An Instagram account called @Sanatandharmaarth posts videos of J Sai Deepak and Anand Ranganathan who speak in crisp impeccable English appealing to the similar audiences who get wowed with such oratory skills. The videos that are posted are not hate speeches. They are mainly proud Hindu men, disseminating their Hindu pride in crisp language and such a convincing manner that a person with an easy going or lenient point of view can eventually turn into a hardliner by listening to them.
J Sai Deepak is a lawyer and is often called to speak at events where he has most popularly spoken about the Sabarimala case and also protests around the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA). He does not advocate religious nationalism but is one speck in the wheel towards such radical thoughts as he generally promotes protection of Hindu religious institutions and fear mongering about how Hindus despite being the majority in India are indeed the victims in many aspects. He also speaks about illegal migration, demographic inversion and so on.
In one such video posted by @Sanatandharmaarth J Sai Deepak is questioning why Hindus have the onus of maintaining peace in the country. He says that Hindus do not have a greater responsibility to maintain peace since they have suffered at the hands of colonisers and invaders. He also speaks about how Hindus “sacrificed 1/3rd of their land for creating Pakistan and Bangladesh. “What more is expected of this community,” he questions. Certainly Indians suffered at the hands of imperialists but India even then consisted of all religions that exist today and he makes it sound like only Hindus suffered and implying that only Hindus fought for freedom.
He also speaks about the caste system and disagrees with Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar who held an opinion that to do away with caste discrimination against Dalits, the entire caste system needs to be subverted. He disagrees with the view that one has to adhere to Babasaheb’s views to fight against caste, thus discrediting his views on caste and Babasaheb’s struggles for mitigating the caste system.
Some of these videos also want to do away with empathy towards religious minorities. While they will not directly speak against them, they will try to drive the point that minorities are appeased by the government by giving extra benefits while the majority community has largely been ignored historically.
In this video Anand Ranganathan cites data to show that even if Muslims comprise only 14.2% of the population, their share in beneficiaries of government schemes is high.
The idea is to drive home the point that even the BJP is not doing enough for the Hindus and that the people should raise questions to the BJP why it is appeasing the minorities by having schemes to benefit them.
Further, in one video, Ranganathan sympathised with Nupur Sharma who was widely criticised for her views on Prophet Mohammad and was suspended from BJP. Pointing to Rehmani sitting next to him, he said, “This man is safe and sound and roaming freely and can speak his mind. A Year ago with whom he debated, that woman was confined to her house. This is our country. Those who say there is no democracy should remember that Rehmani Sir is safe and sound and here with me. Remember that. but the poor woman (Nupur Sharma) who only quoted some scriptures, her life is ruined.”
Portraying Hindus as victims and completely doing away with the multitude of injustices meted out to the minorities, is the main theme of these speakers and the Instagram account in question highlights snippets of these videos which does help their “Sanatan Dharma”.
These men have a clout among the intellectual class, those who equate crisp English speaking with great knowledge and also among the youth who maintain a similar mindset and whose minds can be easily influenced by such talks. The idea of Hindu supremacism is often promoted and at the same time how this glory has been lost due to the ruling dispensation favouring the minorities is also a point that is often propagated.
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