So, Shekhar Gupta’s ThePrint on 16th JUNE 2020 at 7:36 PM IST published an article talking about how discriminatory the Indian Hindus are towards their Muslim counterparts. They did so by referring to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Organization published on 16th JUNE 2020.
The population of India is approximately 136 crore and this survey was conducted on only a meagre number of 3,505 Indians. The sampling size is highly questionable given the huge population of our country.
The title of the article by ThePrint is “93% Muslims view Hindus favourably, but only 65% Hindus view Muslims positively: Pew survey”. The title itself is trying to suggest how discriminatory India is towards its own Muslim population and, it is specifically targeting Hindus for the same. The trouble with such title is nothing but to create a division between the two communities. Being in the media business for so long, one should be clear about the implications of such titles but, I guess they wanted to show the same. Let us talk about the article itself and compare it with what was published by the Pew Research Organisation.
The Pointers included in the article
The first point and the title talk about how only 65% Hindus view Muslims favourably and 93% Muslims view Hindus favourably. But the article missed the point that, the same paragraph mentioned that such diversified opinion “may in part reflect that Muslims make up only 14% of the Indian population”. Statistically speaking that is the fact, with the population percentage less for some and high for another, the opinion will thereby seem to be skewed. The same study also revealed how in Lebanon (a Muslim majority country – Muslim population is 2,590,000 and Christian population is 1,620,00 as per 2010), the Sunnis viewed only 71% Christians (the minority) as favourable and the Shiites viewed only 73% Christians as favourable. When you now see the data, it is evident that the data on majority seem skewed because their numbers are higher or, may be Muslims in Muslim dominated countries feel less favourable about the minorities in that country – both interpretations can be derived, but the question is which one do we choose? ThePrint chose to play the blame game herein.
The second point this article talked about is, “56% Hindus interacted with Muslims in India”. It discusses on how 70% of Muslims interact with Hindus and only 56% of Hindus do the same. But the article consciously ignores the line: “Hindus make up about three-quarters of India’s overall population, and they were less likely to say they occasionally or frequently interact with members of other religions compared with Indian Muslims”. Now, when there are less people, the interaction will be less. The probability of such interaction becomes less because, when you’re interacting with someone it is more likely that the person will be a Hindu. Now, is ThePrint saying that being a majority in India is a cause of concern? If Hindus were not the majority in India, would this number have been any different?
Let us do a quick math as well, 36% of Hindus regularly interact with Muslims (they are only around 14% of the population) whereas, only 23% of Muslims interact with Hindus (they are around 79.5% of the population). If we view this data with such a perspective, a completely different narrative can be derived.
Even though the likelihood of a Muslim person meeting a Hindu in India, is 3 out of 4, only 23% of them tend to interact. Whereas the likelihood of a Hindu person meeting a Muslim in India is only 0.56 out of 4, still 36% of them regularly interact with Muslims – This clearly shows the effort a Hindu makes, to interact with his/her Muslim counterparts, but why would ThePrint write that – it just doesn’t fit their agenda.
The third and the last point that the article make is, 68% of Indians think, “People from different religious group make India a better place to live”. First of all, understand this, the 68% is more likely to comprise of more Hindus than any other religion. Secondly, 10% says it doesn’t make any difference so, we can say 78% people in India are likely to have no issues with other religious groups. Then, it states only 16% think that, other religious groups are making India a worse place to live in. And ThePrint leaves no stone unturned to make the point, that this survey was conducted before the Anti-CAA protests and thereby, in a very subtle way tries to suggest that, the 16% has likely increased now, as CAA was clearly against Muslims.
I’m sorry, CAA is not against Muslims, please read about it. Making such a statement is a very dangerous way to create division within the society. The article doesn’t mention, that the survey also says 75% in Lebanon and 70% in Jordan (Muslim majority countries) think other religious groups are making it worse to live. 38% of the population of Tunisia (a Muslim majority) says other religious groups are making it worse to live in the country. If an article needs to be written on a survey conducted, shouldn’t every comparison be accounted for, after all surveys are comparisons. Cherry picking certain points will only serve propaganda and nothing else.
This article deliberately ignores the fact that, India with its 68% population saying other religious groups make the country a better place, has the highest percentage among all the 11 countries surveyed for the same.
A few pointers that the article deliberately didn’t include
In most countries surveyed, people who interact more with those who are different from them – whether religiously, ethnically or racially – tended to be more positive toward societal diversity. – India’s interaction at 68%, is the highest among all.
The estimated number of migrants and refugees varies significantly among the 11 countries surveyed, ranging from a low of 60,000 people in 2017 in Tunisia to a high of 5,190,000 people in India in the same year. With such huge migration numbers, India still shows such tolerant and exceedingly welcoming numbers.
More than nine-in-ten across both religious groups gave favorable views of Hindus, regardless of how they identified religiously. – It clearly says how the Muslims in this country favour the Hindus, the confidence they have on the Hindus is unprecedented, but why would ThePrint talk about this?
The article deliberately ignores the statistics, only 59% of the overall population of India interact with other religious groups than their own. – The overall population consists of every religion. Even though Hindus are 79.5% of the population still interaction with them is so less, this only shows deliberate attempt to not interact with Hindus, at least I can state this data in this way. Doing so would be cherry picking.
This article deliberately doesn’t talk about how the religious composition of India would look like in coming years as per the same research group:
The data above clearly shows how the growth rate of Muslim population is likely to be higher as compared to that of Hindus in India in the next 40 years.This is only possible if the Muslims are more comfortable and confident living in this country than their Hindu counterparts, that is opposite of Islamophobia; but the title of ThePrint’s article suggests otherwise.
The Conclusion
The title of the article by ThePrint clearly wants to suggest Islamophobia and thereby, they don’t want to talk about every fact. They deliberately want to cherry pick upon data that can prove their point. Such narration is slowly poisoning India from within and are clearly working towards the total annihilation of the entire country. Such venomous narration has only one agenda – destroy the country from within. Long have people from various parts of the world tried to destroy this country from outside but, they failed. Now they’re trying to destroy it from within. With such narration they deliberately want to create parasitic elements within the Indian society who will ensure its destruction. Writing such articles, these media houses are blatantly helping foreign elements in creating religious hiatus within India. It is sad to see such propaganda being narrated by such big media houses, headed by such pioneering journalists. It is just sad. I’ve no further words to express the extreme pain I, as an Indian feel when such defamatory narrations are being published without any second thought of the consequences, that it might cause.
Please, let India live in peace. Your hatred for one man has turned into hatred for an entire community and soon it’ll be translated towards the entire Nation.
JAI HIND
