. I am at a loss to understand that given my own, personal experience with colleagues who I have found without exception to be unbiased – and at pains to make efforts to be so.
However, I also recognise that I am not an expert, and nor am I a Hindu, so I may not be attuned to examples of our published work that might cause offence. I can, however, commit to investigating any complaints you raise about articles and, where we may have got things wrong, we will do what we can to correct them.
The Independent
HHR’s reply
Hi , Thanks for the reply but again you totally miss the point. So basically a hired Indian journalist in India pushes a story with no proof which according to the latest reports turned out to be false but instead, the guy was beaten up by a mixed group of Muslims and Hindus for selling a religious pendant called a tabeez which is meant to have according to their beliefs some magical power so they can win the lottery but didn’t work. But by magic the reporter who according to you ‘has been at pains to use the term’s ‘alleged’ and ‘claimed’, and has not taken the allegations as fact’ So the independent still reports it . ? What type of Newspaper standards is that?
Right, I’ve heard that allegedly and it claimed that ‘Hindu Nationalists’ are planning to poison everyone’s Curry with poisonous cow dung pellets in the UK as ordered by Furer Modi’ ‘So can we print that in the Independent as it took me great pains to use the terms alleged and claimed’ But it will definitely get massive public readership interest so lets print it away because who cares about those pagan savages and their millions of Gods ? .
And to make things worse you are now going to ask the very same journalist about the Jai Sri Ram Slogan when there are nearly a million Hindus here in the UK with 400 Hindus temples? So the independent is going to start to police us in what Hindu religious mantra or slogan we use ?
This hired journalist is definitely pushing a political agenda which the independent is also pushing once you read all the other one-sided stories which are Hinduphobic going back for nearly 2 decades which is why we protested outside it in 2003.
Thanks HHR
Independents Reply
Hi HHR,
I have spoken to my colleagues in India, and they inform me that, > while clearly religious in origin, this slogan has increasingly taken on nationalist connotations in recent years. I also understand > from them that this has been widely reported by many other media in > different parts of the world. They have provided me with several
examples of this. It’s simply incorrect that our journalists have any political or religious motivation. They wrote this report given the best information available to them at the time and in good faith. For this, and the reasons already outlined below, I do not believe that this story requires amendment.
The Independent
HHR’s Reply
So you have spoken to some ‘colleagues’ in India who have confirmed to you that ‘Jai Sri Ram’ is used within the context of so-called ‘nationalism’ because the proof is they told you so and provided proof from various hinduphobic media across the world. So what next Hindus are to be policed on the streets of London just in case they say ‘Jai Sri Ram’ to their Ram deity next? So what you going to tell us next that the hundreds of Indians shot to death during the Jallianwala Bagh massacre under the orders of Reginald Dyer doesn’t prove he was a racist or imperialist because it was Indian soldiers who did the shooting? You avoided the points made in our previous reply, and before that, you admit you have no clue about Hinduism but even then justified some ‘questionable colleagues’ in India who already have pushed an article via your newspaper with no solid proof but that’s ok because it adds more hinduphobia to what’s already out there, so who cares ? What type of newspaper standards is that ?
And also to remind you that with the extreme rise of Hinduphobia in the UK which the Independent itself is guilty of and often leads to incidents like this in the link as reported by the daily mail next door to The Independent itself.
also in India Today
We are going to take this much further as your replies are the proof of why The Independent is Hinduphobic and has a long history of it just like most of the media/academia who suffer from institutional hinduphobic racism even if they are not always aware of it.
Even the Guardian recently published an article with ‘Hindu Taliban’ in the title that’s like saying ‘Jewish Nazis’ when Hindus were victims of the Taliban.. But who gives a damn right , because its
Hindus ?
Outside the guardian last year https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVXo8WohmqI
And in the future, we might just turn up at your offices again to hear from your editorial team what you ‘privileged whites’ with your colonised brown native hire from India know about us POC uncivilized savages who chant Jai Sri Ram ? Because you know, you know us better than even we know us, so we need to hear it directly.So keep the chai and pakoras ready.
Remember we did a protest outside your other HQ around 2003 where the weekend editorial team begged us to take down the hinduphobia racism banner outside.
We will show your team how these news reports like yours give more ammo directly and indirectly to the already extreme hate narratives of Hindus built originally around western colonial imperialistic 19th-century race theories and Abrahamic supremacist hate of all ‘Pagans’ Heathens’ which include Hindus .
We as kids or in our teens who had to face racist violent attacks from the national front and BNP nazi skinheads and other racists on the streets, with our parents being attacked and abused , house windows being bricked and seeing people we know violently attacked and even killed, know that it all starts with a narrative that eventually
ignites the hate in the first place.
And the independent regardless of its claims of being anti-racist is partially guilty of itself even if they’re not aware of it themselves with the type of articles they put out against Hindus. So we are ready to have a fair debate with the Independent or anyone in the media publically to prove us wrong if they can on our stand.
We are adding a few MPs here so they see what type of excuses we have dealt with from the media for nearly 20 years( The Evening Standard had to issue a public apology to us in 2005) which leads to extreme hate and racism against POC Hindus.
Thanks HHR
