The Indian communists are a special breed, for they have the shamelessness of leeching on the funds shared by the Indian government while being unabashedly brazen about vilifying India on every platform. And when caught red-handed peddling propaganda, they scarcely exhibit the grace of admitting to their prejudice. Instead, they brazen it out by employing sophistries and advancing specious arguments.
This is what happened when Jayati Ghosh, a self-proclaimed ‘economist’ and former professor at JNU, was called out for misrepresenting a video from Colombia as being from India. In a bid to take a swipe at the Centre over its doctrine ‘New India’— a much more confident and assertive country that no longer shares the timidity and servility of its former self—Ghosh shared a video of a man assisting pedestrians to cross the road during the rains.
“So much of ‘New India’ with its old inequality in this video: collapsing infrastructure devastated by climate change, human ingenuity grasping any income-earning opportunity in a jobless economic context, barefoot worker serving the middle class…” tweeted Ghosh along with a video that shows a scene where a barefoot man, dressed in a blue t-shirt, assists pedestrians in crossing a rain-soaked and flooded street. He collects money from two individuals, placing it in a bottle before guiding a wooden cart, already carrying two people, to the opposite side of the road.
In the video, we witness a patient queue of people eagerly awaiting their turn to be assisted by the man’s cart, showcasing his selfless dedication despite the difficult circumstances. It’s truly remarkable that he remains barefoot throughout the entire process. Amidst the flooded roadway, numerous automobiles can be observed cautiously navigating through the waterlogged path.
However, what she did not realise was that the video was neither from India nor a recent occurrence. It has been reported that the video actually originated in Barranquilla, Colombia and went viral on Reddit last year. The footage depicts a man using an improvised push cart to help pedestrians cross a flooded road, and he is shown accepting payment for his services.
This did not sit well with netizens who were quick to call out the former JNU professor for passing off an old video from Colombia as being from India, just to attack the current dispensation.
FAKE NEWS ALERT 🚨
— The Hawk Eye (@thehawkeyex) July 28, 2023
Video of Barranquilla, Colombia. Posting the real video 'with audio' in Spanish. Next time do not believe blindly that comes to your economists WhatsApp group. pic.twitter.com/0l6OCiQxIh
No, the video of a Man helping people cross a flooded road using his pushcart is not from India but from Colombia https://t.co/B82D6TeSR6
— Vijay Patel🇮🇳 (@vijaygajera) July 28, 2023
But then, being factually accurate has never been the priority of the Left ecosystem and its minions.
When one of the Twitter users highlighted that the video does not belong to India, Ghosh was swift in dismissing his criticism, saying, “Does it matter? Doesn’t it capture so much Indian reality?”
Of course, for the likes of Jayati Ghosh and leftist moochers like her, it does not matter whether videos or news items they share have anything to do with India as long as they have a bunch of followers who treat their ‘influencers’ as infallible and eagerly lap whatever is shared by them without verifying its accuracy. The ideologues, on their part, shamelessly resort to evazice sophism when encountered with facts, employing deceptive reasoning to advance their original stance.
Ghosh, too, perhaps, is acutely aware that as long as she continues to vilify India and its current regime, such glaring mistakes such as passing off a video from another country as from India would not invite criticism from her supporters, and it would only help her grow in stature among the Left ecosystem for “exposing” the assertions made by the Modi government. This confidence over the Left ecosystem’s silence and the incentive of gaining greater popularity among the ecosystem’s supporters is what propels Ghosh to brazen out her stand when social media users pointed out that the video shared by her belonged to Colombia and not India. The video continues to remain on her Twitter profile, misleading social media users who may not be aware of its origins.
To understand her pathological contempt for New India and everything it stands for, one has to look no further than 2016 when she slammed the Indian government for suppressing protests organised to commemorate the death sentence of terrorist Afzal Guru. In addition, Ghosh has also been allegedly named alongside Sitaram Yechury and Yogendra Yadav in the supplementary chargesheet of the Delhi Riots case.
With these antecedents, one would be foolish to expect the likes of Jayati Ghosh to be enchanted and enamoured by the idea of New India, which stands for a country capable of upholding its ancient heritage and restoring its spiritual and cultural glory while simultaneously making giant strides towards its modern aspirations.
