The PFI conducted a hate parade at Malappuram, Kerala where men dressed as RSS workers were demonstrated as being paraded on the streets in chains. The demonstration was carried to mark the ‘centenary celebrations’ of the Moplah massacre. Now, India Today has rushed to their defence in order to absolve them of guilt.
India Today has published a ‘fact check’ to inform everyone that the people paraded in the streets in RSS uniform were not actually RSS members and PFI only made their own members dress up in RSS uniform for the event. Ironically, no prominent individual made the claim that the men were actually RSS members. The ‘Anti Fake News War Room’ (AWRA) of India Today appears to have scourged the depths of the internet in order to find suitable posts it could use to whitewash the hate parade by PFI.
Shockingly enough, India Today finds nothing wrong with the demonstration at all. It appears that it is perfectly acceptable for them that Islamists are parading men in RSS uniforms in chains. The ‘fact check’ subtly insinuates that there is nothing wrong with PFI’s actions as no actual RSS members were involved.
The fact-check states, “Two men wearing colonial-era British uniforms also have their hands tied and are paraded by the group dressed in traditional Malabar Muslim attire and carrying PFI flags.” It is further evident that no serious person would believe that actual RSS members were involved given that men wearing colonial-era British uniform could also be seen. It is no surprise then that India Today managed to pick the most obscure of social media accounts to peddle their ‘fact check’.
It is also pertinent to note that India Today has carried no other reports on the incident as per our knowledge. Thus, the editors appear to have thought hard on how to cover the story without compromising their ‘secular’ agenda and then came to the conclusion that the ‘fact check’ was the best possible recourse. Consequently, mission ‘fact check’ was initiated.
“On February 17, PFI had conducted a march as part of their anniversary. The march was peaceful and no incident of violence was reported. The video that has gone viral was a demonstration held as part of the march. We have not come across any recent incident of PFI activists attacking RSS workers,” an inspector was quoted as saying in the report.
India Today even reached out to the Kerala unit of the Sangh. “No such incident as said in the social media post has come to our notice. We would have definitely responded if PFI had tried to forcefully march our members as seen in the viral video. The men seen in the video are not RSS members. It must have been some demonstration by the PFI,” one of their senior officials told the reporter.
The entire ‘fact check’ is clearly an elaborate effort to whitewash the PFI’s hate parade. In civil society, it is not considered acceptable to parade political opponents in chains in order to mark the ‘centenary celebrations’ of a massacre. However, the dehumanisation of the RSS is so normalized in secular-liberal circles that they see nothing wrong with the hate parade.