(Originally written on 24 August 2023)
(Revised and updated on 18 November 2023)
There is a popular quote – “History is Written by Victors.” The exact origin of the quote is uncertain and debatable but sometimes it is attributed to Winston Churchill, statesman and prime minister of UK of the World War 2 vintage. In essence, it implies that the history is not exact representation of the facts; instead, it is how the winners or the contemporary dominant political or military powers want world to know or see it. In a way it is a statement of fact because the victors are in a position to influence and prevail upon the contemporary historians to agree and record their narrative passing it down the history lane. In a way, the world civilizations operate on the principle of “Might is Right”. Also, there is yet another saying, often ascribed to Mark Twain that “A Lie can travel halfway around the world while the Truth is putting on its shoes.” This is how the world largely operates.
In the past, people were mostly dependent on the official/government media for the information and reporting of events and occurrences. With the advent of the electronic media and internet largely controlled in private hands, now there is a boom of information, and misinformation as well, including fake news, fake reporting and misreporting, and the active use of smart phones have now further revolutionized this process and procedure. Numerous knowledge-based websites and more significantly the Wikipedia have increasingly replaced the erstwhile library system as people use and rely on the internet more and more now even for historical data and information. Over the years, the Wikipedia has emerged as one of the chief sources of knowledge repository on almost every subject and a large number of people across the world refer to it for handy use.
The other day, while consulting the Wikipedia to check about the data and dates of certain crucial and important events in India during the last few years but was shocked to find how the contents purportedly written/modified do not exactly represent the facts and events as it occurred. Of course, links have been provided as the original source of the data and information, but the reporting appears unilateral from a certain remote segment used as resources. Here to analyze and explain the above, the author proposes to undertake an example from the recent past. For illustration, here the author would refer to the Delhi Riots of India in February 2020 which were incidentally also coterminous with the visit of the former US President Donald Trump. Being a responsible and well-informed Indian, I have myself written numerous essays and blogs on a variety of subjects. On the Delhi Riots too, I had closely watched the national and international news and reporting of the associated events, seen gory details of violence in visuals circulated on social and electronic media, and relevant facts were also analyzed in a comprehensive article immediately following the riots.
In the above context, I am quoting just 2-3 excerpts for the brevity’s sake each from my own essay and from the content later recorded on Wikipedia on a like to like basis about what actually occurred at that time and how it was perceived and documented largely based on the input reporting from the dominant Western media sources. The difference between two would vindicate fallacy of the purported reporting and recording.
Excerpt-1 from Wikipedia (citation from introductory/summary):
The 2020 Delhi riots, or North East Delhi riots, were multiple waves of bloodshed, property destruction, and rioting in North East Delhi, beginning on 23 February 2020 and caused chiefly by Hindu mobs attacking Muslims. Of the 53 people killed, two-thirds were Muslims who were shot, slashed with repeated blows, or set on fire. The dead also included a policeman, an intelligence officer and over a dozen Hindus, who were shot or assaulted. Muslims were marked as targets for violence. In order to have their religion ascertained, Muslim males—who unlike Hindus are commonly circumcised—were at times forced to remove their lower garments before being brutalized. Among the injuries recorded in one hospital were lacerated genitals. The properties destroyed were disproportionately Muslim-owned and included four mosques, which were set ablaze by rioters.
Excerpt-1 from Author’s Essay Delhi Riots of February 2020 on Boloji.com (Introductory):
While the top Indian political establishment was busy in hosting US President Donald Trump and his entourage on 24 and 25 February 2020 to make sure that the VVIP guests had a pleasant and trouble free time, the parts of the Northeast Delhi were burning and taken hostage by the rioters and criminals driven by communal frenzy. There was a complete lawlessness with lackadaisical or no response from the law-and-order authorities for some time. By the time, the Delhi police supplemented by the paramilitary forces geared up to control the situation in the riot affected area, a lot of damage in the form of human casualties and injuries as well as heavy losses of private and public properties were already caused.
Excerpt-2 from Wikipedia about Modus Operandi of Delhi Riots:
The riots had their origin in Jaffrabad, in North East Delhi, where a sit-in by women against India’s Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 had been in progress on a stretch of the Seelampur–Jafrabad–Maujpur road, blocking it. On 23 February 2020, a leader of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, Kapil Mishra, called for Delhi Police to clear the roads, failing which he threatened to “hit the streets”. After Mishra’s ultimatum, violence erupted. Initially, Hindu and Muslim attacks were equally lethal… By 25 February 2020, the balance had shifted. Rioters wearing helmets and carrying sticks, stones, swords or pistols, and the saffron flags of Hindu nationalism entered Muslim neighbourhoods, as the police stood by. Chants were heard of “Jai Shri Ram” (“Victory to Lord Rama”), a religious slogan favoured by prime minister Narendra Modi’s party. In the neighbourhood of Shiv Vihar, Hindu rioters attacked Muslim houses and businesses for three days, often firebombing them with cooking gas cylinders and gutting them without resistance from the police.
Any unaware reader would tend to conclude that a leader of BJP (purportedly added Hindu nationalist before the party name, which is an objectionable and pre-conceived notion) and Hindu rioters (purportedly named/linked with religion) were mainly responsible for the riot and excesses on 25th as also preceding events on 23rd and 24th February. A similar reference to the rioting community, which actually started it has been avoided thereby leaving an element of ambiguity.
Excerpt-2 from Author’s Essay on Boloji.com about how Delhi Riots started:
Reportedly, some six hundred or so Muslim women were seen marching through the congested lanes of Jafrabad in the Northeast Delhi towards the Metro station in the area around 10 PM on 22 February 2020. The local police noticed their movement but did not intervene and soon they squatted at the local Metro Station itself protesting against the Citizen Amendment Act (CAA). The women were accompanied by another four hundred or so male protesters for the back up support. According to some police sources, the core group of protesters appeared non-locals and by the following morning (Sunday, the 23rd February) this crowed swelled to around three thousand. There were only few women cops to handle this predominantly female crowd protesters, who had also seized access to the metro station…This mass assembly was done in violation of the already imposed Section 144 (ban on assembly) in the area…
While it is true that the BJP leader (Kapil Mishra) indeed spoke in his supporters’ rally on 23 February 2020 (AN) against the anti-CAA dharna and blockade that caused tremendous inconvenience to the common people and commuters, asking the Delhi police to remove the protestors from Jafrabad and Chand Bagh areas within three days failing which they would take action. It would be erroneous to say or conclude that the pro-CAA people started rioting and violence.
Some stray and minor incidents occurred on 23rd (later in the day) but, by around 9 AM on 24 February, rioting broke out with a large-scale arson and vandalism in Chandpur and adjacent minority community dominated localities. The rioters and goons freely used bricks & stones, clubs, country-made and semi-automatic firearms and even the police were not spared, which was unable to handle the situation for long. The violence thus erupted soon engulfed the areas of Jafrabad, Chand Bagh, Seelampur, Maujpur, Kardampuri, Babarpur, Gokulpuri and Shivpuri of Northeast Delhi. Umpteen videos were available and shown live (telecast by almost every Indian channel) suggesting the mobs in certain areas attacking even the police personnel. As hooligans and vandals (mostly of the minority community) attacking police disproportionally outnumbered the police deployed who inter alia also exercised utmost restraints in handling rioters, even the Delhi police personnel were seen running and retreating for own safety.
The rioters indulged in a large-scale stone-pelting, shooting, stabbing, lynching, arson and vandalism on the roads, lanes, houses and religious places. Even the DCP, Shahdara and his team accompanied by three police companies were attacked near a mosque at Chand Bagh area. The DCP and ACP were badly beaten by the rioters, and the head constable Ratan Lal was shot dead in the same area. The gradually emerging evidences suggest that the Muslims took a greater beating in later part of the riots mostly on 25th February in Hindu-dominated areas while Hindus in the Muslim dominated localities badly suffered on 24th onwards.
The Chand Bagh area (Muslim majority locality) remained a centre of the communal frenzy under the influence of the Aam Admi Party (AAP) Corporater Tahir Hussain, where the maximum communal frenzy was reported and the most disturbing part of it was the gruesome killing of Ankit Sharma, an intelligence officer, whose postmortem report revealed over 400 hundred stabbings besides chopping of the vital organs like eyes, nose and ears reminding the brutality of ISIS terrorists. In the beginning, the AAP ruling Delhi strongly defended the role and action of their Corporater Hussain but as clear evidence started emerging against his active role and participation in riots, he was removed by the AAP from the primary membership of the party.
As I can see from the links given in support of the illustrated account of the Delhi Riots documented on the said repository site (Wikipedia), the reports published on various dates by the Western media newspapers such as the Guardian, the New York Times, Washington Post, and so on, have been largely relied upon. A detailed research and perusal of reporting about various Indian events and issues made by these media houses would reveal that they have seldom been fair and accurate in reporting facts about the Government, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Hindus in India. The left-leaning media groups of the Western and Arab world such as The New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, Wall Street Journal, BBC, Reuters, Al Jazeera, and so on, are well known for their enduring biases and coloured vision in reporting on India, particularly under Prime Minister Modi government. Some of them have even purportedly engaged well-known Prime Minister Modi and BJP haters and baiters as columnists and reporters.
Just for the illustration sake here, in one case some time back, the very text of the New York Times’s advertisement for the recruitment of a South Asia business correspondent based in India itself smacked of their bias contemporarily inviting a lot of controversy:
“India’s future now stands at a crossroads. Mr. Modi is advocating a self-sufficient, muscular nationalism centered on the country’s Hindu majority. That vision puts him at odds with the interfaith, multicultural goals of modern India’s founders. The government’s growing efforts to police online speech and media discourse have raised difficult questions about balancing issues of security and privacy with free speech. Technology is both a help and a hindrance…”
The said advertisement smacked of the said bias and the implied meaning that the candidate must be an anti-Modi and anti-government person for consideration of his/her candidature for the sais job in The New York Times.
As a matter of fact, in the context of the anti-CAA protests in 2019-20 leading to the said riot, the very locus of the minority community (Muslims) was erroneous and misplaced. Misguided by interested politicians and religious leaders, they have been vehemently opposing the Citizen Amendment Act (CAA) 2019 which neither has any implications on the Indian Muslims nor it is in any way opposed to or affect their nationality and any other fundamental interests. Instead, the CAA 2019 is aimed at minimizing miseries of the immigrant Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jains, etc., who were persecuted and forced to leave their home and belongings in the three Islamic countries, namely Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan over the previous decades.
The way riots broke out in particular minority community dominated localities, and stockpile of the bricks & stones, illegal explosives and firearms were recovered by the police from certain houses/hideouts, it gives a clear indication that the riots were pre-planned with preparations secretly made over the weeks. Most probably, the date and time were also carefully chosen making it coterminous with the visit of the American President so as gain maximum footage and international publicity while simultaneously causing maximum socio-political embarrassment, discomfort and hardship to the Central Government. Attempts were also made by the interested individuals and groups inside and outside the country to escalate a false narrative of the ‘genocide’ and Delhi police bias against the minority community.
Subsequent, first information reports (FIRs), police investigations, court proceedings and convictions speak in volumes about the factual position of Delhi Riots which would be an eye opener for people interested in finding the truth. Although the long drawn legal process is still on, a Delhi Court in May 2023 has sentenced nine persons convicted in one case pertaining to Delhi riots with a punishment of seven years of rigorous imprisonment. The convicts are Mohd. Shahnawaz, Mohd. Shoaib, Shahrukh, Rashid, Azad, Ashraf Ali, Parvez, Md. Faisal and Rashid alias Monu. In yet another case among many, the charges have now been framed against accused Rajendar Jha, Tejveer Chaudhary, Rajesh Jha, Govind Singh Manral, Peetamber Jha and Devendar Kumar. Naturally, the Indian law will take its own course to see that the guilty men are punished commensurate with their offences, irrespective of their community, creed, caste or influence.
Here the author has no intention to attach any blemish to any particular repository website/ knowledge source, including the Wikipedia or its management but to only to flag a caution for being discreet and careful in use of the content available on internet. The Wikipedia, as one would learn, has been created by its founders and management with the well-intended objective and purpose to benefit readers by providing available data and information on all branches of knowledge. Hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, it consists of freely editable content, whose articles also have numerous original links supporting the content. Therefore, the issue of the lopsided or purported reporting may be attributable mainly to its contributors and/or editors. The Wikipedia not only allows one to create, revise and edit articles subject to certain checks, but apparently it also largely depends on the people to do so. So, if the contributor or editor is biased or ill-informed, discrepancies in reporting are bound to creep in. Hence, an objective person needs to apply adequate wisdom and caution in finding out facts from all available sources, including the Wikipedia, before forming up an opinion.
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