Ashok Swain, the Sweden-based troll who is renowned for his serial fake news peddling and Hinduphobia, has made a hilarious U-turn on India hosting the G20 Summit in 2023. The ‘professor,’ who was until six months ago challenging the Modi government to host the G20 meeting in the “Muslim minority region, Kashmir” is now seeming visibly miffed when India actually held the tourism meeting in the UT of Jammu and Kashmir.
The 3rd G20 Tourism Working Group meeting took place at the SKICC on the banks of the famous Dal Lake in Srinagar from May 22–24, 2023.
Extremely disgruntled by the decision, Ashok Swain, on May 20, rushed to Twitter to lament how the Modi government’s decision to host the G20 meeting in Kashmir had the same effect as the revocation of Article 370. He wrote, “Holding the G20 meeting in Kashmir has the same effect as the abrogation of Article 370. It doesn’t make India’s position stronger as the Kashmir issue gets internationalized more, it just makes Modi’s Hindu supremacist vote bank happy.”
Holding the G20 meeting in Kashmir has the same effect as the abrogation of Article 370. It doesn't make India's position stronger as the Kashmir issue gets internationalized more, it just makes Modi's Hindu supremacist vote bank happy.
— Ashok Swain (@ashoswai) May 19, 2023
Amusingly, until six months ago, Ashok Swain was challenging the Modi government to convene the G20 conference in Kashmir. Swain praised Indonesia for holding the G20 summit in its “Hindu minority” district of Bali and preached that India should show the same religious tolerance by hosting the G20 Summit 2023 in “India’s Muslim minority, Kashmir.”
He had taken Twitter on November 14, 2022, to write, “Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country, is holding the G20 summit this year in its Hindu minority region Bali. Can India, whose turn is next year, hold the G20 summit in its Muslim minority region, Kashmir?”
Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, is holding the G20 summit this year in its Hindu minority region Bali. Can India, whose turn is next year, hold the G20 summit in its Muslim minority region, Kashmir?
— Ashok Swain (@ashoswai) November 14, 2022
Swain seemed to be taken aback by the Indian government’s decision to hold the summit in Jammu and Kashmir. He may have believed that the BJP administration would never choose a Muslim-majority region to host the massive event and by throwing an open challenge at the central government, he might gaslight Indian Muslims into believing the imaginary construct of ‘rising intolerance’, which jibes perfectly with the hackneyed liberal narrative of painting the Modi government as the enemy of Muslims.
His plans were, however, thwarted when India decided to hold the G20 meeting in Jammu and Kashmir. It was then that the ‘professor’ decided to take a U-turn and declare the decision an attempt to ‘make Modi’s Hindu supremacist vote bank happy.’
Interestingly, Swain’s displeasure with India’s decision to hold the event in Kashmir coincided with that of Pakistan, which has also expressed strong opposition to India’s decision to hold the G20 summit in Jammu and Kashmir. The country stated that India holding the G20 summit in what it blatantly called the ‘Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK)’ is disconcerting.
Releasing an official statement on the matter, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry criticized India’s action and said it continued its ‘illegal occupation’ of Jammu and Kashmir. It added that such incidents could not obscure the fact that Jammu and Kashmir is a recognized international dispute that has been on the UN Security Council’s agenda for more than 70 years.
You know India as #G20 host is achieving mighty success when… pic.twitter.com/trGrpLEGhv
— Aditya Raj Kaul (@AdityaRajKaul) April 11, 2023
But this was no surprise, as Ashok Swain’s anti-India rhetoric has always sold well in Pakistan. His tweets in which he claimed that the NDA government was triggering conflict between India and Pakistan to gain electoral points were picked up by Pakistani media for absolving Pakistan of the ghastly terrorist attack in Pulwama. Swain had also accused the Vajpayee government of ‘setting up’ the Kargil war. Interestingly, a Pakistani Minister had recently admitted in the National Assembly that the Pulwama attack was carried out by Pakistan.
Ashok Swain and anti-India activities
Ashok Swain has often claimed that he only criticises the government and does not make anti-India comments but this has proven completely wrong. He has regularly been caught spreading anti-India hatred and sharing fake news that paints India as an anti-Muslim country.
Just a couple of days ago, he shared a video claiming that a man was beaten for being Muslim. Sharing a video, he tweeted, “Another day, another lynching! One more Muslim man being lynched in Maharashtra, India.” While the man survived, he falsely claimed that it was a lynching, however, he corrected this in a subsequent tweet. And the man was not beaten for being Muslim, he was beaten on the suspicion of being a thief.
Ashok Swain has shared similar fake claims earlier also, labelling random acts as anti-Muslim acts. Earlier in 2019, he had claimed that a Muslim boy was set on fire for not chanting Jai Shri Ram, when the fact is that the boy had set himself on fire in a dargah.
In India, people regularly take the law into their hands after catching a thief, pick-pocketer etc, and most times the mob does not even know the religion and other identities of such people. But if such culprits happen to be Muslim, people like Ashok Swain claim they are attacked for being Muslim. The only reason to do this is to paint India as an anti-Muslim country. Therefore, it is definitely an anti-India activity.
Ashok Swain also wanted ‘Muslim Lives Matter’ protests in India to protest against supposed extra-judicial killings of Muslims in the country. He had in May 2020 said that the ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests in the US after the death of George Floyd need to be replicated in India to “oppose extra-judicial killings of Muslims in the country”. At that time, ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests meant riots and violence, where the protestors vandalised and looted stores. They had clashed with police, set vehicles, buildings including several police stations and medical stores on fire.
He wanted such riots and arson by Muslims and supporters of Muslims in India, which can be definitely called an anti-India activity.
Ashok Swain also regularly posts Hinduphobic tweets and mocks BJP, RSS, Narendra Modi and other leaders using condemnable terms. He denies that Muslim rulers had destroyed and looted Hindu temples, and he denies that there was a genocide of Kashmiri Pandits. He had called LTTE a Hindu terror organisation and even blamed Hindutva for the Covid-19 pandemic. He also praises Pakistan while criticising India, which indicates the direction of his loyalty.
