Multiple BJP leaders, including Kapil Mishra, Tajinder Bagga, and SG Surya, have come forward to support and celebrate a Youtuber calling for Indian Journalists to be ‘hanged’. They have described the video as an ‘honest cause’ and ‘nothing illegal or offensive’.
The video in question, posted by an account called ‘The String’ on 11 February, is smattered with foul language, grotesque insinuations and calls for journalists and activists to be jailed and hanged.
Titled ‘Arrest Rathee, Zubair, Barkha NOW! (Greta Toolkit Exposed’ the anchor in the video accuses a group of ‘leftist’ journalists, activists, and media organisations of participating in a ‘money trail’, having ‘vested interests’, and being ‘the real Godi media’.
The anchor attacks The Quint, as well as others including Barkha Dutt, Mohammed Zubair, Saket Gokhale, Newslaundry, Scroll, Alt News, the Wire, the News Minute, India Spend, Outlook India, and PARI, and demands the hanging of many journalists and activists, including those associated with the said organisations.
However, when the video was taken down, BJP bigwigs and some other public figures rushed to shower sympathy and show support with the maker of the video.
BJP Leaders Show Support for the Video
Kapil Mishra, who was formerly a Delhi MLA and had been blamed by many for inciting 2020’s communal riots in Delhi, was emphatic in pointing out how ‘unacceptable’ it was for the video to have been removed.
If Kapil Mishra could not put too fine a point on it, a user described as, ‘proud RSS Swayamsevak’ SG Suryah came forward to express his outrage on Twitter, as well.
BJP Mumbai’s official spokesperson too referred to the video as ‘a great revealing explosive story’.
Even Tejinder Pal Bagga showed his appreciation.
Meanwhile, Vikas Pandey, an RSS volunteer who, according to Newslaundry, led the BJP’s social media campaign in 2014 tweeted his support for the YouTuber. So did ex Shiv Sena member Ramesh Solanki, OpIndia’s Nupur Sharma, ‘Indic’ publisher Sankrant Sanu and entrepreneur Tanmay Shankar.
Meanwhile...
Even as BJP leaders have applauded a Youtube video that calls for the hanging of journalists and activists, the BJP government in the Centre is issuing a warning to social media platforms of strict action if they do not curtail inflammatory content and misinformation.
Addressing questions in the Parliament, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the government was concerned about the law and order and hence, they will not be tolerating the spread of violent content or misinformation.
Further, the Union Minister alleged, in the parliament, that social media companies had employed different standards for the Capitol Hill riots and some groups of farmers taking their march to the Red Fort.
According to Newslaundry, Ravi Shankar Prasad had said:
“Yeh double standard nahi chalega.”
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