With her speeches that are centered around Hindutva and anti-Muslim rhetoric, Kajal Shingala aka Kajal Hindustani seems to be the latest Hindutva icon in Gujarat.
But recently one of her speeches landed her in trouble. A week after delivering an allegedly incendiary speech on 30 March, on the occasion of Ram Navami, in Gujarat’s Una town, Kajal was arrested as according to many reports she is alleged to trigger communal riots.
She gave a speech where she instigated Hindus to pick up arms in order to defend themselves and fight against a particular community.
After this, the two groups on the internet started debating in favour or against the arrest.
In this DFRAC Exclusive report, we will analyse how Kajal spreads hate on an online medium such as on her Twitter account.
The report will cover pointers like:
- Who is Kajal Shingla?
- Pattern of Hate Speech on Twitter
- Kajal Hindustani as ‘Plaster Saint’
- Spreading Misinformation
Who is Kajal Shingala?
According to many reports, Kajal Shingala is a social activist, she gave up her original surname to adopt Hindustani in line with her nationalistic views. She is also dubbed as the ‘lioness of Gujarat’.
A report stated that she describes herself as a ‘young and dynamic nationalist’ who is working to spread awareness on ‘Bhartiya Culture and Religions’. She claimed that she works for Hindu human rights and cited that she is a famous political activist working on-ground to ‘save girls from forceful conversions’.
She is having a significant following of nearly 110.3k users, even Prime Minister Narendra Modi follows her on Twitter. According to her Twitter Bio she is an “Entrepreneur, Research Analyst, Debater, Social Activist, Nationalist, and a Proud Hindustani”.
The analytics of her Twitter account shows that the account has 1.4 million total engagements.
After analyzing Kajal Shingla’s Twitter account, it was discovered that she was inactive from April 2022 until January 2023. However, there was a notable increase in tweet engagement following January 24th, 2023.
The Pattern of Hatred on her Twitter Account:
- Most of her tweets promote Anti- Muslim Rhetoric. In many tweets, she uses the words like Love- Jihad, Land Jihad, and jihadi to trigger right-wing groups in the country against the Muslim community.
The below graph shows the post timeline on लव Gहाद done by Kajal. In total 127 tweets were done, where the highest number of tweets were done on April 26th 2023
- In her tweets, she frequently uses the phrase “ALLAH KE BANDE” to denigrate and stereotype individuals from the Muslim community, implying that even those who are connected to God still engage in immoral behavior. Thus, generalizing the whole community.
- In addition to this, many of her posts try to sarcastically make fun of the opposition leaders of the country which can potentially fuel political hate.
- She has been observed encouraging her followers who identify as ‘Hindu’ to reject the principles of secularism and brotherhood, instead advocating for the establishment of a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ in which other religions are not accommodated.
It can be seen that Kajal has used hashtags like #Lovejihad, #theconversion #thekerelastory, etc.
Kajal Hindustani as Plaster Saint:
On one hand, Kajal, with an intent to perpetuate the narrative of ‘love Jihad,’ kajal shared a video depicting a heartfelt portrayal of a Hindu girl entangled in a love affair with a Muslim man. She proceeded to label the video as a means of endorsing such alleged practices and urged Hindu girls to exercise caution and refrain from falling into this deceptive trap.
However, she shared a video of a song portraying a love story between a Muslim girl and a Hindu boy, labeling it as a “Romantic Song.”The song concludes with lyrics that promote hate, suggesting that if the girl marries a Hindu man, the fridge would be reserved solely for vegetables, not for storing her body parts.
Fake Claims
In order to attract more sympathy to her gimmicky stories, and to gain explicitly to her social or political identity she uses her social media account and spreads Many Fake Claims.
Misleading Claim 1:
She shared a report of Opindia claiming that famous ex- b-town celebrity Sana Khan was dragged by her husband to an event while she was pregnant.
She tweets, “Sad, don’t know when my Muslim sisters will get the right of equality in India..!! #UCC.”(English Translation)
Fact Check:
To verify the claim, we searched on Google and found a post from Sana Khan’s verified Instagram account where she clarified that her husband was not dragging her, but was saving her from suffocation by taking her inside.
Misleading Claim 2:
She shared a screenshot where it was written in Hindi which when translated to English states, “On March 25, Indira Gandhi shot 400 sadhus in an hour in front of the Parliament during the cow slaughter movement.
I curse the Congress party that one day a hermit doing penance in the Himalayas in modern dress will capture this very Parliament and destroy the Congress ideology. This is the curse of a Brahmin and the curse of a Brahmin never goes in vain.
– Karpatri Maharaj, crying in front of the Parliament and lifting the bodies of sadhus, 1966 – – from Acharya Chandrashekhar Shastri.”
Sharing this screenshot she tweets, “The curse of a saint has become the time of the unrighteous, the apocalypse is certain…!!” (English Translation)
Fact Check:
To check the veracity of the claim we used some keywords and found many reports regarding the same claim.
“The Caravan” quoted UNI’s report as saying that in the incident on November 7, 1966, more than 250 private vehicles and two-wheelers were damaged within a two-mile radius of Parliament House. At the same time, according to the PTI report, about 830 people were detained, in which most of them were sadhus. Rameshwaranand (the then Jana Sangh MP) was also among those arrested.
According to the report, then Minister of State for Home Jaisukh Lal Hathi issued an official statement that 40 people were injured in the firing, in which eight died. A constable was also included in the dead.
An article preserved in the archives of the English newspaper “The Hindu”, quoting official sources, put the death toll at 7 and the number of injured at 100.
Now let’s talk about the alleged curse of Karpatri Maharaj. An article published in “Speaking Tree” mentions this incident. The report mentions a curse of Karpatri Maharaj, which he had given to the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. But there is no mention of any such curse, which has been mentioned in the viral post.
Misleading Claim 3:
Kajal Hindustani is promoting ‘The Kerala Story’ claiming it’s ‘based on true events’. As according to the teaser 32k women in kerala has been converted to Islam.
Source: Twitter
Fact Check:
DFRAC team found an interview of Sudipto Sen on YouTube channel ‘The Festival of Bharat’ where he talks about how he calculated the figure. From the 45-second mark onward, he says, “In 2010, former Kerala CM Ooman Chandy put a report in front of Kerala assembly. In front of my camera, he denied that anything had happened. But in 2010, I documented a case where he (Chandy) said that every year approximately 2,800 to 3,200 girls were taking up Islam. Just calculate it for the following 10 years, and the number is around 32,000.”
we further checked India Today report which said, “On June 25, Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy informed the state legislature that 2,667 young women converted to Islam in the state since 2006” but there too was no mention in the report of women joining the ISIS.
Conclusion:
The Hindutva orator Kajal Hindustani examined in this report epitomizes a troubling phenomenon wherein she is exploiting her influential platforms to sow seeds of hatred and propagate stereotypes against the Muslim religion. By perpetuating divisive narratives, she contributes to the fragmentation of society, fostering animosity and intolerance. Not only this she also disseminates misleading news. By sharing inaccurate or distorted information, that contribute to erosion of factual discourse. This not only hampers the public’s ability to make informed decisions but also fuels further division and polarization within society.
