Image Courtesy:kashmirdigits.com

Since the release of The Kashmir Files on March 11, 2022, audiences and many celebrities alike have showered praise for the movie. Recently even actor Amir Khan lauded the movie for its effort during an event despite not having watched it!

Yet, many criticisms have also surfaced over the past week regarding the authenticity and accuracy of the events depicted in the movie. Critics like Anupama Chopra suffered trolls for allowing a harsh review of the movie on Film Companion. As such, it is not surprising that people who were unimpressed by the movie hesitate to voice their opinions. Yet, recently, actor Nana Patekar voiced his open dislike for the movie.

Speaking to Aaj Tak, veteran actor Nana Patekar said that The Kashmir Files sparks undue controversy. Stating that this “is not right”, he stressed a message of communal harmony, pointing out that Hindus and Muslims live peacefully and harmoniously in India. He argued that people of both religions live here and the making and showing of such movies spoils the environment.

Patekar said, “When all the people are living in peace, then it is not right to create such ruckus. Those who are doing this should be asked to answer. After watching the film, the society will be divided into two, it is not right to create such rift in the society.”

Since Patekar spoke during an interview, he did not have to face immediate flak. However, others were not so lucky. Actor Adil Hussain too expressed his views about the movie on Twitter. In his post, he said, “Truth must be spoken! No doubt about it. But must be spoken Tenderly. Else purpose of speaking the truth loses its beauty. And the impact is reactive.Not responsive. We, for sure, don’t want to fuel a reactive society but nourish a responve-sible one. Art Should not be reactive.”

Despite this softer approach to reason, Hussain was still targeted:

In fact, even the legend of Bollywood Amitabh Bachchan was not exempted from this online bullying.

T 4222 – .. we know now , what we never knew then ..

— Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) March 16, 2022

Bachchan on March 16, simply tweeted, “We know now, what we never knew then.” While to some people, this was confirmation enough of favouring the movie, the right-wing trolls remained dissatisfied because the tweet did not mention the movie. Many people drew parallels between Bachchan’s current tweet and compared it with a dialogue he said in the movie ‘Bemisal’. Some comments even went as far as to call him a coward.

Another actor and model Gauahar Khan warned people against the propaganda. Although she didn’t mention the movie like Bachchan, her comment was still considered a criticism of The Kashmir Files.

If u don’t see the propaganda , ur soul is blind , deaf and dumb !

— Gauahar Khan / MAYANKA (@GAUAHAR_KHAN) March 15, 2022

Similarly, actress Swara Bhasker suffered heavy trolling on social media when she took an indirect dig at Director Vivek Agnihotri days after the movie’s release.

If you want someone to congratulate you for the ‘success’ of your efforts.. maybe don’t spend the last five years shitting on their heads.. ??‍ #justsaying

— Swara Bhasker (@ReallySwara) March 13, 2022

Aside from celebrities, politicians too voiced their opinions. Particularly, former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on March 18, said the movie does nothing for the benefit of the community it is based on, the Kashmiri Pandits.

According to the Indian Express, Abdullah said that a conducive environment is essential for the return of Kashmiri Pandits to the Valley. However, he felt the film-makers “did not want them [Kashmiri Pandits] to return to Kashmir.” He suggested that the makers instead wanted the community to never return to their homeland. Speaking at the National Conference’s party workers’ meet in Kulgam, Abdullah asked if the movie was meant to be a documentary or a commercial film. He stressed that in case of the former, he pointed out how the film wrongly shows Farooq Abdullah as the Chief Minister. In reality, Kashmir was under “Governor Raj” with Jagmohan as the Governor, he said. Further, the party in power at the Centre during the time of the exodus was also the BJP. Yet this fact was not stressed in the film.

Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party Mehbooba Mufti further condemned the manner in which the BJP had promoted this movie, especially Union Ministers. She accused the ruling regime of weaponising Kashmiri Pandits’ pain and tearing apart old wounds.

The manner in which GOI is aggressively promoting Kashmir Files & is weaponising pain of Kashmiri Pandits makes their ill intention obvious. Instead of healing old wounds & creating a conducive atmosphere between the two communities, they are deliberately tearing them apart.

— Mehbooba Mufti (@MehboobaMufti) March 16, 2022

Another politician from the Opposition decrying the movie was Karnataka Rajya Sabha MP and Congress member Jairam Ramesh. He described the movie as one inciting hate and propaganda.

Some films inspire change. Kashmir Files incites hate. Truth can lead to justice, rehabilitation, reconciliation & peace. Propaganda twists facts, distorts history to whip up anger & promote violence. Statesmen heal wounds. Pracharaks exploit fear and prejudice to divide & rule.

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) March 19, 2022

Around March 16, Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav also reacted to The Kashmir Files release by retweeting a documentary by BBC Hindi wherein Kashmiri Pandits spoke to the news about how the movie was a means to gain favour for the 2024 elections and nothing more.

As many as 10 days after the release of the movie, The Kashmir Files continues to be widely discussed. The Exodus, on which the movie is based, remains another matter.

Related:

The Kashmir Files: Calls for genocide and hate marches by right-wing extremists and trolls
Kashmiri Pandits refute communal claims made in The Kashmir Files
Govt to Blame, Where is Security for KP Families in Valley, Asks Sanjay Tickoo, KPSS
Has terror returned to haunt Kashmir?
Unemployed Kashmiri Pandit youth granted relief
Beyond Kashmir Files, a call for reason
The Kashmir Files backed by PM, FM, CMs; continues to fuel divide
Hate floods in the wake of ‘The Kashmir Files’

The post The Kashmir Files: Celebrities and politicians warn against propaganda-driven films appeared first on SabrangIndia.

A rather curious public meeting on the subject of “Akhand Bharat”- One Nation, One Constitution took place in Tardeo yesterday at a “strategic” location; on the main road to Haji Ali dargah in South Mumbai.

On the condition of anonymity, a person who attended shared details with Sabrangindia: the meeting had been called to ‘spread awareness’ on Article 370 and assailed Article 370 as being “Nehru’s mistake”, spread awareness on the “lack of development in Jammu and Kashmir” and the need for “women’s emancipation.”

The government of India abrogated the Article 370, an instrument of Jammu and Kashmir’s accession to India on August 5, 2019. On the midnight of August 4, an indefinite curfew and lockdown was imposed in the state and Kashmir still remains under the lockdown with no local media operating from the state.
The meeting had been called by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) General Secretary from Maharashtra, Sunil Rane, who has been a member of the party since 1998. The person who attended also noted that though the meeting tried to give an impression that the content delivered there was based on “facts”, it was actually “one sided” and “propagandist”. The meeting had heavy police bandobast and was attended by approximately 300 people.

“Different people came and just lauded the government’s move. The tenor of the speeches ran like this: “Kashmir is ours;” “We should remember, our youth should know and remember that 370 and 35A were terrible moves,” said one of the speakers. The organisers and speakers asked the public for support and hailed PM Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah for this step. There were also slogans raised about Syama Prasad Mookerjee’s dream coming true!

Earlier, Shah had reportedly directed BJP- led state governments and local bodies to pass resolutions and felicitate prime minister Modi and himself for their “determination, firmness and courage” in scrapping the Article 370 provision that accorded a special status to Jammu and Kashmir.
 
He had also directed all BJP party units to hold press conferences and “enthusiastic programmes” to propagate how “Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, Home Minister Shri Amit Shah and the central government have fulfilled the dream of Dr Syama Prasad Mukherjee”. Syama Prasad Mookerjee was the founder of the Jana Sangh.

This propaganda, when historical documents clearly stablish that Mookerjee who was part of the Constituent Assembly along with stalwarts like Nehru and Patel did not even formally oppose the inclusion of Article 370 for special status for Jammu and Kashmir.

BJP national secretary and RSS pracharak Ram Madhav has, on several occasions emphasised on the idea of “Akhand Bharat”, in which he says, “The RSS still believes that one day these parts, which have for historical reasons separated only 60 years ago, will again, through popular goodwill, come together and Akhand Bharat will be created.” It has been RSS’s belief that Pakistan and Bangladesh belong to India.

It’s a view that the RSS, which was formed in 1925, started propagating in 1947, after Partition. At a press conference in Delhi on August 24, 1949, after the government lifted the ban on the RSS — imposed on it for its role in Gandhi’s assassination — M S Golwalkar, the organisation’s second sarsanghchalak, termed Pakistan an “uncertain state”. “As far as possible, we must continue our efforts to unite these two divided states…Nobody is happy with Partition,” he had said. He had repeated this view at another press conference held in Kolkata on September 7, 1949.

Bhartiya Jansangh (BJS), as the BJP was known earlier, passed a resolution at its meeting in Delhi on August 17, 1965, which stated, “India’s tradition and nationality has not been against any religion. Modern Islam should also not be an obstacle in the way of unity of Indian nation. Real obstacle is separatist politics. Muslims will integrate themselves with the national life and Akhand Bharat will be a reality, unifying India and Pakistan once we are able to remove this obstacle (separatist politics).”

 RSS’s idea of “Akhand Bharat” includes not only Pakistan and Bangladesh, but also Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Tibet. It terms the combined region as a “Rashtra” based on “Hindu cultural” similarities.

Suruchi Prakashan, a publishing house run by the RSS, has brought out a map called ‘Punyabhoomi Bharat’ in which Afghanistan is called “Upganathan”, Kabul “Kubha Nagar”, Peshawar “Purushpur”, Multan “Moolsthan”, Tibet “Trivishtap,” Sri Lanka “Singhaldweep” and Myanmar “Brahmadesh”, among others.

The post Integration by propaganda: Meetings on “Akhand Bharat”, Mumbai appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Under fire, but not without options. AP Photo/Francois Mori

It wouldn’t be painless, but Facebook in particular is in a world of hurt already, facing criticism for contributing to civil unrest and sectarian turmoil around the world, delayed responses to disinformation campaigns, misleading users about data-handling policies, and efforts to discredit critics – not to mention a budding employee revolt.

Facebook, Twitter, Google and other social media companies are causing society-wide damage. But they tend to describe the problems as much smaller, resulting from rogue individuals and groups hijacking their systems for nefarious purposes. Our research into how social media can be exploited by manipulative political operatives, conducted with Joan Donovan at the Data & Society research institute, suggests the real problem is much larger than these companies admit.

We believe the roots lie in their extremely profitable advertising systems, which need a major overhaul. We have identified some key changes that these giant powerhouses could make right away. These moves could reduce opportunities for political manipulation and limit the harm to democratic societies around the world.
 

Users’ minds in the crosshairs

Facebook, Google, Twitter and other social media companies have built an enormous digital influence machine powered by user tracking, targeting, testing and automated decision-making to make advertising more effective and efficient. While building this supercharged surveillance system, companies have promised users and regulators that targeted advertising is mutually beneficial for both consumers and advertisers.

In this bargain, users are supposed to receive more relevant ads. Facebook, for instance, explains that its “interest-based advertising” serves users who “want to see ads that relate to things they care about.” It’s true that these methods can identify ads that connect with users’ actual interests. But the very same data-driven techniques that tell a surfer about a new board design can also identify strategic points where people are most vulnerable to influence.

In particular, the leading social media advertising systems let political operatives experiment with different ads to see which are the most effective. They can use these tools not only to see if certain issues resonate with particular targets but also test for fears or prejudices that can be invoked to influence political behavior.

This misleading ad impersonated racial justice activists to urge black Americans not to vote for Hillary Clinton. U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Intelligence – Democrats

One key way to do this is to make people feel that someone else represents an emotionally charged threat to their identity. In 2016, for instance, Russia-linked operatives bought thousands of Facebook ads targeted to specific audiences suggesting Hillary Clinton had insulted their group’s dignity or threatened their safety. Some ads alleged Clinton espoused disrespect for specific occupations, like coal miners, or racial groups, like African-Americans. Others claimed she would confiscate guns or supported radical political movements seeking to overturn familiar ways of life.

Targeting political ads is not unique to online advertising, but the tools of digital ad systems are vastly more powerful than traditional mass media. Advertisers can try out several versions of an ad simultaneously and receive almost instant feedback on which ones most effectively drive specific audiences to share, like or comment on them. This digital feedback loop helps political operatives refine their tactics, probing for just the right images, words and emotions to influence very specific subgroups of citizens.
 

Move fast and fix things

Members of Congress and even some key Silicon Valley figures have begun discussing the need for tighter government oversight and greater accountability in digital advertising. Change need not wait for politics.

Based on our analysis, here are some steps companies could take right away – on their own. These moves may hurt the firms’ finances, but would demonstrate serious and lasting commitment to limiting their platforms’ usefulness in political manipulation campaigns.
As their first move, social media companies could stop allowing their ad services to be used as freewheeling experimental laboratories for examining their users’ psyches. Just as marketers and academic researchers must obtain permission from their test subjects, political advertisers that run online ad experiments could get informed consent in advance from every user who is involved. Companies should ask for users’ consent in specific notifications about ad experiments and not penalize users for opting out by limiting their access to services. We suspect many users would opt out of these tests if given the choice, but in any case this policy would help draw public attention to the hidden manipulation tools that platforms offer to their real customers: the political and commercial advertisers who pay the bills.
 

Make targeted political advertising transparent

To increase transparency and limit the ability of special interests to secretly influence politics, social media companies could refuse to work with so-called dark money groups. All political advertisers should be required to disclose their major donors in a format users can easily access.

A new policy banning dark money ads would respond to evidence that political operatives have used impersonation and manipulative ad tactics to stir in-fighting or sow division among coalitions of their adversaries. Impersonation clearly work best when ad sponsors are able to hide their identities and motives. Anonymous ads are also more likely to violate ethical standards simply because no one fears being held responsible for them.
 

Make platforms more democratic

A more significant change social media companies could make would be to introduce democratic oversight of how they collect and use people’s data.

Facebook’s Zuckerberg recently took an initial step in this direction, announcing that he will create independent review panels to handle users’ appeals against the company’s removal of content it judges inappropriate. He explained that he wanted to ensure “these decisions are made in the best interests of our community and not for commercial reasons.”

Whatever you think about this plan – and it has been greeted with plenty of skepticism – Zuckerberg’s reasoning acknowledges that because social platforms have become so central to democratic life, their own policies and design decisions require democratic accountability.
A more ambitious vision would let independent ethics panels representing diverse communities of users set enforceable policies for ethical political advertising. Similar sorts of groups are common in medicine and are emerging in artificial intelligence, among other fields. The details of how such committees operate will be critical to their success. If these committees are set up in partnership with nonprofit organizations with proven records of advocating for democratic communication and campaign finance transparency, perhaps they could help social media companies earn greater public trust by prioritizing democracy over maximizing their profits.
 

Anthony M. Nadler, Associate Professor of Media and Communication Studies, Ursinus College and Matthew Crain, Assistant Professor of Media, Journalism and Film, Miami University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post 3 ways Facebook and other social media companies could clean up their acts – if they wanted to appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Over the past year, the social media company has been scrutinized for influencing the US presidential election by spreading fake news (propoganda). Obviously, the ability to spread completely made-up stories about politicians trafficking child sex slaves and imaginary terrorist attacks with impunity is bad for democracy and society.

Something had to be done.

Enter Facebook’s new, depressingly incompetent strategy for tackling fake news. The strategy has three, frustratingly ill-considered parts.

New products

The first part of the plan is to build new products to curb the spread of fake news stories. Facebook says it’s trying “to make it easier to report a false news story” and find signs of fake news such as “if reading an article makes people significantly less likely to share it.”

It will then send the story to independent fact checkers. If fake, the story “will get flagged as disputed and there will be a link to a corresponding article explaining why.”

This sounds pretty good, but it won’t work.

If non-experts could tell the difference between real news and fake news (which is doubtful), there would be no fake news problem to begin with.

What’s more, Facebook says: “We cannot become arbiters of truth ourselves — it’s not feasible given our scale, and it’s not our role.” Nonsense.

Facebook is like a megaphone. Normally, if someone says something horrible into the megaphone, it’s not the megaphone company’s fault. But Facebook is a very special kind of megaphone that listens first and then changes the volume.

The company’s algorithms largely determine both the content and order of your newsfeed. So if Facebook’s algorithms spread some neo-Nazi hate speech far and wide, yes, it is the company’s fault.

Worse yet, even if Facebook accurately labels fake news as contested, it will still affect public discourse through “availability cascades.”

Each time you see the same message repeated from (apparently) different sources, the message seems more believable and reasonable. Bold lies are extremely powerful because repeatedly fact-checking them can actually make people remember them as true.

These effects are exceptionally robust; they cannot be fixed with weak interventions such as public service announcements, which brings us to the second part of Facebook’s strategy: helping people make more informed decisions when they encounter false news.

Helping you help yourself

Facebook is releasing public service announcements and funding the “news integrity initiative” to help “people make informed judgments about the news they read and share online”.

This – also – doesn’t work.

A vast body of research in cognitive psychology concerns correcting systematic errors in reasoning such as failing to perceive propaganda and bias. We have known since the 1980s that simply warning people about their biased perceptions doesn’t work.

Similarly, funding a “news integrity” project sounds great until you realise the company is really talking about critical thinking skills.

Improving critical thinking skills is a key aim of primary, secondary and tertiary education. If four years of university barely improves these skills in students, what will this initiative do? Make some Youtube videos? A fake news FAQ?
 

Funding a few research projects and “meetings with industry experts” doesn’t stand a chance to change anything.

Disrupting economic incentives

The third prong of this non-strategy is cracking down on spammers and fake accounts, and making it harder for them to buy advertisements. While this is a good idea, it’s based on the false premise that most fake news comes from shady con artists rather than major news outlets.

You see, “fake news” is Orwellian newspeak — carefully crafted to mean a totally fabricated story from a fringe outlet masquerading as news for financial or political gain. But these stories are the most suspicious and therefore the least worrisome. Bias and lies from public figures, official reports and mainstream news are far more insidious.

And what about astrology, homeopathy, psychics, anti-vaccination messages, climate change denial, intelligent design, miracles, and all the rest of the irrational nonsense bandied about online? What about the vast array of deceptive marketing and stealth advertising that is core to Facebook’s business model?

As of this writing, Facebook doesn’t even have an option to report misleading advertisements.

What is Facebook to do?

Facebook’s strategy is vacuous, evanescent, lip service; a public relations exercise that makes no substantive attempt to address a serious problem.

But the problem is not unassailable. The key to reducing inaccurate perceptions is to redesign technologies to encourage more accurate perception. Facebook can do this by developing a propaganda filter — something like a spam filter for lies.

Facebook may object to becoming an “arbiter of truth”. But coming from a company that censors historic photos and comedians calling for social justice, this sounds disingenuous.
 

Nonetheless, Facebook has a point. To avoid accusations of bias, it should not create the propaganda filter itself. It should simply fund researchers in artificial intelligence, software engineering, journalism and design to develop an open-source propaganda filter that anyone can use.

Why should Facebook pay? Because it profits from spreading propaganda, that’s why.

Sure, people will try to game the filter, but it will still work. Spam is frequently riddled with typos, grammatical errors and circumlocution not only because it’s often written by non-native English speakers but also because the weird writing is necessary to bypass spam filters.

If the propaganda filter has a similar effect, weird writing will make the fake news that slips through more obvious. Better yet, an effective propaganda filter would actively encourage journalistic best practices such as citing primary sources.

Developing a such a tool won’t be easy. It could take years and several million dollars to refine. But Facebook made over US$8 billion last quarter, so Mark Zuckerberg can surely afford it.
 

Paul Ralph, Senior Lecturer in Computer Science, University of Auckland
 

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The post Facebook’s new anti-fake news strategy is not going to work – but something else might appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Representational image. Photo credit: Reuters

The biases and misconceptions about conversions and population growth have been used by communal forces to divide the society. This became apparent once again when Minister of state of Home, Kiren Rijuju tweeted that that Hindu population is decreasing in the country as Hindus don't convert and that minorities in India are flourishing unlike in the neighbouring countries.

Threat of decline in Hindu population and increase in population of minorities is being propagated time and over again. As per the data of 2011 census figures, Hindu population now stands at 79.8 % and Muslim population at 14.23%. “The data on Population by Religious Communities of Census 2011 show that between 2001 and 2011, Hindu population grew by 16.76 per cent, while that of Muslims by 24.6 per cent. The population of both communities grew faster during the previous decade, at 19.92 per cent and 29.52 per cent, respectively. As a long-term trend, say demographers, the communities’ growth rates are converging.” This means that the decadal rates of growth of both communities is declining and converging closer to each other.

This is pointer to the fact that while charting out the future projections it is important to keep in mind that the rate of growth of Muslim population will be falling and will stabilise closer to that of rate of rise Hindu population. In the total population Muslims will remain a religious minority for the times to come. Interestingly, the population increase of Hindus during the period of 2001 to 2011 has been 133 millions, which is close to the total population of Muslims in 2001. The scare being spread through word of mouth campaign and through social media about Muslim population taking over the Hindu population holds no water, as there are clear trends of decline in the decadal rate of growth of Muslim population as well.

The demographers point out that the higher rates of fertility are due to lack of education and poor health facilities. Muslims in Kerala have a lower fertility rate than many Hindu communities in North India and even in Kerala. The economic profile of Kerala Muslims is much different than the Muslims in Assam, West Bengal, UP and Maharashtra for example. If we broaden this point we will see that the rise in population among Dalits (Schedule castes) and Adivasis (Scheduled Tribes) is much higher as such . As per the 2011 census STs are 8.6% while they were 6.23 % according to 1951 census. SCs now are 16.6%, while as per 1951 they were around 15%.

As such the whole truth will show us that the propaganda of communal forces has nothing to do with reality of society and deeper causes of the same. It is in this background that the likes of Praveen Togadia who said that two child norm should be imposed, while the likes of Sakshi Maharaj and Sadhvi Prachi have been extolling the Hindus to produce more children.

BJP president Amit Shah has given the 'Look North East' call to raise the scare about the Christian population in the North East. This primarily tribal area saw an increase in percentage of Christians in the decades of 1931-1951. The rise in percentage of Christian population has a lot to do with the spread of civil administration with Independence and also with the spread of education in the region. Countrywide we can see that the percentage of Christians has been static over the last few decades.

If at all, it has declined and stabilised. If we see from 1971, we see that Christian population was 2.60% (1971), 2.44 (1981), 2.34 (1991), 2.30 (2001) and 2.30 (2011).

In the meanwhile the propaganda of missionary activities and increase in the number of Christians has dominated the scene. Anti-Christian violence came to public attention with the ghastly murder of Graham Stewarts Staines (1999). Dara Singh of Bajrang Dal, which is affiliated to RSS, incited the local people that the pastor is doing conversions which is against Hindus.

Wadhwa Commission which investigated pastor Staines murder concluded that he was not involved in conversions and that in Keonjhar, Manoharpur Orrisa where the pastor was working, there was no increase in the percentage of Christian population.

Similarly Kandhmal anti-Christian violence was unleashed on the pretext of murder of Swami Laxmananand. Gujarat also saw anti-Christian activities again due to propaganda that the missionaries are converting. At the same time we see that the national population of Christians remains static. Some people do allege that conversions to Christianity are there but the converts are hiding their religion, this is again a matter of conjuncture and nothing definite can be said. Any way it cannot be a large number in any case.

As such conversions have been a part of the agenda of Hindu nationalism times and over again. During freedom movement two parallel processes of conversions were going on. One was Tanzeem, which was to convert people to Islam, the other was Shuddhi which was aimed at those who were supposed to have left their 'religion-home' and were converted to alien religions.

The premise was that conversion to other religions has made them impure so they need to be brought back through a process of purification. Last several decades RSS-VHP-Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram have been active in what is called Ghar Wapasi (returning home) to bring back the Dalits and adivasis who it is alleged have been converted through force (to Islam) and allurement or fraud (to Christianity). This Ghar Wapasi campaign has been undertaken through many newly devised rituals like bath in hot spring or rituals around fire. This has been rampant inAdivasi areasand in slums-villages.

Adivasis are animists, while RSS claims they are Hindus. To Hinduise them Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram now runs a growing network of schools and hostels in large numbers in North East. Such assertions and accompanying activities have more to with politics rather than social welfare as such. The attempt of RSS combine is to link religion with nationalism.

(This story was also published on People's Voice).

The post Why the ‘hum paanch, hamare pachees’ canard against Muslims is a myth appeared first on SabrangIndia.

सूचना एवं प्रसारण मंत्री एम वेंकैया नायडू ने गुरुवार को प्रेस इन इंडिया में भारत सरकार के 2017 के कैलेंडर को लॉन्च किया। इस कैलेंडर को मेरा देश बदल रहा है, आगे बढ़ रहा है की थीम के साथ रिलीज किया गया है। इसके साथ ही मंत्री ने डिजिटल कैलेंडर ऐप को भी लॉन्च किया

भारत सरकार के कैलेंडर 2017 में हर महीने के पेज पर प्रधानमंत्री नरेंद्र मोदी ही छाए हुए हैं। उनकी अलग-अलग तस्वीरें कैलेंडर पर हैं। इसके साथ-साथ पीएम मोदी की ही कोट भी कैलेंडर पर लिखी हैं। कैलेंडर हिंदी और अंग्रेजी दोनों भाषाओं में है।

Courtesy:National Dastak

The post सरकारी कैलेंडर के हर पेज पर अपना प्रचार करवा रहे हैं पीएम मोदी appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Propaganda is the wheel by which the government steers the bus of a nation; typically driving it into war or off the cliff of humanity. It is amazing to see how many people who are otherwise rational human beings will blindly follow the herd on the matter of how subhuman a perceived national enemy is.

The western media wonderfully paints Islam as a death cult bent on world domination. Over and over again the American populace is shown footage of the atrocities committed by fanatics or of Arab men burning American flags. The problem, of course, is that this isn’t remotely representative of the Islamic population of the world. Are there Muslims who employ terrorism? Of course. Are there Christians who employ terrorism? Of course. There are even Buddhists who employ terrorism.

Some general facts about Islam might help break the noose of wartime propaganda that rests around America’s neck. Below are a list of statements this journalist has seen in the last week on social media, followed by the data to put that statement in perspective.

“All [or most] Muslims are terrorists.”
There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. The much-discussed ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) organization, which has been described as the “richest terrorist group in the world” can only field between 7,000 and 15,000 troops in its battle to create a fundamentalist homeland. Even taking the highest estimate of their troop strength means that fewer than 1 out of every 106,000 Muslims from all over the world are actually willing to take up arms and fight for the fundamentalist dream. The Iraqi army, however, can field 250,000 soldiers to fight against that fundamentalist vision. That figure does not include irregular forces allied to the Iraqi army. The premise that all Muslims are terrorists falls flat by a mere study of the numbers. It isn’t a majority of Muslims. It isn’t even 1% of Muslims.

“Muslims want Sharia law.”
While many Muslims believe in Sharia law, what is considered Sharia law is not universal. In Lebanon, which has been considered a hotbed of Islamic terrorism ever since the bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut, 38% of Muslims don’t even believe it is the Word of God. Among those that do believe it to be the direct Word of God, only 29% believe in making it the legal system for the country, and a majority of Lebanese Muslims don’t believe Sharia law should apply to non-Muslims.  Even among those that believe whole-heartedly in Sharia law, they don’t necessarily believe in some of the more violent aspects. The crime of adultery is punishable by stoning under some forms of Sharia law. Some quick and simple math shows that in Lebanon, less than 3% of Muslims believe that punishment should be applied to the population at large. Meanwhile in America’s heartland, a political candidate has advocated or silently endorsed the idea of stoning homosexuals.  The vast majority of Muslims believe that Sharia law should be used to settle family or property disputes among Muslims.

Some countries have higher rates of belief in using Sharia law, and some have lower. Lebanon was chosen because it falls in the middle as far as averages go.

“They beat their women.”
First, the very phase “their women” suggests that the individual might fall close to the more radical elements of Islam in regards to the belief that women are property. Yes, some Muslim men beat “their women.” In the United States 25% of women will be beaten by “their men” in their lifetime. This is not an Islamic issue, this is an issue rising from the idea that women are property and somehow belong to the men. If this is justification for war, the United States might consider invading Belfast, where 60 cases of domestic violence are reported daily.

“They are stuck in the Stone Age, and they want to stay there.”
This statement marginalizes the thousands of Muslim men and women who sit in prison for attempting to change their government and those that died in the attempt. Political prisoners throughout the Arab world sit rotting away for attempting to bring about change in their nations. They are Muslims. Four Saudi Princesses are currently being starved to death by the King for speaking out in favor of women’s rights. Countless journalists and bloggers sit behind bars for questioning their governments. The US government continually props up these brutal dictatorships with multi-million dollar arms deals and keeps the power in the hands of those that don’t want change.

“Muhammad was a pedophile and his wife was only 6 (or 7).”
Most historians agree that Aisha and Muhammad were married after she reached puberty. They place her age, on average, around 13 years old at the time of marriage, though she may have been betrothed to him much earlier. Americans need to keep in mind that while they might not have heard of Islam prior to September 11th, Muhammad lived in the early 600s A.D. It might surprise them to learn that marriage at such an early age was extremely common not only in the Arab world, but the Western world as well. King John of England married a 12-year-old around 1198. Romeo’s love, Juliet, was only 13. No subset of people is more hated in the West than pedophiles. An attempt to cast the founder of the perceived enemy as a pedophile would certainly benefit the war effort.

“Muslims take child brides and rape children.”
Does it occur in the Muslim world? Sure. It occurs in the United States as well, typically deep in America’s heartland. The Catholic Church is well-known for its abuse of the youth. Again this is a worldwide issue, not an Islamic one. There is not a single Middle Eastern country listed among the top 20 nations with a high prevalence of child brides.

Conclusion:
Most of the information that is spread via social media is simply not accurate. It only serves to plant the idea in the American psyche that somehow the United States must save the Muslims from themselves. The goal of this propaganda is to make Americans believe that Muslims are somehow lesser people. After all, it’s easier to condemn people to die in air strikes if they aren’t really human. Before clicking the share or retweet button on an inflammatory article, try to determine if the information being presented is an accurate portrayal of the Muslim world, or if you are simply furthering the government’s march towards war.

The Islamic world is not without its problems. The struggle for equal rights for women and homosexuals continues to meet roadblock after roadblock on the streets of Amman, Damascus, Riyadh, and Tehran; however, if the United States seeks to use this as justification for intervention, maybe it should invade Mississippi or Arkansas.

(Courtesy: http://theantimedia.org/)
 

The post Propaganda and Islam: What you’re not Being Told appeared first on SabrangIndia.