On Saturday, September 30, the Hindu outfit Hindu Chetana Sewa Samiti held a massive protest against the Times of India (TOI) which recently targeted the Hindu religion through its cartoon on the Ujjain rape crime. The members of the Hindu organisation gathered at the Madhavganj railway station in Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh and burnt TOI newspaper copies in a show of rage against the publication.
ToI copies burnt in Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh to protest against @timesofindia @CartoonistSan hateful cartoon against Hindus!
— Legal Rights Observatory- LRO (@LegalLro) September 30, 2023
Hindu Chetana Sewa Samiti founder Rampal Singh Rajput led massive protest at Madhavganj railway station.
Massive uproar against anti-hindu @TOIEditor seen… pic.twitter.com/O8LpIMd9iU
Hindu Chetana Sewa Samiti sought action against the Times of India Editor and its chief cartoonist Sandeep Adhwaryu for the blatant display of Hinduphobia through the cartoon on the Ujjain rape case. It warned of a statewide ban against TOI circulation if strict legal action is not taken by the state authorities against the publication.
The founder of the committee, Rampal Singh Rajput, condemned the insensitive way in which the minor rape victim was depicted in the cartoon and also lambasted the cartoonist for portraying Hindus in poor light. He warned that the Hindu outfit would continue to protest throughout the state if appropriate action is not taken against the publication.
Meanwhile, Hindu Chetana Sewa Samiti District President Nitin Sirbhaiya also stated that a case should be filed against cartoonist Sandeep Adhwaryu and the director of The Times of India should apologize.
The controversy erupted after TOI’s Chief Cartoonist Sandeep Adhwaryu posted a cartoon he drew a day after the horrific case of rape of a 12-year-old girl came to the fore from Madhya Pradesh’s Ujjain city. The cartoon showed Hindus worshipping a cow while the girl walked with injuries seeking help from the locals in Ujjain.
In the cartoon, what Sandeep essentially represented was not the angst of the girl or the apathy of the society – he represented how Hindus were busy worshipping a cow they consider their mother, while their daughter – a Hindu girl – roamed bleeding, brutalised and helpless.
However, the cartoon missed a major detail, that the girl was helped by a Hindu priest identified as Rahul Sharma. As reported earlier, the victim girl was scared and walking on the streets of Ujjain seeking help. She had injuries on her private parts and was bleeding.
She walked for around 8 km in the city seeking help but to no avail. Finally, when she reached near Dandi Ashram on the Badnagar road in the city, where Rahul Sharma offered her clothes and called for emergency medical service. He informed the police, who recovered the girl and took her to the hospital.
After the cartoon triggered outrage on social media, Sandeep Adhwaryu issued a ‘clarification’, saying that it was his personal cartoon and had nothing to do with Times of India, even though the cartoon clearly carried the heading: TOI- Line of no control. He claimed, “The presence of TOI logo in my previous post was inadvertent as I had forgotten to remove it from the standard format of the frame before posting.”
