A day after the BJP-led-NDA won the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) News ‘journalist’ Avani Dias on Wednesday (5th June) spread canards about the Indian constitution.
Dias, who had previously lied about her visa being cancelled by the Modi government over ‘critical reporting’, claimed that ‘secularism’ was part of the Indian constitution since the country got independence from the British rule in 1947.
She made the false claims in a video titled ‘The story behind India’s Narendra Modi’ with the objective to portray that India’s secularism was somehow in danger under the leadership of PM Modi.
At about 9:19 minutes into the video, Avani Dias alleged, “Just so you’re across it, when India was founded in 1947 after it got independence from the British, its constitution was written to say India is a secular country, which means it has to be neutral and open to all religions.”
“The word secular is right there on page 33 in capital letters,” she further claimed. In her desperate attempt at furthering her agenda, the ABC News ‘journalist’ forgot one key piece of information – The word secular was not part of the Indian Constitution when it came into force in 1950.
India’s Constitution was not written in 1947 either but three years later in 1950. The word ‘secular’ only became part of the Preamble of the Constitution in 1976 (during the dark days of the Emergency).
The then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had bypassed the Parliament and enacted the 42nd Constitutional Amendment to insert the word ‘secular’ in the Constitution. Contrary to the claims by Avani Dias, the constitution was not written to state that India was a ‘secular country.’
Throughout the video, the ABC News ‘journalist’ relied on conjectures, surmises and suppositions to tarnish the image of the country on a global scale.
Controversy surrounding Avani Dias
In April this year, Avani Dias took to X (formerly Twitter) to claim that she had to leave India abruptly due to the non-extension of her visa by the Modi government.
The controversial ‘journalist’ also alleged that the Indian government had plans to not allow her accreditation to cover the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Dias claimed that her visa was extended for a period of 2 months at the last minute, following which she went back to Australia.
She lamented returning to her home country just a day before the first phase of the elections. Thereafter, her employer ABC News published a controversial article (archive) claiming that Dias received a phone call from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and was notified about the denial of her visa extension.
The publication said that MEA informed the ‘journalist’ that she crossed a line with her propaganda-laden YouTube video, which suggested that India was somehow involved in the assassination of Canada-based Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
The 29-minute-long video was deliberately titled ‘Sikhs, Spies and Murder: Investigating India’s alleged hit on foreign soil’ to tarnish the image of India on a global scale and present the nation as a facilitator of extra-territorial killings in foreign countries.
Nonetheless, the Modi government directed YouTube to withhold the anti-India propaganda video by ABC News and its South Asia Bureau Chief Avani Dias. “This content is currently unavailable in this country because of an order from the government related to national security or public order,” reads a message on the YouTube link of the video
Avani Dias was under the false impression that a red carpet would be laid out for her by the Indian government for attempting to sour the diplomatic relations of the nation with its allies and partner countries.
The controversial ‘journalist’ was also seen playing the victim card on X (formerly Twitter) and casting aspersions on the state of Indian democracy under the Narendra Modi regime.
Interestingly, she was able to rope in support from 30-odd foreign correspondents. Later, it surfaced in the media that she lied about her visa extension denial and returned to Australia for her wedding and a new job. Nonetheless, Avani Dias continues to work ABC News’ Four Corners.
She had previously courted controversy for insinuating the role of Hindus in the vandalism of the Shree Laxmi Narayan Temple in Brisbane, attempting to portray the Pran Prathistha ceremony of Ram Mandir as a ‘Hindu supremacist’ event, supporting the wearing of religious attire in government schools, spreading lies about CAA and denouncing the implementation of Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021 in Uttar Pradesh.
