Twisting Facts and Narratives

Immediately after the Odisha train tragedy, when the minds were the most vulnerable, why was an attempt made to feed the conspiracy theory angle?

- Apoorvanand

HINDU minds are under attack. They are being assaulted relentlessly, 24x7, by TV channels, YouTubers, print media and other social media platforms. They are not necessarily connected with each other, nor are they acting under a central command, but what they are doing separately, independent of each other, in a decentralised manner, is driven by a common objective-to fill Hindu minds with hatred for Muslims and Christians, scare them into a state where they feel being under threat from these communities and also with a sense of historical and cultural victimhood. It also aims to give them a sense of supremacy which is not properly recognised by many Hindus who are lambasted as left liberals or seculars. No occasion is spared.

Take for example the news of the train accident near Balasore in Odisha. It sent shockwaves across India and also abroad. The first normal human reaction was silence. The sheer numbers and the freak nature of the accident left people stunned. But, I am wrong. Not all in our country have remained normal human beings.

Immediately after the accident, posts started circulating on different platforms of social media which indicated that there were conspiracies behind the accident. One of the posts said that it could not be a coincidence that it was a Friday, another post cropped a photograph of a religious place near the site of the accident, calling it a mosque, indicating that there must be a connection between this 'mosque' and the accident. It was later discovered by fact-checkers like Md Zubair that the structure was actually an ISCON temple and not a mosque. But the handle which had posted it brazed it out adding further that the areas near the accident site were populated by Rohingyas.