I recall in 2010 when the War on Terror was still raging and the Indian media used to be proud of Indian Muslims and how safe they felt in India even as Muslims suffered elsewhere, and how they had avoided the call of radicalization. There are many old videos still on youtube from mainstream Indian outlets supporting this.
Fast forward 10 years and Indian Muslims now face a reckoning. What happened? Is the rise of RSS / BJP in 2014 and since really only a domestic matter of changing vote preferences among hindus? I believe it's more than that. During the Obama years the western media used Barack "Hussein" Obama's ethnic background to smear Muslims more viciously then during the Bush years. The goal was to weaken his administration which was partly elected to improve relations with the Muslim world and step back from further middle east conflict. Americans knew that by electing a "Hussein" they were sending a friendly message to the Muslim world.
As the 9/11 attacks had occurred over 8 years before Obama, the western public's mood for more Middle East involvement was waning especially during the economic crisis of the Great Recession and its aftermath. The specific and constant attacks on Muslims in the western press during the Obama years increased dramatically during Obama (i.e. the labeling of a terror group as "Islamic State" which has no official support or recognition from any Muslim country) helped fuel an anti-Islam justification for further involvement in the Middle East (as opposed to other debunked excuses like WMD's). These same sentiments permeated from the West to Indians and eventually Indian media. So Indian voters far from spearheading the rise of BJP / RSS are actually a product of the foreign media's hate machinery that many influential Indians, especially Indians who live in Western countries, follow closely. In this way a plurality of Indian hindus became accepting of Muslim otherness and became receptive to the idea that they are not fully Indian.
It follows naturally then that the same Western media will protect Modi government they support from significant backlash by Western leaders. What articles we see against the BJP government do not include interviews with Western leaders to press them to act. That's how the media works - they will report on atrocities they support by using distant, neutral language and interviewing regular nobodies (either victims or victim advocates). Contrast that with coverage of Iran where soundbites from top Western military and political leaders are included to increase urgency and impact and to build a consensus that there is agreement across political lines about the threat.
Fast forward 10 years and Indian Muslims now face a reckoning. What happened? Is the rise of RSS / BJP in 2014 and since really only a domestic matter of changing vote preferences among hindus? I believe it's more than that. During the Obama years the western media used Barack "Hussein" Obama's ethnic background to smear Muslims more viciously then during the Bush years. The goal was to weaken his administration which was partly elected to improve relations with the Muslim world and step back from further middle east conflict. Americans knew that by electing a "Hussein" they were sending a friendly message to the Muslim world.
As the 9/11 attacks had occurred over 8 years before Obama, the western public's mood for more Middle East involvement was waning especially during the economic crisis of the Great Recession and its aftermath. The specific and constant attacks on Muslims in the western press during the Obama years increased dramatically during Obama (i.e. the labeling of a terror group as "Islamic State" which has no official support or recognition from any Muslim country) helped fuel an anti-Islam justification for further involvement in the Middle East (as opposed to other debunked excuses like WMD's). These same sentiments permeated from the West to Indians and eventually Indian media. So Indian voters far from spearheading the rise of BJP / RSS are actually a product of the foreign media's hate machinery that many influential Indians, especially Indians who live in Western countries, follow closely. In this way a plurality of Indian hindus became accepting of Muslim otherness and became receptive to the idea that they are not fully Indian.
It follows naturally then that the same Western media will protect Modi government they support from significant backlash by Western leaders. What articles we see against the BJP government do not include interviews with Western leaders to press them to act. That's how the media works - they will report on atrocities they support by using distant, neutral language and interviewing regular nobodies (either victims or victim advocates). Contrast that with coverage of Iran where soundbites from top Western military and political leaders are included to increase urgency and impact and to build a consensus that there is agreement across political lines about the threat.
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