In the past few days, two incidents of child abuse in schools were discussed in the media. One was from Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh while the other was from Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir. Propagandist Ravish Kumar published a YouTube video from his YouTube channel on 28th August 2023 to discuss these issues. In the Muzaffarnagar incident, a Muslim student in a school was punished by a Hindu Divyang teacher who asked other students in the class to slap the victim student. In the Kathua incident, a Hindu student in a school was thrashed by his Muslim teacher for writing ‘Jai Shri Ram’ on the classroom blackboard.
The video posted by Ravish Kumar is titled “Schools Poisoned by Communalism”. In this video, Ravish Kumar broke all the rules of journalism he claims to be a follower of. He defended another propagandist Mohammed Zubair, and also peddled a handful of lies as he proceeded through his video. Let us now dissect them one after the other.
Ravish Kumar started his video by saying that he would discuss the Muzaffarnagar and Kathua incidents and describe how Muslims in India are being discriminated against. But immediately after that, he started complaining about how an FIR was lodged against self-styled fact-checker Mohammed Zubair who is the co-founder of propaganda website ‘Alt News’ for disclosing the identity of the minor victim in the Muzaffarnagar incident.
On 28th August, Uttar Pradesh Police booked Alt News’ co-founder Mohammed Zubair under Section 74 of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, for sharing a video of a minor on social media. The FIR was registered based on a complaint that was submitted on 28th August. Ravish Kumar counter-questioned in his video, ‘Had the video not gone viral, tell me if this incident would have come to light at all; would the administration have acted so swiftly?’
On 25th August, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR)’s chief, Priyank Kanoongo, urged the public not to publish the video. Following NCPCR’s warning Zubair deleted the video and played the victim in advance, saying, “Deleting the video as NCPCR might take action against the ‘messenger’”. Mohammed Zubair is very well aware of the consequences of sharing videos of minors on social media as he was booked in a similar case earlier. Still, he went ahead and shared the tweet and deleted it only after a statement from NCPCR.
Ravish Kumar defended this serial offender by calling him a scapegoat. Ravish Kumar also looked dissatisfied with Amar Ujala calling Mohammed Zubair an ‘alleged media-person’. Ravish Kumar said, “Mohammed Zubair has exposed the truth of numerous hate videos; and prevented the spread of hatred.”
What Ravish Kumar hid is that it is the same Mohammed Zubair who had shared a clipped video from a TV debate featuring BJP’s former spokesperson Nupur Sharma in which she was seen making allegedly insulting remarks against the Islamic Prophet Muhammad. Mohammed Zubair did not include in his video that part of the debate wherein Taslim Ahmed Rahmani repeatedly called the Shivling found in the Gyanvapi complex of Varanasi a fountain, thereby inspiring Nupur Sharma to make those remarks. innocent Hindus were beheaded by the Islamists whose anger was incited and fanned by the clipped video shared by Mohammed Zubair.
Ravish Kumar defended this fake news peddler through his video. Ravish Kumar said, “Mohammed Zubair has also exposed the truth of many false videos made against the BJP, thus displaying exemplary journalistic ethics. But Amar Ujala has described him as an ‘alleged media-person’. How this matter is now being resolved is for everyone to see.”
Ravish Kumar also cited a tweet by another YouTuber Sanjay Sharma to claim that “No one is ready to file an FIR against the teacher who beat up an innocent kid in UP. If yes, under which sections?” Notably, an FIR was lodged against teacher Tripta Tyagi in this case and it was reported in the mainstream media on 26 August 2023 which is two days before Ravish Kumar published this video. The police also provided information about the sections imposed against the teacher.
According to a report by India Today, the FIR was registered under Sections 323 and 504 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). But Ravish Kumar first tried to mislead the viewers by spreading the misinformation that no FIR was lodged against the teacher in this case. Later he said that an FIR was reportedly registered against the teacher.
Ravish Kumar further claimed in this video that the statements of the father and uncle of the victim student have changed or made to change several times. He said that this can be understood by looking at their socio-economic status. By mentioning the socio-economic status of the victim student’s family, Ravish Kumar implied that they were either offered money or were coerced to change their statements.
He then tried to impose the left-liberal stereotype of painting Muslims as the perpetual victims of discrimination, including in schools where he claimed teachers are innately jaundiced against Muslim students. He said, “Is it not the truth of Indian schools now, that the audacity for anti-Muslim discrimination has even reached the Principals and teachers?” Notably, it was the teacher and principal of the school in the Kathua incident who discriminated against a Hindu student in the school.
Ravish Kumar was also disappointed by the victim’s uncle denying any communal angle in the Muzaffarnagar case. He said, “The video was shot by the boy’s uncle Nadeem; now he stated in the media that there was no ‘Hindu-Muslim’ angle. Political parties want to emphasise this because elections are approaching. Seems that they have completely forgotten the point about their child being beaten for an hour.” He indirectly blamed the uncle of the boy who denied the communal angles in this incident. Moreover, he cited a BBC report to claim that the accused teacher had also beaten another Muslim student for an hour. Ravish Kumar went on to claim that the teacher is against Muslims. He essentially implied that the teacher punished the students because they were Muslims. However, it was already revealed that the victim boy in this case was being punished for incomplete homework.
Ravish Kumar also raised questions about BJP’s farmer leader Naresh Tikait who visited Muzaffarnagar and pacified the situation by meeting people on the ground. Ravish Kumar said, “Questions are being raised about Naresh Tikait’s role; it is his responsibility to properly clarify the matter. It was good to make these kids embrace each other, but there was no hatred in their minds. The children had not come to hit of their own will. moreover, many kids were hitting including a girl. When the farmer leaders are denying the Muslim angle then why was there a need for a hug?”
He further alleged that the BJP leader is supporting the teacher as he said. “Is this matter being ‘managed’? There is also farmer leader Naresh Tikait’s statement that ‘Are we not influential enough to get an FIR cancelled’? how did Tikait trust the administration so much that it would quash the FIR at his request? Was Tikait doing this on someone’s instructions? Did the farmer leader think that if this matter goes to trial or punishment stages, it would get heated up, giving someone else the upper hand politically, and the matter would be out of their hands? From BJP MP Sanjeev Balyan’s picture with teacher Tripta Tyagi, it seems the matter has been ‘managed’ and he is with Tripta Tyagi.”
At the beginning of the video, Ravish Kumar said that he would discuss both the incidents from Muzaffarnagar and Kathua. But in his 30-minute-long video, he spent 25 minutes ranting about the Muzaffarnagar incident and explaining how a Muslim student was being discriminated against and how BJP politicians were managing it to save the teacher. He resorted to the Kathua incident after 25 minutes only to formally cover it that too in an anti-Hindu stance. It is notable that the reason behind the brutal beating of the Muslim student in the Muzaffarnagar incident was not his religion, but his homework. However, Ravish Kumar presented it to insinuate that the student being Muslim was the reason the anti-Muslim teacher punished him.
On the contrary, a Hindu student was thrashed by a Muslim teacher in Kathua because he wrote Jai Shri Ram on the blackboard. Here, the display of civilisational notions of the kid irked the Muslim teacher who beat him up. But instead of addressing this issue, Ravish Kumar blamed the victim boy himself by asking why he felt the need to write Jai Shri Ram on the blackboard. It is notable that Ravish Kumar is essentially opposing the child displaying his religious civilisational identity on the educational campus.
However, it is the same Ravish Kumar who had said that wearing hijab on educational campuses is a matter of free choice for Muslim female students. At that time he did not say that Muslim female students are needlessly displaying their religious identities on educational campuses and that they are imposing it over uniforms.
While ample details of this incident have already emerged and going viral on social media, Ravish Kumar said that there are no more details of the incident of Kathua available so far. He used this statement as an excuse for not spending much time on a case where an oppressor is a Muslim, the victim is a Hindu, and the motive behind the crime is religious hatred. On the other hand, he spent 25 minutes presenting a case of beating a school student as a case of Muslim bashing by a Muslim-hating Hindu teacher inspired by religious hatred.
Ravish Kumar also blamed the Hindus gathered to protest outside the school in Kathua. He said, “In protest against this incident, the local people demonstrated outside the school; the huge crowd broke the school gate and entered the campus. this could have endangered the safety of other students too. But in the Muzaffarnagar case, there were no crowds in protest; instead, leaders of different organisations came to persuade to father of the victim and bury the case. Not much is known about the Kathua case. So far, its veracity has not been concretely proved.”
Ravish Kumar cleverly insinuated that Kathua can be a case of false reporting whereas he did not save any such grey area for the Muzaffarnagar incident despite a video testimony of the victim student making rounds on the internet.
