Consulting Editor of News Nation Deepak Chaurasia was attacked yesterday at Shaheen Bagh by people protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act. Sharing a video from his ordeal on social media, he had said, “We are hearing that the constitution is in danger, we are hearing that the fight is to save democracy! When I reached Shaheen Bagh to show the same voice to the country, there was nothing less than mob lynching!”
The video that emerged was nothing short of shocking, with goons almost lynching Chaurasia. The video journalist accompanying Chaurasia was attacked as well and the camera was destroyed. According to him, there was no policeman at the site to protect him.
While most people expressed shock and unequivocally condemned the violence against Deepak Chaurasia by Shaheen Bagh goons, there were some who chose to shield the Islamist mobs by justifying the attack on him.
Read: Watch: Journalist Deepak Chaurasia attacked by anti-CAA mob at Shaheen Bagh, camera broken
The political editor of CNN News 18, Marya Shakil first condemned the attack on Deepak Chaurasia. However, then she went on to justify the Islamist goons too.
Targeting a journalist on duty is wrong &I condemn it.But we must also think about why the mic ? which is supposed to give voice to the voiceless has started intimidating people? Why is the media not trusted by ppl at large & is now a party in this dangerous & polarising debate? https://t.co/j5uueIIztT
— Marya Shakil (@maryashakil) January 24, 2020
She said that journalists must think why the mic which is supposed to give voice to voiceless has started intimidating people and why the media is not trusted by people. She also said that the media has become a party to the “dangerous and polarising debate”.
Essentially, what Marya was doing was shielding the Shaheen Bagh mob by contextualising the near-lynching of journalist Deepak Chaurasia. What she was implying is that the Shaheen Bagh protesters are ‘voiceless’ and the section of the media that differs with the “secular” narrative, are prone to be lynched and attacked.
While Marya was slightly discreet, others did not even bother to keep up pretences.
Responding to Marya, Rohini Singh, who has conducted several lie-ridden hitjobs in her illustrious career with the Leftist propaganda rag, went a step further.
Also the onus of appropriate behaviour is always on citizens who have consistently been dehumanised, demonised and abused by the same media.
— Rohini Singh (@rohini_sgh) 24 January 2020
She rued the fact that the ‘onus of appropriate behaviour’ was always on the ‘citizens who have consistently been dehumanised, demonised and abused by the same media’. What she essentially meant that it was wrong for people to demand basic civility and display of appropriate behaviour from Muslims of Shaheen Bagh (or anywhere else) since according to her, they were the ones who were being demonised and abused by the media.
Read: The dangers of random ‘bigot-baby-secular-baby’ Goebbels propaganda being peddled by the ‘Liberals’
Rohini Singh, of course, did not mention ‘Muslims’ directly, but given the context and the fact that the Muslim-victimhood is aggressively peddled by The Wire, this seems like a reasonable inference.
Rohini Singh, of course, did not stop there.
Let’s be honest here about a section of Indian media. Muslim women were protesting. You go there to delegitimise their voice. You behave like a goon. Your intention wasn’t to report. Your intention was to demonise Muslims. Again.
— Rohini Singh (@rohini_sgh) 24 January 2020
Confirming our earlier inference, Rohini Singh said that Muslim women were protesting in Shaheen Bagh and that ‘you’ (Deepak Chaurasia) had gone to delegitimise their voice. Rohini Singh shamelessly contextualised and almost legitimised the attack on Chaurasia saying that it was him that behaved like a goon and that his intention was to demonise Muslims.
‘Writer’ who does a weekly show on Shekhar Gupta led The Print was even more brazen. She downright said that the Shaheen Bagh goons were actually ‘polite’ with Deepak Chaurasia, implying that they should have beaten him up and attacked him further.
Shaheen bagh was rather polite to you Chaurasia https://t.co/CRanb77q6X
— Zainab Sikander (@zainabsikander) January 24, 2020
While The Print journalist cheers Deepak Chaurasia being assaulted, it is pertinent to note that Shekhar Gupta, who leads the Editors Guild, had to issue a statement merely for a tweet by BJP IT Cell head Amit Malviya against Rajdeep Sardesai.
The Editors Guild of India has issued a statement pic.twitter.com/dFrGYuTYJq
— Editors Guild of India (@IndEditorsGuild) December 28, 2019
There were other smaller self-proclaimed journalists, commentators and trolls who are espoused by the ‘secular’ ecosystem too who chimed in.
Protestors need to be tolerant
The anger against Godi Media is justified but this is not the way to treat them. Defeat them on logical arguments, with words. Not with any force or heckling. Otherwise such small incidents will backfire badly and defame the whole movement. https://t.co/DVYgVHDxlj
— Dhruv Rathee (@dhruv_rathee) January 24, 2020
Deepak Chaurasia and Co maafi maange national tv par jo 6 saal unhone zeher failaaya hai uske liye. Uske baad har jagah aa kar main khud apne sar par bithaaunga unhe.
— Dushyant (@atti_cus) January 24, 2020
Rwanda Journalists like Deepak have been spewing venom since 2014, these people are genocide enabler, they have normalized mob lynchings in India.
Now they are crying bcz common people shooing them away in public places..
These Dalals deserve public hooting. https://t.co/U9NzYJuCFZ
— Md Asif Khan آصِف (@imMAK02) January 24, 2020
What these elements have essentially done is declare that for them, lynching and attacking people is justified if they do not agree with them. For all the virtues of a free, independent and protected media that they seem to extol on a regular basis, they were more than happy when a journalist who doesn’t seem to toe their line, in their mind, is attacking by Islamist goons.
Only a couple of days ago, Deepak Chaurasia was abused by CPI leader Ameer Haider Zaidi in the vilest of language. Zaidi had claimed that he conducts debates only to insults Muslims and called him a ‘bh*dwa patrakar’ (pimp journalist).
On the day of the 30th anniversary of the Kashmiri Pandit exodus, the protesters at Shaheen Bagh had clashed with Kashmiri Pandits. Hinduphobic posters have also been spotted at these protests against the CAA. Shaheen Bagh is the same place where chants of ‘Jinnah Wali Azadi‘ were raised by the anti-CAA protesters. At the same protests, children were used in order to peddle a nefarious agenda. These children were raising extremely disturbing slogans and they appeared to be indoctrinated into a cult of hatred. Despite all of this, certain people have found these protests ‘too Indian’.
