India Archive

A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that a grand statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose will be installed at India Gate on the occasion of his 125th birth anniversary, British author and journalist Tunku Varadarajan tried to tarnish the image of India’s iconic freedom fighter.

Popular video streaming and production company, Netflix, has recently witnessed a massive slump in the growth of its subscriber base. This has led to a slow start at the onset of the year and a fall of 21.79% in share value to $397.50 as of January 21, 2022.

On December 10, a man named Anil Arora was arrested in Punjab for allegedly hurting the sentiments of the Sikh community by making derogatory remarks against Shri Guru Nanak Dev Ji and his father, Kalyan Chand Das Bedi. Arora was arrested from Panchkula, Haryana, on the intervening night of December 8 and December 9. The arrest pertains to a Clubhouse discussion, a voice-based social media app, where Anil Arora ended up making certain statements after provocation from several Khalistanis abusing Hindus.

Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan, Congress’ latest favorite Maulana who has bayed for Hindu blood in the recent past has now threatened a TV anchor because he failed to answer some tough questions posed to him. In an interview with News18 India TV anchor Aman Chopra, Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan threatened to cause bodily harm simply because he was unable to answer the questions posed to him.

On January 20, Gurpatwant Singh Pannu of the Khalistani terrorist organization Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) released a video urging “Kashmiri Freedom Fighters” to ‘leave valley – reach Delhi’ to sabotage Republic Day. SFJ’s Pannu has called the anti-India separatists and terrorists “freedom fighters” in the video and the statement was on the line of Pakistan’s ISI’s call of ‘now or never’ for Khalistan.

Earlier this month I spent a five days in South Gujarat, specifically Surat and Bharuch where I got to speak to a young woman Pooja (name changed), who had been the victim of grooming jihad herself when she was a minor. She put her faith in me and narrated her ordeal in hopes that her story will perhaps help other victims to get courage that there is still hope.

Bharuch, on the mouth of river Narmada, is about 200 km from Ahmedabad. I have very early memories of visiting the place with family. My grandmother was born and brought up in Bharuch and I have grown up hearing stories of how she had seen Gandhiji walk towards the Dandi beach on the historic Salt March in 1930.

To be on the wrong side of history is a choice – more so when the attempts to reclaim an invader identity are unapologetic. Be it inventing fictional military commanders in his cavalry to claiming false religious associations with forts built by him, the attempts to paint Chhatrapati Shivaji a ‘secular’ king have come a long way. For the unabashed Chhatrapati of the Hindavi Swarajya that he was, Shivaji Maharaj was no bigot.

Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth, said Hitler’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. Though there are many opinions on who exactly said these words, the words are a depressing and scary reality. A blatant lie, often garbed in attires of nuance, perspective and doubt, often does end up becoming the widely believed truth.

In this tweet by Saba Naqvi, she talks of articles on her by Media. Saba Naqvi is hailed as a so-called ‘secular’ journalist. However, her reality is horrific and another full proper article is needed to expose her true face.