After facing severe online backlash, Amar Chitra Katha (ACK) Monday (May 1) issued a ‘clarification’ on Facebook, regarding its post about controversial ultra-left-wing propagandist Arundhati Roy.
#clarification #amarchitrakatha pic.twitter.com/lh3OPDcJ6e
— ACKComics (@ACKComics) May 1, 2023
The iconic comics publisher famed for its historical and cultural comics and graphic novels justified its eulogy of the inveterate anti-India propagandist Arundhati Roy by claiming that ACK does not support the political views of any individuals included in their works, blogs, or social media posts. ACK claimed that the post about Arundhati Roy was only one in a series about Indian writers and that it never planned to collaborate with Arundhati Roy in any way whatsoever.
Interestingly, the ‘clarification’ has come after ACK’s Facebook post did not sit well with the social media users, who expressed their outrage and promptly called them out for promoting and extolling an author with a history of peddling propaganda against India and also Hindus.
On Thursday, April 27, Amar Chitra Katha published a Facebook post about controversial ultra-left-wing propagandist Arundhati Roy. The Facebook post by The Amar Chitra Katha Studio talked about Roy’s life and career as an author and screenplay writer. After netizens expressed their disappointment over ACK eulogising Arundhati Roy who is known for her anti-Hindu comments and for peddling fake news, the Facebook post was deleted.
Later, after OpIndia raised the issue, Arundhati Roy’s author profile page was removed from the ACK website.
The now-removed author profile (archive) of Arundhati Roy on the website of Amar Chitra Katha described how Arundhati Roy is opposed to US foreign policy and India’s nuclear weapons policy, economic growth, and industrialization. It further mentions that Roy had campaigned alongside another ‘activist’ Medha Patkar during the Narmada Bachao Andolan.
Interestingly, ACK ended today’s post, wherein it offered an explanation and not an apology for its reckless act by asserting, “Our mission has always been to provide Indian children with a route to their roots.”
It’s no secret that children, over generations, have been reading Amar Chitra Katha (ACK) comics and Tinkle magazine. The publisher’s folktales, historical and religious tales have always left a lasting impression on young children’s fragile minds. Working with the utmost caution and being certain of what they are putting out on the public platform becomes even more crucial in a situation like this.
By praising someone like Arundhati Roy, who is notorious for her anti-Hindu remarks and for spreading false information, Amar Chitra Katha acted recklessly. Even worse, the publisher made no apologies but in a way justified what they wrote by issuing a ‘clarification’ that they don’t support anyone’s political viewpoints. They did, however, indirectly support the propagandist when they continued to glorify her, first through a section on their website and then through the social media post.
Arundhati Roy, a career propagandist for whom lying and being deceitful is second nature
Arundhati Roy is a controversial figure in Indian politics. For years now, Roy has been accused of advancing the anti-India narrative and purveying falsehoods and misinformation under the garb of “freedom of speech”. Just recently, Roy penned an article in The Guardian, using the cover of the pandemic to push her propaganda against the Modi government.
The extent of lies she peddled in The Guardian at a time when India was grappling with a ferocious second wave of COVID-19 is particularly egregious. Roy not only lied about the PM Cares Fund in her article but also spread misinformation about India’s vaccination drive and COVID-19 vaccines developed by SII and Bharat Biotech. If this did not suffice, she also peddled propaganda about the West Bengal elections in her article for the British Daily.
Earlier last year, career propagandist Arundhati Roy, in her bid to continue spreading lies about India, alleged that the Modi government was using the coronavirus outbreak to commit a Muslim genocide.
Not just the government, but Roy has vilified the Indian Armed Forces as well. She has been consistently referring to the anti-terror ops in Kashmir as “state-sponsored” terrorism. In an infamous speech that she made in 2002, Roy said, “In India, not hundreds, but millions of us would be ashamed and offended if we were in any way implicated with the present Indian government’s fascist policies which, apart from the perpetration of State terrorism in the valley of Kashmir (in the name of fighting terrorism), have also turned a blind eye to the recent state-supervised pogrom against Muslims in Gujarat. It would be absurd to think that those who criticize the Indian government are “anti-Indian”—although the government itself never hesitates to take that line.”
