yogi – Radio Free https://www.radiofree.org Independent Media for People, Not Profits. Tue, 30 Jul 2024 08:19:09 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://www.radiofree.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/cropped-Radio-Free-Social-Icon-2-32x32.png yogi – Radio Free https://www.radiofree.org 32 32 141331581 Did Yogi Adityanath not greet PM Modi at CMs’ meet? False claim by Supriya Shrinate https://www.radiofree.org/2024/07/30/did-yogi-adityanath-not-greet-pm-modi-at-cms-meet-false-claim-by-supriya-shrinate/ https://www.radiofree.org/2024/07/30/did-yogi-adityanath-not-greet-pm-modi-at-cms-meet-false-claim-by-supriya-shrinate/#respond Tue, 30 Jul 2024 08:19:09 +0000 https://www.altnews.in/?p=236958 The BJP on July 27 and 28 held a chief ministers’ meet in Delhi. A video from this event is being widely circulating on social media, featuring several BJP leaders...

The post Did Yogi Adityanath not greet PM Modi at CMs’ meet? False claim by Supriya Shrinate appeared first on Alt News.

]]> The BJP on July 27 and 28 held a chief ministers’ meet in Delhi. A video from this event is being widely circulating on social media, featuring several BJP leaders and chief ministers. In the clip, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seen arriving at the venue and greeting everyone with folded hands. The video purportedly shows Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath not greeting PM Modi in return, while others exchange greetings with folded hands.

Congress leader Supriya Shrinate tweeted this clip remarking that even greeting others with a ‘namaste’ had ceased to exist. (Archived link)

Similarly, Pappu Ram Mundru, associated with Congress Rajasthan, tweeted the same clip with a similar caption. (Archived link)

Several other X (Twitter) users and Facebook posts shared the video with the same claim.

Fact Check

To verify these claims, Alt News examined the BJP’s official X (Twitter) handle. We came across a video of the chief ministers’ meeting at the BJP headquarters. In this 20-second clip, Yogi Adityanath is seen greeting Prime Minister Modi within the first few seconds of the footage.

For the convenience of the readers, we have made a comparison between the viral video and the clip posted by BJP on X. This comparison clearly shows that Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath did greet Prime Minister Modi. However, due to a difference in the camera angles, the UP chief minister’s gesture was not caught in the clip which went viral leading to the misconception that he had not greeted the PM.

To sum it up, a video from the BJP chief ministers’ meet held at the party’s headquarters in Delhi is being misleadingly shared with the claim that Yogi Adityanath did not greet PM Modi upon the latter’s arrival. However, a second video from the event disproves this claim, showing that Adityanath did, in fact, greet the Prime Minister.

The post Did Yogi Adityanath not greet PM Modi at CMs’ meet? False claim by Supriya Shrinate appeared first on Alt News.


This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Kinjal.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2024/07/30/did-yogi-adityanath-not-greet-pm-modi-at-cms-meet-false-claim-by-supriya-shrinate/feed/ 0 486325 All Roads Lead to War https://www.radiofree.org/2024/07/11/all-roads-lead-to-war/ https://www.radiofree.org/2024/07/11/all-roads-lead-to-war/#respond Thu, 11 Jul 2024 12:57:57 +0000 https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=151854 Yogi Berra, famous as a baseball catcher and a wandering philosopher, is credited with the statement, “If you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Uncle Sam, famous for initiating endless wars and philosophizing about democracy and human rights follows Yogi’s pronouncement in only one direction ─ the road to war. The endless […]

The post All Roads Lead to War first appeared on Dissident Voice.]]> Yogi Berra, famous as a baseball catcher and a wandering philosopher, is credited with the statement, “If you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Uncle Sam, famous for initiating endless wars and philosophizing about democracy and human rights follows Yogi’s pronouncement in only one direction ─ the road to war.

The endless wars, one in almost every year of the American Republic, are shadowed by words of peace, democracy, and human rights. Happening far from U.S. soil, their effects are more visual than visceral, appearing as images on a television screen. The larger post-World War II conflagrations, those that followed the “war to end all wars,” in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan have not permanently resolved the issues that promoted the wars. From their littered battlefields remain the old contestants and from an embittered landscape new contestants emerge to oppose the U.S. “world order.” The U.S. intelligence community said, “it views four countries as posing the main national security challenges in the coming year: China, followed by Russia, Iran and North Korea.” Each challenge has a fork in the road. Each fork taken is leading to war.

China
“China increasingly is a near-peer competitor, challenging the United States in multiple arenas — especially economically, militarily, and technologically — and is pushing to change global norms,” says a report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Interpretation ─ China has disrupted the United States’ world hegemony and military superiority. Only the U.S. is allowed to have hegemony and the military superiority that assures the hegemony.

Foreign Policy (FP) magazine’s article, “How Primed for War Is China,” goes further: “The likelihood of war with China may be the single-most important question in international affairs today.”

If China uses military force against Taiwan or another target in the Western Pacific, the result could be war with the United States—a fight between two nuclear-armed giants brawling for hegemony in that region and the wider world. If China attacked amid ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, the world would be consumed by interlocking conflicts across Eurasia’s key regions, a global conflagration unlike anything since World War II. How worried should we be?

No worry about that. Beijing will not pursue war. Why would it? It is winning and winners have no need to go to war. The concern is that the continuous trashing will lead the PRC to trash its treasury holdings that finance U.S. trade debt (already started), use reserves to purchase huge chunks of United States assets, diminish its hefty agricultural imports from Yankee farms, and enforce its ban of exports of rare earth extraction and separation technologies  (China produces 60 percent of the world’s rare earth materials and processes nearly 90 percent). The U.S. should worry that, by not cooperating, the Red Dragon may decide it is better not to bother with Washington and use its overwhelming industrial power, with which the U.S. cannot compete, to sink the U.S. economy.

China does not chide the U.S. about its urban blight, mass shootings, drug problem, riots in Black neighborhoods, enforcing the Caribbean as an American lake, campus revolution, and media control by special interests. However, U.S. administrations insist on being involved in China’s internal affairs — Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet, South China Sea, Belt and Road, Uyghurs — and never shows how this involvement benefits the U.S. people.

U.S. interference in China’s internal affairs has not changed anything! The United States is determined to halt China’s progress to economic dominance and to no avail. China will continue to do what China wants to do. With an industrious, capable, and educated population, which is four times the size of the U.S. population, arable land 75 percent of that of the U.S. (295,220,748 arable acres compared to 389,767,633 arable acres), and a multiple of resources that the world needs, China, by default will eventually emerge, if it has not already, as the world’s economic superpower.

What does the U.S. expect from its STOP the unstoppable China policy? Where can its rhetoric and aggressive actions lead but to confrontation? The only worthwhile confrontation is America confronting itself. The party is over and it’s time to call it a day, a new day and a new America ─ not going to war to protect its interests but resting comfortably by sharing its interests.

Russia
Western politicos responded to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s comment, “The breakup of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century,” with boisterous laughter. Go to Ukraine and observe the tragedy and learn that Putin’s remark has been too lightly regarded. It’s not a matter of right and wrong. It’s a matter of life and death. The nation, which made the greatest contribution in defeating Nazi Germany and endured the most physical and mental losses, suffered the most territorial, social, and economic forfeitures in post-World War II.

From a Russian perspective, Crimea had been a vital part of Russia since the time of Catherine the Great ─ a warm water port and outlet to the Black Sea. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s attachment of Crimea to The Ukraine Republic was an administrative move, and as long as Ukraine allowed Russia free entry to Crimea, Moscow did not seek annexation. To the Russia government of year 2014, the Euromaidan Revolution changed the arrangement. Putin easily rationalized annexing a Ukraine region whose population was 2/3 Russian, considered a part of Russia, and was under attack by Ukrainian nationalists.

Maintaining Ukraine in the Russian orbit, or at least, preventing it from becoming a NATO ally, was a natural position for any Russian government, a mini Monroe Doctrine that neutralizes bordering nations and impedes foreign intrusions. Change in Ukraine’s status forecast a change in Russia’s position, a certain prediction of war. Ukraine and Russia were soul mates; their parting was a trauma that could only be erased by seizure of the Maiden after the Euromaidan.

Ukraine has lost the war; at least they cannot win, but don’t tell anybody. Its forces are defeated and depleted and cannot mount an offensive against the capably defended Russian captured territory. Its people and economy will continue to suffer and soldiers will die in the small battles that will continue and continue. Ukraine’s hope is having Putin leave by a coup, voluntarily, or involuntarily and having a new Russian administration that is compliant with Zelensky’s expectations. The former is possible; the latter is not possible. Russian military will not allow its sacrifices to be reversed.

For Ukrainians, it is a “zero sum” battle; they can only lose and cannot dictate how much they lose. A truce is impeded by Putin’s ambition to incorporate Odessa into Russia and link Russia through captured Ukraine territory to Moldova’s breakaway Republic of Transnistria, which the Russian president expects will become a Russian satellite, similar to South Ossetia and Abkhazia. This leaves Ukraine with two choices: (1) Forget the European Union, forget NATO, and remain a nation loosely allied with Russia, or (2) Solicit support from the United States and Europe and eventually start a World War that destroys everybody.

As of July 8, 2024, Ukraine and United States are headed for the latter fork in the road. After entering into war, the contestants find no way, except to end it with a more punishing war. That cannot happen. Russians crossing the Dnieper River and capturing Odessa is also unlikely. The visions of the presidents of Russia and Ukraine clash with reality. Their visions and their presence are the impediments to resolving the conflict. Both must retire to their palatial homes and write their memoirs. A world tour featuring the two in a debate is a promising You Tube event.

Commentators characterized the Soviet Union as a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. After it became scrambled eggs, Russia’s characterization became simplified; no matter what Putin’s Russia does, it is viewed as a cold, icy, and heartless land that preys on its neighbors and causes misery to the world. Apply a little warmth, defrost the ice, and Russia has another appearance.

Iran
Ponder and ponder, why is the U.S. eager to assist Israel and act aggressively toward Iran? What has Iran done to the U.S. or anybody? The US wants Iran to eschew nuclear and ballistic weapons, but the provocative approach indicates other purposes — completely alienate Iran, destroy its military capability, and bring Tehran to collapse and submission. Accomplishing the far-reaching goals will not affect the average American, increase US defense posture, or diminish the continuous battering of the helpless faces of the Middle East. The strategy mostly pleases Israel and Saudi Arabia, who have engineered it, share major responsibility for the Middle East turmoil, and are using mighty America to subdue the principal antagonist to their malicious activities.

Although Iran has not sent a single soldier cross its borders to invade another nation and has insufficient military power to contest a United States’ reprisal, the Islamic republic is accused of trying to conquer the entire Middle East. Because rebellions from oppressed Shi’a factions occur in Bahrain and Yemen, Iran is accused of using surrogates to extend their power ─ guilt by association. Because Iraq, Syria and Hezbollah have extended friendship (who does not want to have friends), Iran, who cannot even sell its pistachio nuts to these nations, is accused of controlling them.

Iran is an independent nation with its own concepts for governing. The Islamic Republic might not be a huggable nation, but compared to Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, it is a model democracy and a theocratic lightweight. Except for isolate incidents, Iran has never attacked anyone, doesn’t indicate it intends to attack anyone, and doesn’t have the capability to wage war against a major nation.

Defined as Iran, the world’s greatest sponsor of terrorism, the Iranian government has not been involved in terrorist acts against the United States, or proven to have engaged in international terrorism. There have been some accusations concerning one incident in Argentina, one in the U.S. and a few in Europe against dissidents who cause havoc in Iran, but these have been isolated incidents. Two accusations go back thirty to forty years, and none are associated with a particular organization.

If the US honestly wants to have Iran promise never to be a warring nation, it would approach the issues with a question, “What will it take for you (Iran) never to pursue weapons of mass destruction?” Assuredly, the response would include provisions that require the U.S. to no longer assist the despotic Saudi Kingdom in its oppression of minorities and opposition, in its export of terrorists, and interference in Yemen. The response would propose that the U.S. eliminate financial, military and cooperative support to Israel’s theft of Palestinian lands, oppressive conditions imposed on Palestinians, and daily killings of Palestinian people, and combat Israel’s expansionist plans.

The correct question soliciting a formative response and leading to decisive US actions resolves two situations and benefits the U.S. — fear of Iran developing weapons of mass destruction is relieved and the Middle East is pointed in a direction that achieves justice, peace, and stability for its peoples. The road to war is a tool for Israel’s objectives. The U.S. continues on that road, willingly sacrificing Americans for the benefit of the Zionist state. Tyranny and treason in the American government and the American people either are not observant or just don’t care.

Democratic Republic of North Korea (DPRK)
Nowhere and seemingly everywhere, North Korea stands at a fork in the road. The small and unimportant state that wants to be left alone and remain uncontaminated by global germs, is constantly pushed into responding to military maneuvers at its border, threats of annihilation, and insults to its leaders and nation. From United States’ actions and press coverage, North Korea assumes the world stage as a dynamic and mighty nation and exerts a power that forces respect and response. How can a nation, constantly described as an insular and “hermit kingdom,” cast a shadow that reaches 5000 miles to the United States mainland and speak with a voice that generates a worldwide listening audience?

The world faces a contemporary DPRK, a DPRK that enters the third decade of the 21st century with a changed perspective from the DPRK that entered the century. Rehashing of old grievances, reciting past DPRK policies that caused horrific happenings to its people, and purposeful misunderstanding of contemporary North Korea lead to misdirected policies and unwarranted problems. Purposeful misunderstanding comes from exaggerations of negative actions, from not proving these negative actions, from evaluating actions from agendas and opinions and not from facts, from selecting and guessing the facts, and from approaching matters from different perspectives and consciences.

Instead of heading away from North Korea, the U.S. speeds toward a confrontation and North Korea makes preparations — developing nuclear weapons and delivery systems and signing a mutual defense pact with Russia. The U.S. State department paves the road to war and, as a favor to its antagonist, induces it to develop the offensive and defensive capabilities to wage the war. Apparently, the U.S. defense department has orders not to attack the DPRK before it has ICBMs and warheads that can demolish the U.S. Unlike Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, let’s make this a fair fight.

North and South Vietnam have only one problem ─ U.S. interference in their internal affairs. Stop the joint maneuvers and remove the U.S. troops and the North and South will learn how to get along and realize they must get along. If they do not find friendship and engage in hostilities, they will resolve the issue in a way that badly affects both and does not affect the U.S. Why internationalize an issue that is national and can be contained? Why make the U.S. land subjected to possible attack because two miscreants cannot behave?

North Korea might go down in history as the nation that awakened the world to the consequences of global saber rattling. It has shown that the nuclear world can become one big poker game, in which a challenge to a bluff can be an ‘all win’ and ‘all lose’ proposition. Which gambler is willing to play that game when an ‘all win’ doesn’t add much more to what the gambler already has, and an ‘all lose’ means leaving the person with nothing? The odds greatly favor America, but the wager return is not worth taking the bet, despite the odds. Keep it sweet and simple, let the Koreans settle their problems, and we will see doves flying over the Korean peninsula.

The Road to War
The U.S. does not develop foreign policies from facts and reality; they are developed from made-up stories that fit agendas. Those who guide the agendas solicit support from the population by providing  narratives that rile the American public and define its enemies. This diversion from facts and truth is responsible for the counterproductive wars fought by the U.S., for Middle East turmoil, for a world confronted with terrorism, and for the contemporary horrors in Ukraine and Gaza. U.S. foreign policy is not the cause of all the problems, but it intensifies them and rarely solves any of them.

Because violence and military challenges are being used to resolve the escalating conflicts throughout the globe, should not more simplified and less aggressive approaches be surveyed and determined if they can serve to resolve the world conflagrations. Features of that determination modify current U.S. thinking:

(1) Rather than concluding nations want to confront U.S. military power, realize nations fear military power and desire peaceful relations with the powerful United States.

(2) Rather than attempting to steer adversaries to a lose position, steer them to a beneficial position.

(3) Rather than denying nations the basic requirements for survival, assist their populations in times of need.

(4) Rather than provoking nations to military buildup and action, assuage them into feeling comfortable and not threatened.

(5) Rather than challenging by military threat, show willingness to negotiate to a mutually agreed solution.

(6) Rather than interfering in domestic disputes, recognize the sovereign rights of all nations to solve their own problems.

(7) Rather than relying on incomplete information, purposeful myths, and misinterpretations, learn to understand the vagaries and seemingly irrational attitudes of sovereign nations whose cultures produce different mindsets.

Recent elections in the United Kingdom indicate a shift from adventurism to attention with domestic problems. The Labor Party win over a Conservative government that perceived Ukraine as fighting its war and the election advances of the far right National Rally and the far-left Unbowed Parties in France show a trend away from war. A win by Donald Trump, whose principal attraction is his supra-nationalist antiwar policy, will emphasize that trend and indicate that the most disliked of two disliked is due to the abhorrence to war.

From ever war to war no more.
A pleasant thought
that U.S. administrations thwart.
All roads still lead to war.

The post All Roads Lead to War first appeared on Dissident Voice.


This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Dan Lieberman.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2024/07/11/all-roads-lead-to-war/feed/ 0 483372 People offering Namaz have vanished from UP streets: Yogi Adityanath fires fresh salvo at Muslims in Palghar https://www.radiofree.org/2024/05/22/people-offering-namaz-have-vanished-from-up-streets-yogi-adityanath-fires-fresh-salvo-at-muslims-in-palghar/ https://www.radiofree.org/2024/05/22/people-offering-namaz-have-vanished-from-up-streets-yogi-adityanath-fires-fresh-salvo-at-muslims-in-palghar/#respond Wed, 22 May 2024 12:14:10 +0000 https://www.altnews.in/?p=205242 Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath had addressed a public meeting in Palghar, Maharashtra, on May 18 in support of NDA candidate Hemant Savara, a couple of days before the...

The post People offering Namaz have vanished from UP streets: Yogi Adityanath fires fresh salvo at Muslims in Palghar appeared first on Alt News.

]]> Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath had addressed a public meeting in Palghar, Maharashtra, on May 18 in support of NDA candidate Hemant Savara, a couple of days before the constituency went to the polls in the fifth phase. In his speech, Adityanath launched a no-holds-barred attack on the Muslim community and prided himself on taking down microphones from several mosques and making people offering Namaz disappear from the streets of Uttar Pradesh.

A major part of Adityanath’s speech was about the Ayodhya Ram Temple, other Hindu religious places and future temple projects that the BJP was planning. He told his audience that the country was divided between devotees of the Hindu deity Ram and those against the Hindu god, and that this election would decide which of these two groups would be ruling the country. He also credited Prime Minister Modi with making the Ram Mandir a reality. All of these clearly violated the Model Code of Conduct, which barred political parties from seeking votes on the grounds of religion. Alt News has already reported how the poll panel has been reluctant to take cognizance of rampant MCC violations by BJP leaders, let alone acting against them.

The BJP leader also reiterated the claim made by several other BJP leaders and the Prime Minister himself in the past — that the Congress would take away the wealth of non-Muslims and distribute it to the Muslims. He took this communal statement a step further and classified the Muslims as Rohingyas, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis and Afghanistanis. He also boasted about the UP government’s administering of ‘bulldozer justice’ which was recently praised by PM Modi in a public address in Barabanki.

Excerpts from Yogi Adityanath’s speech at Palghar

5:30: “Last time when I came here, I came in the evening. And this time around when I came for the BJP and NDA Lok Sabha candidate, Chandrashekhar Bawankule brought me here amongst you in the afternoon. This shows that the last time I was here to ensure the ‘sunset of Congress’. And this time, as I have come in the afternoon, it can be said that the ‘Hindavi Swaraj’ that was first established by the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in India, will be fulfilled by Modi ji, koi mai ka laal usko rok nahi payega (no mother’s son can stop it).”

6:43: “You must have seen the construction program for Ram Lalla’s grand temple in Ayodhya. You have seen it, right? (crowd shouts yes). Congress and others in the INDIA bloc, Uddhav ji Thackeray and Pawar saab, what did they use to say? They used to say — ‘Won’t be able to build the temple even after 100 births’ — they used to say so, right? Congress and INDIA alliance parties used to say that this (Ayodhya Ram Temple) won’t happen. But, back then we used to say: ‘Ram Lalla hum ayenge saugandh Ram ki khayenge, ki Mandir wahin…’ (crowd shouts banayenge) [Ram Lalla we’ll come, we swear on Lord Ram’s name that we will build the temple right here]. And we did what we said, didn’t we? Is there any doubt there? (crowd shouts no).”

7:51: “But, what does the INDIA bloc say? Two very dangerous statements have come from them. 1: They have said that if they come to power they would decide the fate of the Ram Temple, to which I said that Ram Lalla would not spare you, you won’t be in a condition to reach Delhi. 2: They always used to fear-monger that if the Ayodhya case verdict came in favour of the Hindus then that could lead to riots and bloodshed. The Supreme Court verdict came out in favour of the Ram Temple, the Prime Minister even laid the foundation there, the construction of the Temple also began, and the consecration ceremony of Ram Lalla took place. However, not even a straw moved, let alone a riot.”

9:27: “I also want to tell the INDIA alliance that in the last seven years, there hasn’t been a single riot in Uttar Pradesh. Hence, if with all your blessings and Modi ji’s governance, we could bring (Ram) to Ayodhya, then we can also make happen ‘ram naam satya hai’ (a Hindu mantra uttered while carrying the dead) of mafia and rioters. And this has happened already, right? The mafia that used to rule and threaten there — would cause disorder, was a safety issue for women and businesses, had become a barrier to development there (UP) — we have cleaned them out in one go with a bulldozer.”

10:35: “Today, you must be seeing that all atrocities are over in Uttar Pradesh. Today, no one even thinks about riots over there. Today, no one even performs Namaz on the streets of Uttar Pradesh, mics have also been taken down from the mosques (crowd cheers loudly). In the next five years, you’ll see that people will completely forget that something like this (Azaan mics in mosques) even existed that would cause disturbance and noise, people will forget (crowd shouts Jai Sri Ram).”

12:56: “During the Congress regime, when the Mumbai blasts happened, what did the UPA government say? They would say that the terrorists are ‘across the border’. If they (terrorists) are from ‘across the border’ then when will you use your missile? Modi ji facilitated an airstrike in Pakistan (referring to the Balakot airstrike) which destroyed terrorism completely. You must have also seen a report published in a famous British newspaper that in Pakistan in the last three years several terrorists have been killed and Indian agencies have also contributed to the same. Now, will we worship those who are our enemies? If someone kills our people, we won’t worship them, we will also give them what they deserve.”

16:45: “… today, people in Pakistan are fighting like dogs over 1 kg of atta. Protests are going on there as there is no food for people in Pakistan. So, those who talk about Pakistan, tell them to go beg in Pakistan instead of being a burden to Hindustan.”

19:10: “Here there is safety, respect, development, welfare for the poor and also ‘Virasat’ (heritage or legacy). Ram Lalla‘s great temple has been built in Ayodhya and Kashi Viswanath Temple has been built in Kashi. The relationship between Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh goes way back. No one can separate us. If you remember when Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj was to be honoured with the title of ‘Chhatrapati’ then Kashi’s Gaga Bhatt contributed to the ceremony. You come to our Kashi, you will find Maratha ghat over there. There you will find ghats built by Maharashtrian kings. The Maratha community, and Maharashtra community there function separately, such varying rituals form Kashi. Today in Kashi you’ll see Baba Viswanath Dham shining. Now, after Kashi and Ayodhya, we are heading towards Mathura.”

21:41: “Uttar Pradesh has the biggest population in the country and there is only one message coming out of there and that is Phir Ek Baar (crowd shouts Modi Sarkar), Abki baar (crowd shouts 400 paar). The slogan of 400 paar has caused concern to Congress, Uddhav Thackeray, Sharad Pawar, Lalu Prasad and Akhilesh Yadav. They ask the citizens how will we bring 400 paar, and the citizens tell them Jo Ram ko laaye hain (crowd shouts hum unko layenge) [We’ll bring the one who brought Ram]. Modi ji brought Ram, Modi ji brought Ram to Ayodhya.”

22:49: “In this election, do not look at anything. Modi ji has brought forth development and provided safety, respect and welfare for the poor. Now as several statements are coming in from the Congress and the Opposition, this election is getting divided between Ram Bhakts and Ram Drohis (Devotees of Lord Ram and those against Lord Ram). So, we have to decide if Ram Bhakt will rule the country or if Ram Drohis will come back again.”

23:24: “There’s another message that can heard in the country today — Ram Bhakt hi raaj karega Dilli ke singhasan par (Only a devotee of Ram will be in power in Delhi). Modi ji is a devotee of Ram. He was the first Prime Minister who laid the foundation for Ram Temple in Ayodhya. People used to say that this doesn’t suit a PM, but Modi ji would tell them that Ram was our ancestor, our legacy… why won’t I go for Ram Temple’s construction? He went to the inauguration, organised an 11-day-long celebration and built the great temple in Ayodhya.”

CM Yogi Adityanath ended his speech appealing to voters to vote for the BJP and to make sure of the visarjan (immersion/ defeat) of the Congress and INDIA alliance since Ram Lalla had already arrived. He added that while PM Modi was paying homage to the country’s legacy, Congress was saying that they would impose inheritance/legacy tax. “A property that your grandfather and father built, Congress will conduct an x-ray of the property. After the survey, they will take away half of that property and give it to Muslims such as Rohingyas, Bangladeshis, Afghanistanis, and Pakistanis. Is this acceptable to you? (crowd shouts no). Aurangzeb’s soul now possesses the INDIA bloc. Do not let it come. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj had anyway conquered Aurangzeb before, hence, you cannot let Aurangzeb and his descendants into Maharashtra again. Do you agree? (crowd says yes). Maharashtra is heading towards the goal of Abki baar 400 paar, right? (crowd says yes).”

The post People offering Namaz have vanished from UP streets: Yogi Adityanath fires fresh salvo at Muslims in Palghar appeared first on Alt News.


This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Oishani Bhattacharya.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2024/05/22/people-offering-namaz-have-vanished-from-up-streets-yogi-adityanath-fires-fresh-salvo-at-muslims-in-palghar/feed/ 0 475784 People offering Namaz have vanished from UP streets: Yogi Adityanath fires fresh salvo at Muslims in Palghar https://www.radiofree.org/2024/05/22/people-offering-namaz-have-vanished-from-up-streets-yogi-adityanath-fires-fresh-salvo-at-muslims-in-palghar/ https://www.radiofree.org/2024/05/22/people-offering-namaz-have-vanished-from-up-streets-yogi-adityanath-fires-fresh-salvo-at-muslims-in-palghar/#respond Wed, 22 May 2024 12:14:10 +0000 https://www.altnews.in/?p=205242 Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath had addressed a public meeting in Palghar, Maharashtra, on May 18 in support of NDA candidate Hemant Savara, a couple of days before the...

The post People offering Namaz have vanished from UP streets: Yogi Adityanath fires fresh salvo at Muslims in Palghar appeared first on Alt News.

]]> Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath had addressed a public meeting in Palghar, Maharashtra, on May 18 in support of NDA candidate Hemant Savara, a couple of days before the constituency went to the polls in the fifth phase. In his speech, Adityanath launched a no-holds-barred attack on the Muslim community and prided himself on taking down microphones from several mosques and making people offering Namaz disappear from the streets of Uttar Pradesh.

A major part of Adityanath’s speech was about the Ayodhya Ram Temple, other Hindu religious places and future temple projects that the BJP was planning. He told his audience that the country was divided between devotees of the Hindu deity Ram and those against the Hindu god, and that this election would decide which of these two groups would be ruling the country. He also credited Prime Minister Modi with making the Ram Mandir a reality. All of these clearly violated the Model Code of Conduct, which barred political parties from seeking votes on the grounds of religion. Alt News has already reported how the poll panel has been reluctant to take cognizance of rampant MCC violations by BJP leaders, let alone acting against them.

The BJP leader also reiterated the claim made by several other BJP leaders and the Prime Minister himself in the past — that the Congress would take away the wealth of non-Muslims and distribute it to the Muslims. He took this communal statement a step further and classified the Muslims as Rohingyas, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis and Afghanistanis. He also boasted about the UP government’s administering of ‘bulldozer justice’ which was recently praised by PM Modi in a public address in Barabanki.

Excerpts from Yogi Adityanath’s speech at Palghar

5:30: “Last time when I came here, I came in the evening. And this time around when I came for the BJP and NDA Lok Sabha candidate, Chandrashekhar Bawankule brought me here amongst you in the afternoon. This shows that the last time I was here to ensure the ‘sunset of Congress’. And this time, as I have come in the afternoon, it can be said that the ‘Hindavi Swaraj’ that was first established by the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in India, will be fulfilled by Modi ji, koi mai ka laal usko rok nahi payega (no mother’s son can stop it).”

6:43: “You must have seen the construction program for Ram Lalla’s grand temple in Ayodhya. You have seen it, right? (crowd shouts yes). Congress and others in the INDIA bloc, Uddhav ji Thackeray and Pawar saab, what did they use to say? They used to say — ‘Won’t be able to build the temple even after 100 births’ — they used to say so, right? Congress and INDIA alliance parties used to say that this (Ayodhya Ram Temple) won’t happen. But, back then we used to say: ‘Ram Lalla hum ayenge saugandh Ram ki khayenge, ki Mandir wahin…’ (crowd shouts banayenge) [Ram Lalla we’ll come, we swear on Lord Ram’s name that we will build the temple right here]. And we did what we said, didn’t we? Is there any doubt there? (crowd shouts no).”

7:51: “But, what does the INDIA bloc say? Two very dangerous statements have come from them. 1: They have said that if they come to power they would decide the fate of the Ram Temple, to which I said that Ram Lalla would not spare you, you won’t be in a condition to reach Delhi. 2: They always used to fear-monger that if the Ayodhya case verdict came in favour of the Hindus then that could lead to riots and bloodshed. The Supreme Court verdict came out in favour of the Ram Temple, the Prime Minister even laid the foundation there, the construction of the Temple also began, and the consecration ceremony of Ram Lalla took place. However, not even a straw moved, let alone a riot.”

9:27: “I also want to tell the INDIA alliance that in the last seven years, there hasn’t been a single riot in Uttar Pradesh. Hence, if with all your blessings and Modi ji’s governance, we could bring (Ram) to Ayodhya, then we can also make happen ‘ram naam satya hai’ (a Hindu mantra uttered while carrying the dead) of mafia and rioters. And this has happened already, right? The mafia that used to rule and threaten there — would cause disorder, was a safety issue for women and businesses, had become a barrier to development there (UP) — we have cleaned them out in one go with a bulldozer.”

10:35: “Today, you must be seeing that all atrocities are over in Uttar Pradesh. Today, no one even thinks about riots over there. Today, no one even performs Namaz on the streets of Uttar Pradesh, mics have also been taken down from the mosques (crowd cheers loudly). In the next five years, you’ll see that people will completely forget that something like this (Azaan mics in mosques) even existed that would cause disturbance and noise, people will forget (crowd shouts Jai Sri Ram).”

12:56: “During the Congress regime, when the Mumbai blasts happened, what did the UPA government say? They would say that the terrorists are ‘across the border’. If they (terrorists) are from ‘across the border’ then when will you use your missile? Modi ji facilitated an airstrike in Pakistan (referring to the Balakot airstrike) which destroyed terrorism completely. You must have also seen a report published in a famous British newspaper that in Pakistan in the last three years several terrorists have been killed and Indian agencies have also contributed to the same. Now, will we worship those who are our enemies? If someone kills our people, we won’t worship them, we will also give them what they deserve.”

16:45: “… today, people in Pakistan are fighting like dogs over 1 kg of atta. Protests are going on there as there is no food for people in Pakistan. So, those who talk about Pakistan, tell them to go beg in Pakistan instead of being a burden to Hindustan.”

19:10: “Here there is safety, respect, development, welfare for the poor and also ‘Virasat’ (heritage or legacy). Ram Lalla‘s great temple has been built in Ayodhya and Kashi Viswanath Temple has been built in Kashi. The relationship between Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh goes way back. No one can separate us. If you remember when Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj was to be honoured with the title of ‘Chhatrapati’ then Kashi’s Gaga Bhatt contributed to the ceremony. You come to our Kashi, you will find Maratha ghat over there. There you will find ghats built by Maharashtrian kings. The Maratha community, and Maharashtra community there function separately, such varying rituals form Kashi. Today in Kashi you’ll see Baba Viswanath Dham shining. Now, after Kashi and Ayodhya, we are heading towards Mathura.”

21:41: “Uttar Pradesh has the biggest population in the country and there is only one message coming out of there and that is Phir Ek Baar (crowd shouts Modi Sarkar), Abki baar (crowd shouts 400 paar). The slogan of 400 paar has caused concern to Congress, Uddhav Thackeray, Sharad Pawar, Lalu Prasad and Akhilesh Yadav. They ask the citizens how will we bring 400 paar, and the citizens tell them Jo Ram ko laaye hain (crowd shouts hum unko layenge) [We’ll bring the one who brought Ram]. Modi ji brought Ram, Modi ji brought Ram to Ayodhya.”

22:49: “In this election, do not look at anything. Modi ji has brought forth development and provided safety, respect and welfare for the poor. Now as several statements are coming in from the Congress and the Opposition, this election is getting divided between Ram Bhakts and Ram Drohis (Devotees of Lord Ram and those against Lord Ram). So, we have to decide if Ram Bhakt will rule the country or if Ram Drohis will come back again.”

23:24: “There’s another message that can heard in the country today — Ram Bhakt hi raaj karega Dilli ke singhasan par (Only a devotee of Ram will be in power in Delhi). Modi ji is a devotee of Ram. He was the first Prime Minister who laid the foundation for Ram Temple in Ayodhya. People used to say that this doesn’t suit a PM, but Modi ji would tell them that Ram was our ancestor, our legacy… why won’t I go for Ram Temple’s construction? He went to the inauguration, organised an 11-day-long celebration and built the great temple in Ayodhya.”

CM Yogi Adityanath ended his speech appealing to voters to vote for the BJP and to make sure of the visarjan (immersion/ defeat) of the Congress and INDIA alliance since Ram Lalla had already arrived. He added that while PM Modi was paying homage to the country’s legacy, Congress was saying that they would impose inheritance/legacy tax. “A property that your grandfather and father built, Congress will conduct an x-ray of the property. After the survey, they will take away half of that property and give it to Muslims such as Rohingyas, Bangladeshis, Afghanistanis, and Pakistanis. Is this acceptable to you? (crowd shouts no). Aurangzeb’s soul now possesses the INDIA bloc. Do not let it come. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj had anyway conquered Aurangzeb before, hence, you cannot let Aurangzeb and his descendants into Maharashtra again. Do you agree? (crowd says yes). Maharashtra is heading towards the goal of Abki baar 400 paar, right? (crowd says yes).”

The post People offering Namaz have vanished from UP streets: Yogi Adityanath fires fresh salvo at Muslims in Palghar appeared first on Alt News.


This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Oishani Bhattacharya.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2024/05/22/people-offering-namaz-have-vanished-from-up-streets-yogi-adityanath-fires-fresh-salvo-at-muslims-in-palghar/feed/ 0 475785 The Rebirth of Bangladesh https://www.radiofree.org/2024/03/30/the-rebirth-of-bangladesh/ https://www.radiofree.org/2024/03/30/the-rebirth-of-bangladesh/#respond Sat, 30 Mar 2024 18:04:51 +0000 https://dissidentvoice.org/?p=149367 The physical organisation of the Bengalee is feeble even to effeminacy. He lives in a constant vapour bath. His pursuits are sedentary, his limbs delicate, his movements languid. During many ages he has been trampled upon by men of bolder and more hardy breeds. Courage, independence, veracity, are qualities to which his constitution and his […]

The post The Rebirth of Bangladesh first appeared on Dissident Voice.]]>

The physical organisation of the Bengalee is feeble even to effeminacy. He lives in a constant vapour bath. His pursuits are sedentary, his limbs delicate, his movements languid. During many ages he has been trampled upon by men of bolder and more hardy breeds. Courage, independence, veracity, are qualities to which his constitution and his situation are equally unfavourable. His mind bears a singular analogy to his body. It is weak even to helplessness for purposes of manly resistance…

— Macaulay (1841)

Chhayanaut, the premier cultural institution of the country, employs what one scholar of fascism, Roger Griffin, has termed palingenesis, “a framing device to emphasise cultural and national renewal” (Zac Gershbergh and Sean Illing. The Paradox of Democracy: Free Speech, Open Media and Perilous Persuasion, (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2022), p 126).  Gershberg and Illing cite D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, the modern medium of the cinema for a mass audience: the Lost Cause of a heroic South, reinvigorated by the Ku Klux Klan.

“Pakistan’s rulers, since its inception in 1947, tried to use religion to rupture the plural cultural identity of Muslim Bengalis; this was reflected in their onslaught on Bangla language and culture,” announces the Chhayanaut website. We will see below that this does not fact-check. “Chhayanaut created a landmark national tradition by launching the celebration of Bengali seasons. The musical welcome on the first dawn of Baisakh [the opening month of the Bengali year] under the banyan tree in Ramna, begun in 1967, brought back the Bengali new year into the consciousness of city dwellers. Thus, Chhayanaut has become a partner in the glory of the Bengali passage that began with a cultural renaissance and led to the war for independence. During the liberation war, Chhayanaut singers organised performances to inspire freedom fighters and refugees. After independence, Chhayanaut has been involved in seeking creative ways to broaden and intensify the practice of music and, more broadly, the celebration of Bangla culture…Chhayanaut believes the nation will find its path to development through this cultural renaissance (italics added).” In fact, the “Bengali calendar” issued from the court of the Mughal Emperor Akbar. “Celebrations of Pahela Baishakh started from Akbar’s reign (1556 – 1605).”

Needless to add, Bengali consciousness played no role in these celebrations. An imperial edict, for purposes of tax collection, constituted the new calendar: such top-down, supine payment of taxes prompted the expression for Asians as a whole: “born taxpayers”: “The nascent absolutist states of Europe had to struggle long and hard before they established fiscal absolutism; of the Asian populations it can fairly be said, in the light of their 2,000-year-old histories, that they were “born taxpayers” (S. E. Finer, The History of Government from the Earliest Times, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), p 1303)”.

According to a former student, Chhayanaut begins its Victory Day musical at precisely 3:45 pm – when the Pakistan army surrendered to the Indian army on December 16 1971. Apart from the singing and dancing, “Chhayanaut has a dress code for people who want to sit in the audience. The audience must wear something in green or red”, the colours of the flag — reminding one of the indoctrination scene in Stalag 17 (1953).

Whatever their goals, their one achievement stands out: subordinating the individual to the group. And this group, far from including all Bengalis actually excludes most: the illiterate, and their taste in music and dance. When the author questioned three exponents of Bengali culture, they were unanimous in condemning the movie item dances of Naila Nayem, a sex symbol in Bangladesh (pictured). “Indecency” must be ruled out, commented one of the trio. The puritanism of the Bengali middle class appears unclothed.

We are not surprised: the imperative of cohesion trumps all others. As history has shown, the boot-in-the-face is a Freudian need of the herd:

Since a group is in no doubt as to what constitutes truth or error, and is conscious, moreover, of its own great strength, it is as intolerant as it is obedient to authority. It respects force and can only be slightly influenced by kindness, which it regards merely as a form of weakness. What it demands of its heroes is strength, or even violence. It wants to be ruled and oppressed and to fear its masters. Fundamentally it is entirely conservative, and it has a deep aversion from all innovations and advances and an unbounded respect for tradition…

And so Chhayanaut believes “that if people come together in singing songs of loving the motherland and its people, those divisions will dissolve. Chhayanaut believes that Bangalees can be united once again through culture…Chhayanaut hopes that their new initiative to bring people together in the spirit of patriotism will be successful (italics supplied).”

Patriotism: the last refuge?

The Soft Power

Chhayanaut promotes the arts on behalf of the ruling party. Its founders earned their nationalist spurs by singing songs – discouraged by the Pakistan government before and during the second Indo-Pak war over Kashmir –  by Rabindranath Tagore, the Indian Nobel laureate, on his hundredth birth anniversary, a lot like  the Boston Symphony Orchestra not playing Beethoven on the eve of the Great War. By cocking a snook at the authorities of a country founded on Islamic unity, Chhayanaut’s defiance earned merit for heroic anti-Islamism.

Which brings us to Rabindranath Tagore and his songs.

The songs of Nobel-Prize-winning Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) — one of which constitutes the national anthem of Bangladesh — betrays the elitism of our nationalism. Demotic Bengali is sharply different from hieratic Bengali — the latter only spoken by the uber-elite, the self-consciously nationalist. Education is the national cosmetic, concealing all wrinkles of the particular. Rabindranath belongs among the educated.

Rabindranath Tagore symbolised anti-Islamism, Bengalism and pan-Bengalism, all of which makes him a prophet-like personality in the salons of Dhaka, Bangladesh. None of this would have been possible but for the Nobel Prize in literature. Sanjida Khatun observes that his protean output “has made Tagore songs an essential part of life of the Bengalis who sing them in happiness, in distress, and at work”. The mythology around Rabindranath’s songs suggests a less innocent explanation.

Ian Jack, writing on the god-man’s hundred-and-fiftieth birth anniversary, observes: “Then again, love of literature can slide into fetishism, and from there, obscenity. When Tagore died in 1941, the huge crowd around his funeral cortege plucked hairs from his head. At the cremation pyre, mourners burst through the cordon before the body had been completely consumed by fire, searching for bones and keepsakes.” That’s not love of literature; that’s love of divinity. And godmen tend to proliferate in the “mystical” Orient: recall the Beatles’ guru, Maharishi Maheshi Yogi, father of Transcendental Meditation (TM), in whose dishonour a disillusioned John Lennon composed Sexy Sadie.  His genuflecting devotees must be reciting mantras to avert a similar fate for god-man Tagore (although a highly popular lampoon of one of the guru’s songs by Roddur Roy on YouTube manages to shock and amuse) .

Art has long been co-opted here for the purpose of propaganda. After the division of Bengal in 1905, the Hindu Bengali elite agitated for restored unity. One of these agitators was Rabindranath Tagore. He composed Banglar mati Banglar jal (“The soil of Bengal, the water of Bengal”). Dwijendralal wrote Banga amar janani amar (“Bengal is my land and my mother”); Atulprasad wrote Balo balo balo sabe (“Say, say, say everyone”). “Among others who contributed to the nationalistic movement was Mukundas, whose jatras [village plays], Desher Gan (patriotic song) and Matrpuja (Worship of the Mother), motivated the Bangalis to fight for their rights and against the despotic rule of the English.” These worked: As Percival Spear remarks, “It had been shown that the despised bourgeois might on occasion get a popular backing” (A History of India, Volume 2 (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1990), p 177).

“Bande Mataram” (“Hail to Thee Mother”) became the Congress’s national anthem, its words taken from Anandamath, a popular  – and “virulently anti-Muslim” – Bengali novel by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, and its music composed by Rabindranath Tagore (the observation on the nature of the novel comes from Ian Stephens, Pakistan: Old Country/New Nation (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964), p 86).

Chaterjee’s slogans – bande mataram, matribhumi (motherland), janmabhumi (birth land), swaraj (self rule), mantra, and so on – were used by militant Hindu nationalists, mostly from Bengal, and many of these words continue to resonate powerfully in Bangladesh today. Moderate leaders of the Indian National Congress did not take immediately to Chaterjee’s Hindu nationalist slogans, but were won over by their appeal to the youth during the swadeshi movement. Fuller, the Lieutenant-Governor of East Bengal and Assam, forbade the chanting of bande mataram in public.  Congress’s continued emphasis on aspects of militant Hindu nationalism – such as the replacement of Urdu by Hindi, and the singing of bande mataram in schools and on public occasions –  was resented by Muslims (Hugh Tinker, South Asia: A Short History (London: Pall Mall Press, 1966), pp 195, 220).

“Mother-goddess-worshipping Bengali Hindus believed that partition was nothing less than the vivisection of their ‘mother province’, and mass protest rallies before and after Bengal’s division on October 16, 1905, attracted millions of people theretofore untouched by politics of any variety,” according to the Britannica. The swadeshi movement, as it was known, inspired terrorists who believed it a sacred duty to offer human sacrifices to the goddess Kali (Spear, p 176). What in actuality had been a purely administrative measure served to catapult national consciousness among the Hindu Bengalis. However, British officials made it clear that one consequence of the partition would be to give Muslims of Bengal a province where they would be dominant: it was a forerunner of Pakistan (Tinker, p 195). According to the Banglapedia article on the swadeshi movement, “The Swadeshi movement indirectly alienated the general Muslim public from national politics. They followed a separate course that culminated in the formation of the Muslim League (1906) in Dacca.” During the first meeting of the Muslim League, convened in Dacca in December 1906, the Agha Khan’s deputation issued a call “to protect and advance the political rights and interests of Mussalmans of India.” Other resolutions moved at the meeting expressed Muslim “loyalty to the British government,” support for the Bengal partition, and condemnation of the boycott movement.

Thus, an all-too-frequently heard Bengali song here goes: “The queen of all countries is my birth land (janmabhumi)”. The land figures prominently in the superabundance of deshattobodhok — patriotic — songs. “O the land of my country, my head touches you/You have commingled with my body….” Again: “You [martyrs] will be the beacon for the new swadesh….” While bhumi unequivocally means land, desh is more ambiguous: it can mean village or country. Since the transition from the former to the latter is far from complete, the word attempts to transfer emotions from the particular to the general, from the concrete to the abstract, mirroring inadequately the (far more successful) transition from pays to patrie, from Gesselschaft to Gemeinschaft (Finer, pp 143-4). The pejorative chasha (literally, farmer, but connotes the gauche, the uncultivated) tars all rural inhabitants (and even more in its stronger version, chasha-bhusha), and thereby the entire country, with the same brush. Patriotic songs may be seen as an heroic effort at restoration of self-esteem through imagined restoration of the physical unity of the two Bengals.  The portability of song makes it a potent cultural artefact: emigres sing and hear these jingoistic songs in their new countries (typically America, Canada or Australia) where faux nationalism survives in the first generation, fortunately endowed with considerable human capital, the highly literate and numerate. The less fortunate are exhorted to love the motherland (matribhumi/janmabhumi) instead of voting with their feet. A single Youtube video, for instance, plays fifteen chauvinistic lays.

Mother, hail!…

Though seventy million voices through thy mouth sonorous shout,

Though twice seventy million hands hold trenchant sword-blades out,

Yet with all this power now,

Mother, wherefore powerless thou?

According to Bengali writer Nirad C. Chaudhury, “It was not the liberal political thought of the organisers of the Indian National Congress, but the Hindu revivalism of the last quarter of the nineteenth century — a movement which previously had been wholly confined to the field of religion — which was the driving force behind the anti-partition agitation of 1905 and subsequent years.” (Bande Mattaram lines, and Chaudhury, quoted, Tinker, pp 192-3). Rabindranath must be regarded as a pioneer of pan-Bengalism, and the successful reunion of Bengal as our Anschluss.

After Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League came to power in 1996, the state comfortably — and permanently — ensconced Chhayanaut headquarters in a tony part of town, “in recognition of it’s (sic) significant contributions for [the] last four decades to the Bangali cultural development”. “Virtually, the Chhayanaut operates unofficially as the apex body in the realm of music and dance.” The organisation, and others like it, provide psychic ammo for the government’s more muscular anti-Islamism – the soft power behind the hard power.

Death by a Thousand Mudras

The hard power went on display when, in 2021, Sheikh Hasina’s government invited Narendra Modi to the hundredth birth anniversary of her father Sheikh Mujib, the pater patriae and fifty years of national independence, announced by said pater on 26 March, 1971. The Islamist group, Hefazat–e-Islami, asked the government to cancel the invitation, thereby ‘showing respect to the sentiment of [the[ majority [of] people in Bangladesh”. In a written statement, they labeled Modi, not inaccurately, as ‘anti-Muslim and a butcher of Gujarat”. Members of the ruling party, and, predictably enough, its student wing, the Chatra League, attacked worshippers at the national mosque on 26 March after the Friday prayer to stymie the planned protest, leading to a nationwide fracas the next two days. At least fourteen Hefazat members were shot dead by police. “The Bangladeshi authorities must conduct prompt, thorough, impartial, and independent investigations into the death of at least 14 protesters across the country between 26 and 28 March,” insisted Amnesty International, “and respect the right to freedom of peaceful assembly, said 11 human rights organisations in a joint statement today. The organisations also called on the international community to urge Bangladeshi authorities to put an end to the practice of torturing and forcibly disappearing opposition activists.”

The Bangladesh Nrityashilpi Sangstha, “a welfare organisation of dance artistes” established in 1978, similarly serves up propaganda as dance. According to noted dance-teacher and impresario Laila Hassan: “It [Bangladesh Nrityashilpi Sangstha] believes that dance not only provides entertainment, it also speaks about the life, society, and culture of the country and its people, and that the liberation war and the country’s history and tradition can be presented through it”.

The Bulbul Lalitakala Academy serves a similar function: in addition to ministering to Terpsichore, the academy “plays a pivotal role in the cultural field through its regular observances of shaheed dibash [literally, “martyr’s day”, February 21, when young people were gunned down in a language protest in 1952] and independence day and celebrations of pahela baishakh and the spring festival….” On February 1 2024, a mega cultural event across the nation commemorated the shaheed dibash. The chief of the government-run cultural organisation, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy mused: ‘We need culture-friendly political parties in the country in order to further the nation”. “Over 300 troupes are staging street plays at 21 venues in eight divisions at the festival,” announced the newspaper. “Twenty eight Dhaka-based troupes will stage plays at the Central Shaheed Minar till February 7.”

Gershberg and Illing note how the proto-fascist D’Aunzia, Commandante of Fiume and the first Il Duce, “established music as the state’s central purpose” (p 134). The authors quote Robert A. Paxton: fascism is “full of exciting political festival and clever publicity techniques” as well as “the propagandist manipulation of public opinion [to] replace debate about complicated issues” (p 136).  Song-and-dance takes the place of tepid discussions of inflation and the current account deficit – although inflation eats away at the welfare of the poor. Hardly noticed, the Left Democratic Alliance, a group of left-leaning parties, held a protest rally on 20 March accusing the government of sponsoring “syndicates” that manipulate prices: “They said that the Awami League government had failed to control the price hike of essential commodities which increased sufferings of the common people of the country.”  Not surprisingly, the only party to use the F-word is the socialist Jatiya Samajtantrk Dal (JSD) who observe “anti-fascism democracy day” on March 18 when several members were killed by the private army of Sheikh Mujb in 1974.

In the article “Dance Groups” of the Banglapedia, the writer observes, “Dance as an art form was seldom practised by Muslims before Gauhar Jamil set up a dance institution called Shilpakala Bhaban in 1948. After partition in 1947, despite the conservative tradition of the Bavgali (sic) society, a number of performers…contributed to removing old ways of thinking and entertainment.” The article on Bulbul Lalitakala Academy mentions “conservative Bengali Muslims”; and Chayyanaut “encountered many obstacles from [the] government of the time, because music and dance, especially of secular genre, were not much in consistence with the ideology of the Pakistani regime”. (Never mind that Ayub Khan removed Islam from the constitution (Ayesha Jalal, Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia, A Comparative and Historical Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p 58) and passed the Muslim Family Law Ordinance, that the government set up the East Pakistan Film Development Corporation in 1957, that the Iranian singer Googoosh appeared regularly on TV in West Pakistan in the ‘60s, that the dance program Nritter Tale Tale aired every week, as the author recalls….) However, the article on “Classical Dance” observes: “…it appears that, like other classical dances, Kathak developed in the courtyards of Hindu temples and got a fresh lease of life under the patronage of the Mughal rulers”. The Britannnica concurs: Kathak, born of the marriage of Hindu and Muslim cultures, flourished in North India under Mughal influence.

“Classical Dance” also states: “During British rule, Indian classical dancing was patronised by the ruling classes, such as, rajas, maharajas, nawabs and zamindars as well as by British high officials who held ‘nautches’ in their private chambers.” And Bulbul Chowdhury, according to the same encyclopaedia, succeeded with dance precisely “by showing that dance was part of the Muslim-Mughal tradition”.  Disinformation, or, not to put too fine a point on it, lying, conduces to incoherence. Another article in the Banglapedia observes that Khaleda Manzoor-e Khuda, a regular singer on Dacca Radio from 1951 to 1955, sang Tagore songs. “At that time as a Rabindra singer she was popularly known as Khaleda Fency Khanam.”

In an interview with the author, Benazir Salam, an expert in Indian classical dance with an MA from Rabindra Bharati, Kolkata and a teacher of dance at Dhaka University, observed of Kathak that it developed under Muslim rule, and, precisely for that reason, Chhayanaut allows its performance only at festivals, and relegates it to the tail-end.

The Men of Words, the Women of Song

We would do well to tarry a while and take note of Erich Hoffer on the subject, which will recur: “It is the deep-seated craving of the man of words for an exalted status which makes him oversensitive to any humiliation imposed on the class or community (racial, lingual or religious) to which he belongs however loosely. It was Napoleon’s humiliation of the Germans, particularly the Prussians, which drove Fichte and the German intellectuals to call on the German masses to unite into a mighty nation which would dominate Europe (The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (New York: Perennial Classics, 2002), p 138)”. Hoffer uses the expression “the unwanted self” (p12). Macaulay’s attitude seems to have penetrated generations of this Delta, so much so that in Sheikh Mujb’s battle cry Joy Bangla  [Long live Bengal/Bengali language] they feel wanted again.

Hoffer explains the intelligentsia’s solid support for the despotic dynasty of Bangladesh: During the upheavals of 2018, when student thugs of the ruling party beat up harmless child protesters demanding safer roads, Mehdi Hasan went head to head with a former Harvard professor, Gawhar Rizvi, who shamelessly defended every criminality perpetrated by the government; this author has spoken with men (and women) of words, and found the same resistance to criticism. When a bridge opened recently, the men and women of words and song galvanised themselves to create musical paeans to the dynasty (click here for the album Bangladesh: Despotic Dynasty, pictures taken by the author of the images of the ruling family plastered throughout the capital, a superb example of persuasive advertising designed to perpetuate our founding myth of the Father of the Nation). Intellectuals, “ a herd of independent minds”, in Chomsky’s words, appease our collective self-loathing by glorifying and exonerating thuggery.

In all fairness, it must be conceded that Bangladeshis are not uniquely prone to assuaging collective self-loathing through megaprojects: According to development economists Hla Myint and Anne O. Krueger, less developed countries’ resentment of developed economies stem, not only from measurable differences in income, but from less rational factors such as a reaction against the colonial past and their complex drives to achieve parity. “Thus, it is not uncommon to find their governments using a considerable proportion of their resources in prestige projects, ranging from steel mills, hydroelectric dams, universities, and defence expenditure to international athletics. These symbols of modernization may contribute a nationally shared satisfaction and pride but may or may not contribute to an increase in the measurable national income.” A picture of the Aswan Dam accompanies their article.

Peace is War

In 1928, Arthur Ponsonby, a British Member of Parliament, published his tell-all book on British propaganda which he called Falsehood in War-time: Containing An Assortment Of Lies Circulated Throughout The Nations During The Great War. In time of war, he observes with acerbity, “the stimulus of indignation, horror, and hatred must be assiduously and continuously pumped into the public mind by means of ‘propaganda’.

“A good deal depends on the quality of the lie. You must have intellectual lies for intellectual people and crude lies for popular consumption….

“Perhaps nothing did more to impress the public mind – and this is true in all countries – than the assistance given in propaganda by intellectuals and literary notables.” In short, the men of words.

The items italicised by the present author could be supplemented with and at all times. In Bangladesh today, the intelligentsia provides the context for a mindset suitable to a wartime situation: Fifty-two years after the third Indo-Pak war, seventy-two after Ekushey February Pakistan is still the enemy, and Islamists are fair game. George Orwell appreciated well the need for a state of permanent hostility against a fictive enemy to keep the citizenry loyal to the Party – a world  dominated by three perpetually warring totalitarian police states. Emmanuel Goldstein, however, stars in the daily Two-Minute Hate – the equivalent of the propaganda by scribes, terpsichores and thespians in our country against the minuscule mullahs.

“He [Goldstein] was an object of hatred more constant than either Eurasia or Eastasia, since when Oceania was at war with one of these Powers it was generally at peace with the other. But what was strange was that although Goldstein was hated and despised by everybody, although every day and a thousand times a day, on platforms, on the telescreen, in newspapers, in books, his theories were refuted, smashed, ridiculed, held up to the general gaze for the pitiful rubbish that they were—in spite of all this, his influence never seemed to grow less.” How like the Islamsts of Bangladesh he sounds.

As Gershberg and Illing observe: “Fascism also promulgates the myth of sinister internal enemies that are simultaneously weak and devious (p 126)”.

“Nothing to report,” the lieutenant said with contempt. 

“The Governor was at me again today,” the chief complained.

“Liquor?”

“No, a priest.”

“The last was shot weeks ago.”

“He doesn’t think so.”

“In the world of Graham Greene’s 1940 novel, The Power and the Glory,” muses a reviewer, “it’s a bad time to be a Catholic.” In the 2020s Bangladesh, it’s a bad time to be an Islamist, or even quasi-Islamist. (The quoted lines are from Vintage Books, London, 2002, p 32).

In 2017, Hafez (an Islamic scholar, not his real name) was, along with other religious students at Dhaka University dorms, beaten within an inch of their lives for being alleged Islamists. This routine torture of perceived “traitors” finally resulted two years later in the murder of Abrar Fahad, a straight-A student at the elite Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) by his classmates who beat him for hours for his Facebook post criticising the prime minister: automatically, this made him an enemy, an Islamist (the BBC report leaves something to be desired: the murderous students belonged to the student wing of the ruling Awami League, the Bangladesh Chatra League (BCL), not the youth wing as reported; this is significant.). The second event caused a firestorm, the first, that of Hafez, went ignored: it’s open season on Islamists.

A highly abridged interview of Hafez conducted by this author several weeks ago appears below (this sort of news, being par for the course, hardly travels; hence, the delay in interviewing Hafez. Indeed, had Abrar Fahad not been an engineering student of elite stock, his murder, like that of the tailor, Biswajit Das (pictured), though highly publicised on TV channels and newspapers in his blood-stained shirt, vainly warding blows from the ruling party student thugs,  might as well have been invisible. For the author’s observations on this selective attention, please click on What George Floyd’s Death Means – Or Should Mean – In Bangladesh ).

2017 August 13 11:30 pm 

Interrogations begin –  he’s forced to talk. It’s all pre-planned: the hall president and sidekicks are present

“Got him, Bhai [brother].”

Hafeez kneeled, salaamed.

The president is on the bed. The president’s room is on the 2nd floor; Hafez’s on the 5th floor

“Do you do Shibir [Islamist student wing of the main Islamist party]?”

Hafez is astounded. “No, Bhaiya [brother], I don’t.”

(Louder) “Do you do Shibir? Why do you do Shibir?”

“Bhaiya, I don’t.”

Slapping begins.

A friend who was an Islamic scholar, and similarly attired, is later brought in.

Heavier beating, kicking, ensue. A wooden stick is produced: they start hitting him on the back. Rods and water pipes are brought out from inside the president’s room. The hall secretary hits him on the thigh, right above the knee with pipes. The slaps are mostly on the eyes, ears and front face.

“Confess; we can burst your nose. Hey, who’s good at bursting noses?”

Bestiality of the above variety stems from nationalism, as documented by John Keane: “At the heart of nationalism – and among the most peculiar feature of its ‘grammar’ – is its simultaneous treatment of the Other as everything and nothing. The Other is seen as the knife at the throat of the nation. Nationalists are panicky and driven by friend-foe calculations; they suffer from a judgement disorder that convinces them that the Other nation lives at its own expense (Civil Society, (London: Polity Press, 1998), p. 96).” “…sinister internal enemies that are simultaneously weak and devious,” according to Gershberg and Illing.

A characteristic of collectivist organisations involves the use of children, such as the Chatra League of the ruling party. Interest in the child, and youth in general, arose in the early twentieth century, with such innocent bodies as the Boy Scouts.  But it was followed by the “much more sinister and deliberately exploitative youth organisations of the totalitarian states of the 1920s and 1930s”, according to J.M. Roberts (Twentieth Century: A History of the World, 1901 to the Present (London: Penguin, 1999, p 642). “Young Pioneers in the USSR, the Hitler Youth in Germany, the balilla, Picolli Italiani and Figli della Lupa in Italy.”  These countries vigorously excluded the Boy Scouts. The post-war youth market and culture never emerged in the east, where Mao’s Red Guards wreaked havoc in the 1960s. “Young Stalinists worshipped Stalin as an individual,” observes Richard Vinen. “Teenagers swelled the ranks of the party’s youth organisations….” They formed the most committed warriors against imperialism. “Astonishing as it seems in retrospect, the period when communist rule in Eastern Europe was at its most brutal was also the period during which many intelligent and well-meaning individuals thought it was a good thing” (A History in Fragments: Europe in the Twentieth Century (Da Capo Press, 2001), p 339, 344). Astonishing, indeed, except to someone domiciled in Bangladesh today.  And Chhayanaut works its spell on children.

A Disappearing Act

When all eyes — those of the young and the old — are focussed on events several decades ago, thanks to Chhayanaut and the men of words, contemporary evils, as noted by Robert Paxton, such as the hounding of the Chief Justice, or the burning alive of innocent bystanders, enforced disappearances, state thuggery, extrajudicial killings, rapes by student politicians, appear remote and ephemeral. The stimulus of indignation, horror, and hatred is assiduously and continuously pumped into the public mind by means of “propaganda” — by the government and its handmaidens, the intelligentsia, “the men of words”, “the women of song and dance”.

Dhaka University, the quondam Oxford of the East, where alleged Islamists, as we have seen, receive considerable corporal suffering,  earns the infamy of “concentration camp” , from the victims of its illustrious sons, mindful, no doubt, of the spirit of learning, albeit delivered, not in lectures, but in more tactile form. “It (Chhayanaut) believes that our celebration of fraternity and creativity under the broad rubric of an inclusive humanist culture will triumph, leaving behind religious bigotry, fundamentalism and xenophobia.” Read: getting rid of the Islamists, “simultaneously devious and weak”, by whatever means available to the state.

“Against this, there are other competing conceptions of art that are never fully suppressed, such as the archaic view that places art in the same general sphere of activity as ritual (a view with which I acknowledge considerable sympathy), and the conception of art as a vehicle of moral uplift or social progress, as is common in totalitarian societies where the creation of art becomes co-opted for the purpose of propaganda (for which, by contrast, I avow a proportional antipathy).” Most of us would go along with Justin E. H. Smith in his aptly-titled book Irrationality: A History of the Dark Side of Reason, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), pp 22-23); we share his conceptions of art, and our sympathies lie with him. The Russian love story, “Boy meets tractor”, finds a creepy analogy: “Men and women meet bridge”.

The conception of Muslim civilisation as hopelessly philistine, if not proto-Khomeinist, persists in Bangladesh (as elsewhere). The following from Ronald Segal’s Islam’s Black Slaves: The Other Black Diaspora would come as a shock to teenagers and adults alike: “Female slaves were required in considerable numbers, for a variety of purposes. Some were musicians, singers and dancers – neither the status nor the style of a great house could do without a sitara, or chamber-orchestra – reciters and even composers of poetry. There were celebrated schools in Baghdad, Cordoba, and Medina that supplied tuition and training in both musical and literary skills. Such slaves were highly prized and costly (London: Atlantic Books, 2002, p 38).”

Show Me the Money

The above description of our cultural hanky panky may not appear more than children on a playful rampage, or inmates running the asylum (not counting the dead and disappeared for now). But the twang of the sitar and the thump of the tabla conceal the tinkle of coins and the thud of dosh. Gunnar Myrdal observed of South Asia in The Challenge of World Poverty: A World Anti-Poverty Programme in Outline: “…changes of government, or even of form of government, occur high over the heads of the masses of  people and mainly imply merely a shift of the groups of persons in the upper strata who monopolise power (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971), p 212).” The transition from East Pakistan to Bangladesh, from military rule to democracy, occasioned changes of personnel at the top.

Albert Reynolds’ figures tell a disquieting story: “For countries at the early stages of development, primary education has the lowest unit costs and highest rates of economic return….Most South Asian governments (backed by self-interested elites) invested disproportionately in higher education: India had one of the highest growth rates in Asia for university students and the lowest for primary enrollments. In the 1970s, Bangladesh and Pakistan were increasing spending on higher education at the expense of primary schools, whose share in Bangladesh fell from 60 percent in 1973 to 44 percent in 1981 (One World Divisible: A Global History Since 1945 (New York: W.W.Norton and Co., 2000), p 302, 307, emphases added).” We see these statistics clearly bearing out Myrdal’s observation regarding elite-churning.

For what prevails in the political economy of Bangladesh is an oligarchy in cahoots with the ruling party; the Center for Policy Dialogue, a think tank, went on record as saying: “The current practice of recruiting Board of Directors [to state-owned commercial banks, or SCBs] on political grounds has to be discontinued. Studies have shown that financial reporting fraud in banks is more likely if the Board of Directors is dominated by insiders”. The level of non-performing loans (NPLs) has increased steadily since 2008, when the current government returned to power: between 2008 and 2018, the level of dud loans soared 297%. Syed Yusuf Saadat, research associate of the think-tank, observed, “In 2017, a single business group gained control of more than seven private banks.” The IMF observed that “important and connected borrowers default because they can”.

The case study of Islami Bank provides a detailed picture, not only of the government’s anti-Islamism, but also the paw-in-the-public-till syndrome that promotes loyalty to the dynasty. “Established in 1983 as Bangladesh’s first bank run on Islamic principles, Islami thrived by handling a large share of remittances from emigrant workers and by lending to the booming garment industry. Its troubles stem from its links with Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party, which allied with Pakistan during the war of succession of 1971.” One of the first acts by the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, on coming to power in 2009 was to try “war criminals” in kangaroo courts. “Leading figures from the Jamaat were sentenced to imprisonment or hanging.” Then came the asset-seizure. In 2017, the prime minister sent government intelligence operatives to oust senior executives and put in place her cronies: a boardroom coup. The cronies swiftly turned a healthy bank sick.

While Chhayanaut greets the new Bengali year under a banyan, and grandmothers in the vernacular, its members and devotees don colour-coded sarees (white with a red border for Baisakh, yellow for Falgun, blue for Ashar, red and gold for Victory Day), hog watered rice rural-style, sing Tagore in soirees…the wonga wends its way….

As Don Fabrizio’s nephew observes in Giuseppe Di Lampedusa’s The Leopard, “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change. D’you understand (trans. Archibald Colquhoun, (New York:Random House, 1960), p 40)?”

The post The Rebirth of Bangladesh first appeared on Dissident Voice.


This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Iftekhar Sayeed.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2024/03/30/the-rebirth-of-bangladesh/feed/ 0 467206 Umesh Pal murder: Did Yogi Adityanath smear himself with ashes from dead cop’s pyre? Old video viral https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/04/umesh-pal-murder-did-yogi-adityanath-smear-himself-with-ashes-from-dead-cops-pyre-old-video-viral/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/04/umesh-pal-murder-did-yogi-adityanath-smear-himself-with-ashes-from-dead-cops-pyre-old-video-viral/#respond Sat, 04 Mar 2023 10:12:11 +0000 https://www.altnews.in/?p=149766 A video of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath is gathering a lot of traction on social media. In the clip, he can be seen applying ashes from the ground...

The post Umesh Pal murder: Did Yogi Adityanath smear himself with ashes from dead cop’s pyre? Old video viral appeared first on Alt News.

]]> A video of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath is gathering a lot of traction on social media. In the clip, he can be seen applying ashes from the ground on his forehead. It is being claimed that Adityanath smeared himself with ashes from the funeral pyre of a police constable who died after being injured in a fatal attack on Umesh Pal, the key witness in a BSP MLA’s murder. 

India TV journalist Jayprrakash Singh tweeted the footage, claiming that Yogi Adityanath put the ashes of the police constable who was martyred in the Umesh Pal murder case in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh on his forehead. (Archived link)

Jan Ki Baat Editor Pooja Kushwah also tweeted this video with this claim. (Archived link)

A user named Thakur Ankit Singh also promoted the video with the same claim. (Archived link)

A number of verified handles also amplified the clip and accompanying claim. 

Fact Check 

Alt News performed a search using keywords related to the viral video. This led us to a tweet by Times Group journalist Sameer Dixit dated March 22, 2022 containing the same clip. Dixit wrote that Yogi Adityanath had put ashes on his forehead after Holika Dahan. In other words, this video is at least one year old. It is now being shared with a misleading claim by linking it to the police constable martyred in the recent Umesh Pal murder case.

Alt News could not find any more information about this video. However, it is certain that this video is not related to the recent Umesh Pal murder case.

It can be concluded with certainty that a one-year-old video of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath applying ashes on his forehead after Holika Dahan is being falsely shared with a misleading claim. 

The post Umesh Pal murder: Did Yogi Adityanath smear himself with ashes from dead cop’s pyre? Old video viral appeared first on Alt News.


This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Abhishek Kumar.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/04/umesh-pal-murder-did-yogi-adityanath-smear-himself-with-ashes-from-dead-cops-pyre-old-video-viral/feed/ 0 377085 Yogi govt didn’t put out job ad for ganja smokers; false claim by SP media cell https://www.radiofree.org/2023/02/22/yogi-govt-didnt-put-out-job-ad-for-ganja-smokers-false-claim-by-sp-media-cell/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/02/22/yogi-govt-didnt-put-out-job-ad-for-ganja-smokers-false-claim-by-sp-media-cell/#respond Wed, 22 Feb 2023 12:35:46 +0000 https://www.altnews.in/?p=148461 News of a job opening for marijuana smokers with a salary of more than Rs. 80 lakh has been making the rounds on social media recently. It is being claimed...

The post Yogi govt didn’t put out job ad for ganja smokers; false claim by SP media cell appeared first on Alt News.

]]> News of a job opening for marijuana smokers with a salary of more than Rs. 80 lakh has been making the rounds on social media recently. It is being claimed that the job opportunity was announced by the Yogi government in Uttar Pradesh. The Samajwadi Party media cell shared the graphic and wrote that anything was possible under the Yogi administration. (Archived link)

 

Nishu Yadav of the Samajwadi Party also made the same claim while tweeting the image. (Archived link)

Jeetu Saini, district secretary, Samajwadi Lohia Vahini, Lucknow, also tweeted the graphic and the accompanying claim. (Archived link)

 

Fact Check

We noticed that the graphic had an ABP News watermark. We checked the Instagram account of the news outlet and found the original image on the ABP News Instagram handle dated February 16. The caption of the post mentions that a German company named ‘Cannamedical’ is looking for a professional to test medical products made from hemp. This news was also published on the website of ABP News on February 16.

This was also shared by the Twitter handle of the National Post.

A German cannabis company is looking to hire a “cannabis sommelier” with a salary of up to $142,500 a year — via @TheGrowthOphttps://t.co/BU04TUxyUk

To sum it up, the media cell and leaders of the Samajwadi Party falsely circulated the news of a job opening for testing hemp products in Germany linking it to the Yogi Adityanath goverment in Uttar Pradesh.

The post Yogi govt didn’t put out job ad for ganja smokers; false claim by SP media cell appeared first on Alt News.


This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Abhishek Kumar.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/02/22/yogi-govt-didnt-put-out-job-ad-for-ganja-smokers-false-claim-by-sp-media-cell/feed/ 0 374520 Viral video claiming Yogi Adityanath broke into tears during a screening of The Kashmir Files is from 2017 https://www.radiofree.org/2022/03/16/viral-video-claiming-yogi-adityanath-broke-into-tears-during-a-screening-of-the-kashmir-files-is-from-2017/ https://www.radiofree.org/2022/03/16/viral-video-claiming-yogi-adityanath-broke-into-tears-during-a-screening-of-the-kashmir-files-is-from-2017/#respond Wed, 16 Mar 2022 12:00:42 +0000 https://www.altnews.in/?p=113912 Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, recently announced on Twitter, that the film, “The Kashmir Files”, will be exempt from taxes in Uttar Pradesh. The release of the film has...

The post Viral video claiming Yogi Adityanath broke into tears during a screening of The Kashmir Files is from 2017 appeared first on Alt News.

]]> Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, recently announced on Twitter, that the film, “The Kashmir Files”, will be exempt from taxes in Uttar Pradesh. The release of the film has kicked up a storm, and social media is divided on the issue. While the Prime Minister and multiple BJP leaders and ministers have praised the film, many have also expressed concerns regarding the polarising impact of the movie. Incidents of incendiary speeches were seen in multiple theatres that were showing this movie.

Against the backdrop of this controversy, a video of UP CM, Yogi Adityanath has gone viral on social media where he can be seen crying at an event. The video is accompanied by a Hindi caption that claims that Adityanath broke into tears during a screening of “The Kashmir Files”. It also urges users to go and see the film.

The video has also been shared widely on Facebook with similar claims.

Unrelated

We performed a keyword search on YouTube and came across a video report by ABP news, published in October 2017. The report states that Yogi Adityanath broke into tears during an event for martyrs in Gorakhpur. Parts of the viral video matches the visuals in ABP News’ report.

In addition to this, we also found a report by Zee News published on October 21, 2017. The report confirms that Yogi Adityanath was present for an event commemorating martyrs and he broke into tears when a song from the film Border (1997) was being played.

To conclude, the viral video is old, unrelated, and not from a screening of The Kashmir Files.

The post Viral video claiming Yogi Adityanath broke into tears during a screening of The Kashmir Files is from 2017 appeared first on Alt News.


This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Nilofar Absar.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2022/03/16/viral-video-claiming-yogi-adityanath-broke-into-tears-during-a-screening-of-the-kashmir-files-is-from-2017/feed/ 0 282655