On Wednesday, 28th September, British Hindus gathered in front of the office of Guardian News in London, in order to raise their voices of protest against the paper for its anti-Hindu and anti-India bias in all its articles, the latest example being their reportage of the Leicester violence. While the Hindus were the victims of the violence after the dastardly attack on their temple which was vandalized, the Guardian painted the Hindu community in a bad light.
The protestors also presented a memorandum, addressed to Katharine Viner, the Editor-in-Chief of The Guardian, and to the Chief of Security of the media house. It was alleged by the protestors that the media house published articles condemning Hindus for various acts, daily, and their anti-Hindu and anti-India stance was blatant enough for creating hatred for Hindus in the UK. Therefore, the Hindu community has demanded the paper to tone down its anti-Hindu rhetoric.
The leader of the Hindu community said that most of the articles are written by people in India with half-truths to push their anti-Hindu agenda, deliberately written to paint Hindus as ‘demonic people’. He further added that there was no standard of professional journalism in The Guardian coming from Delhi. Calling the protest, a warning for the media house, he said that the Hindus would keep going there time and again if The Guardian did not stop publishing anti-Hindu and anti-India articles. He stated that they expected a response from The Guardian and wanted them to reconsider their agenda.
The protestors were seen carrying placards which read, ‘Hindu Lives Matter’, ‘Stop putting lives at risk’, ‘Stop spreading fake news’, ‘Guardian stop false narrative’, ‘Stop demonizing Hindus’, and ‘Hindu is peace’.
While covering the Leicester violence, one journalist associated with the media house, Aina Khan, tweeted about her ‘tense day’, and claimed to have interviewed a Hindu man, who was wearing a helmet and holding an Indian flag. She further claimed that the man was an RSS supporter and added that RSS was inspired by Italian dictator, Mussolini.
In another article, she, along with two co-authors, painted the Hindus in bad light. The article, which was titled, ‘It feels like people want to fight’: how communal unrest flared in Leicester’, quotes a Muslim councillor, Ruma Ali, saying that the clashes have been going on for months, and it felt like people wanted to fight and even though it was calm then, there would be reprisals. The article suggested that the Hindus were the ones who wanted to fight, while, in real, the Hindus were the victims of the violence.
