Since last few years a flood of right-wing portals cropped up to present the government side of the news, slam opposition parties & leaders, build up hardcore Hindu opinion, demonize minorities- especially Muslims- and share fake facts as history. OpIndia.com has carved out a special place for itself among these hate-mongers and lie-peddlers. Founded in December 2014, the portal is run by a team whose current editor is Nupur J. Sharma (not to be mistaken for the former BJP leader of ‘Insult to Prophet fame). The portal is owned by Aadhyaasi Media and Content Services, a private limited company, and additionally claims to be the voice of the right. The website runs in English, Hindi, and Gujarati.
In its appeal for donations, the website takes potshots at seemingly secular and liberal media organizations like The Wire and NDTV.
The website reports on communal incidents as attacks on Hindus. It construes statements made by the higher judiciary on communal issues as an infringement of Hindu rights and concocts cases of forcible conversions of Hindus and portrays them as Love Jihad- the list goes on and on.
Following are some of the instances of its biased and misleading reporting and commentary.
RAM NAVAMI: COMMUNAL INCITEMENT
On March 30, the day of Ram Navami, several incidents of communal tensions were reported from across the country. Most of them took place in the state of Maharashtra. As far as reports from the spots of tensions are concerned, youths of both communities clashed as Hindu processions passed by mosques during the Taraweeh prayers and despite pleas, did not lower the voice of DJs. In some other cases, Hindu mobs entered the premises of mosques and dargahs. Videos and photographs of such invasions are aplenty. Yet, the OpIndia reported all these incidents as Muslims attacks on Hindu places of worship.
After one such incident in Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, some Muslim youths retaliated by pelting stones at a local Ram temple. Minutes after, local MP Imtiaz Jaleel of AIMIM reached the temple and assured locals that the temple was safe and that everyone had to maintain harmony on the festival month of Ramadan. However, OpIndia spun this report as if the temple had been damaged and that only the inside of it remained safe, as reported by Jaleel. It was a transparent attempt to incite local Hindus. Luckily, no one paid attention to such mischievous reporting and peace, though iffy, prevailed in the area.
OpIndia’s tale doesn’t stop here. In a warped statement, it called Muslims ‘Islamists’ while reporting on Ram Navami incidents, insinuating that all these Muslims were terrorists.
DELHI RIOTS DUBBED AS ANTI-HINDU RIOTS
The riots in North-East Delhi in February 2020 were largely communal violence as is evident from reports from the ground. Even the official report of Delhi Minorities Commission indicts Delhi Police for taking part in attacking Muslims. But the lenses of OpIndia see them from a single prism – anti-Hindu. They even target Hindu activists like Delhi University’s professor Apoorvanand by calling him a mastermind of the violence against Hindus. The website went on to call this violence ‘Direction Day 2.0’ against Hindus. The Direction Action was a call given by the Muslim League in 1946 and it had led to communal violence in several parts of India.
SLANDER CAMPAIGN AGAINST CONGRESS
The OpIndia runs a crusade against the Congress, branding it anti-Hindu and anti-India. On March 31, it published a piece in the form a timeline that says that Congress has been seeking foreign intervention to overthrow non-Congress governments in India.
The OpIndia piece is actually based on reactions of Congress leaders like Digvijay Singh, Shashi Tharoor, and Supriya Shrinate who thanked the German foreign ministry spokesman’s concern about Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification as an MP. It is customary that foreign leaders express solidarity with popular leaders worldwide and no country can interfere in the parliamentary procedure of any other country. But the OpIndia and their ilk always have their own theories to malign people they despise.
The OpIndia also targets Congress and Rahul Gandhi by alleging that the Congress opened office in Turkey after President Tayyip Erdogan slammed India on Kashmir at the UN and that Rahul Gandhi secretly met Chinese ambassador during the Doklam standoff in 2017. If these claims are to be believed then both Congress and Rahul Gandhi could be tried for treason. This is exactly what OpIndia seeks.
PAINTING ISLAM & CHRISTIANITY AS ANTI-GODDESSES
An article on Hindi version of the portal says that Islam and Christianity ran campaigns against temples devoted to goddesses in India and that despite all this the temples still survived. It further claims that only Hinduism accords respect to women and has women worshipped as goddesses. No other religion does it, it claims.
TARGETING JUDICIARY, ESPECIALLY NON-HINDU JUDGES
The OpIndia takes an active stand against the Indian judiciary whenever it lambasts Hindu right-wing forces or takes the state to task over its ineptness to tackle rising communalism in the society. On March 30, OpIndia editor Nupur J. Sharma wrote an open letter to Supreme Court judge Justice Joseph. Its headline says a lot about its content: “Hope you will stop smiling at the genocide of Brahmins…”
The letter clearly schools Justice Joseph in the Hindu sense of justice that, according to the editor, prevails in India and that’s why non-Hindu judges like him are able to sit in the highest seat of the judiciary in the country. It doesn’t mention the right provided to every Indian under Constitution. on the contrary, it accuses Justice Joseph of smiling while the persecution of Hindus was mentioned in the court and asks him to stop doing so. It further says that judges like him have been misjudging in matters related to Hindus in communal violence cases and that the judiciary has been lenient to aggressive Muslims.
There are several more instances of their reporting on which the DFRAC team has done a fact check only to prove that it’s misleading. Some of these are given below:
1) Clean chit to Monu Manesar and Lokesh Singla in the murder of two Muslim youths in Rajasthan
In the case of the murder of two youths, Junaid and Nasir of the Gopalgarh area of the Bharatpur district of Rajasthan OpIndia claimed that Monu Manesar and Lokesh Singla, who are the main accused of kidnapping and burning the youths to death, have been provided a clean chit in the Bhiwani double murder case, which is stuck between Rajasthan and Haryana.
Fact Check:
To investigate the viral claim, we used certain keywords and landed on a tweet from Bharatpur police on their official Twitter account. The tweet was made on 22 February it was clubbed with an infographic that stated, “#Bharatpur
➡️ #गोपालगढ़In the case of kidnapping and murder, 8 accused were found proven by the interrogation of Rinku Saini and the research so far
➡️ Search operation continues with Haryana Police
➡️ In-depth research is going on in relation to Monu Manesar and Lokesh Singla named in the FIR and some others that came out from the research.” (English Translation)
2) Iranian girl beaten up for not wearing a Hijab
The picture shared by Opindia shows, a girl soaked in blood. It is being claimed that this girl named Sara is from Iran and has been beaten up for not wearing the hijab.
Fact Check:
To verify the viral claim, the DFRAC team reverse-searched the viral image. Meanwhile, we found one such picture on the Persian news portal Saheb Khabar and Bartar Inha.
Source: sahebkhabar.ir
The report, written in Farsi, quoted Isfahan police saying that “the girl was injured yesterday afternoon in Isfahan’s Khaneh neighborhood after school closed in a fight between two students. Later, the mother of a student started arguing in defense of her child and pushed the girl. The mother was arrested yesterday afternoon in the presence of police officers and is now out on bail.”
To verify the authenticity of this news, we searched some Persian keywords and also saw several other media reports related to this incident. We also found a report on Mehr News, an Iranian news agency in which Jalal Salmani, head of the Education Public Relations Department of Isfahan province, was quoted as saying that the incident was a conflict between two students. Which happened outside the school and while returning home. He also said that the tension between these two students has nothing to do with the hijab issue and that what has been published in cyberspace is wrong.
Also Isfahan’s Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor Seyyed Mohammad Moussavian said in a live television program: “A judicial case has been filed for this incident and the investigation of this incident is on the agenda.”
He said: “After preliminary investigation, it was found that the reason for this tension was personal issues between the students and unfortunately, the sentiments of the families were dragged into this dispute.” He further said, what has been published in cyberspace is not true. The incident has nothing to do with Hijab, the attacker is out on bail..
3) SP workers raising pro-Pakistan slogans at Kanpur rally
Opindia ran a news of Samajwadi Party workers raising pro-Pakistan and anti-national slogans to polarize the Uttar Pradesh elections.
The website claimed in its report that in a video related to the Kanpur rally, SP workers can be heard saying “Pakistan has to be made, cycle button has to be pressed”.
Quoting this report, several YouTube channels also accused SP workers of indulging in anti-national activities.
Fact Check:
On checking the above claim, we found that the news of SP workers raising pro-Pakistan slogans is false. In this regard, we found a tweet from News24. In which the above claim was denied by quoting the Kanpur administration.
In the video posted along with the tweet, the Kanpur administration said that the original video was examined by the FST team to know the truth behind the viral video. In which the use of the word Pakistan was not found. Legal action is being taken in the matter.
So there you have it- A full breakdown of OpIndia’s falsified activities. This goes to show no matter how big or popular a so-called ‘informant’ might be, it’s still imperative to fact check the sources and information.
