Newslaundry, the far-left propaganda outlet, was up to its usual tricks recently. This time, while having a go at BJP leader Manoj Tiwari for a comment he made during the run up to the Bihar elections, Newslaundry could not stop itself from denigrating a Hindu tradition in the process. Atul Chaurasia of Newslaundry claimed during a recent video for the media outlet’s YouTube channel that ‘vulgar acting’ has always been a part of Ramlila.
He said, “Manoj Tiwari has always been a great example of eccentricity. Some days back, he was performing the role of Angad at the Ramlila in Ayodhya. Vulgar acting has always been the secret to Ramlila’s lasting popularity for hundreds of years.” He continued, “It is a source of immense laughter. Otherwise Ramlilas would have gone extinct. On the metric of vile acting, Manoj Tiwari passed with flying colours. But the manner in which he mixed vile politics with his words, if Ramlilas can save themselves from it, then their influence in public life will get even stronger.”
Needless to say, criticising politicians is completely fine in any Democracy. However, far-left propagandists have made it a habit of targeting Hindu traditions while giving every other religion a free pass. As the current incident demonstrates, they go out of their way to denigrate Hindu traditions even when there is no obvious reason to do so. No one has a problem if Manoj Tiwari is criticised and as a politician, he ought to be. However, in the process, Newslaundry makes sure that even Hindu traditions are dragged through the mud.
The Newslaundry anchor also did not appear to be aware that Ramlila occurred in Treta Yuga as he proclaimed that the great war occurred during the Dwapara Yuga. In fact, it was the Mahabharata that occurred in the Dwapara Yuga, not the Ramayana. However, Chaurasia appears to be clueless about that fact. Worse, no one in the media outlet appears to have realised the massive error either. It isn’t clear why denigrating Ramlila was necessary since the matter at hand hardly had anything to do with the dramatic enactment of the Ramayana but the narrator appears to have gone ahead with it anyway.
It only goes on to show how clueless they are about Hindu culture and tradition. That, however, does not stop them from pontificating on every matter under the Sun. In the same episode, Chaurasia also attempted to whitewash the Nikita Tomar murder case. He claimed that there was no religious motivation for the crime and it was strictly a law and order issue.
The family of Nikita Tomar have clearly said that the murderer, Tauseef, wanted her to convert to Islam and marry him which she refused. Not merely that, Tauseef’s mother told Nikita Tomar to convert to Islam as well. Nikita was not willing to go do any of it following which Tauseef murdered her in broad daylight. Newslaundry wants us to believe that there was no religious motivation behind the incident at all.
It is not the first time that Newslaundry has gone out of its way to spread canards about the Hindu faith or whitewash the crimes of Islamists. In the aftermath of the Delhi riots, it claimed that there was no attack on any Temple and OpIndia was spreading fake news over the matter after they had visited a Temple themselves and their own reporting showed that there had been, in fact, an attack on a Temple.
In the past, one of the columnists for the website, Sharjeel Usmani, glorified Islamist Shahrukh, accused of opening fire at Delhi Police during the anti-Hindu riots at the national capital. Previously, he had openly subscribed to the secessionist ideology of Sharjeel Imam, who had urged Muslims to cut off North-East India from the rest of the country by blocking the Chicken’s Neck. Sharjeel Usmani was arrested but was released on bail due to his ‘good academic record’.
Another Newslaundry columnist, Jas Oberoi, had decided to exploit the death of the father of a social media user in order to peddle his propaganda against the construction of a Bhavya Ram Mandir at Ayodhya.