Islamophobic Remarks :
Rahul Shiv Shankar is a Hindu news anchor who practices information manipulation to advance his objective of Hindu nationalism and Hindu supremacy. Shivshankar’s program India Upfront relentlessly injects Hindu militant tropes into the national mainstream due to his ingrained anti-Muslim sentiments. His initiatives aim to prosecute, demonize, and demean Muslims.
In order to support the conspiracy theory that Hindus are being coerced to convert to Islam, his channel, Times Now, reported on “rate cards” that were supposedly circulating in the southern state of Kerala that purportedly offered cash prizes of up to $10,000 for converting Hindus to Islam in June 2017. According to anchor Shivshankar, the Islamic State (IS) has “a base in India” and was responsible for the awards system. Fact-checkers at Alt News determined the story to be false and claimed Shivshankar had utilized a doctored image that was going around in the Hindu hardline WhatsApp groups.
He also erroneously claimed that the Islamic State had established a camp in Kerala while using the hashtag #CaliphateConvertsHindus on his broadcast. He made the statement, “Even Hindus are being hunted by their recruiters and turned, ladies and gentlemen, and turned into ISIS terrorists,” by using the name of a village in Kerala, Gaza Street. Times Now has visited Gaza Street, the IS stronghold. In Kasargod, Kerala, even the police are said to be afraid to enter. That just highlights how radicalized the locals have grown in this region, Gaza, a symbol of Islamic resistance in West Asia.
He conducted another program in August 2017 with the headline “Hindu girls are hunted, converted, and exploited in Kerala” in an effort to malign Muslims who reside in the region. Shivshankar was later the subject of a police report, and the Malappuram Judicial Magistrate Court summoned him to appear before the court.
On his show, Shivshankar produced a list of fictitious Twitter handles on April 6, 2018, and claimed that the handles belonged to members of Rahul Gandhi’s troll army. He branded the crowd, among other things, “gutter snipers” and “Amit Shah baiters,” and claimed that some of them were even “Hindu haters.”
The spread of the fictitious list put the lives of those whose Twitter usernames he claimed to be “Hindu haters” in jeopardy. One, Riyaz Ahmad, lost his job and also received a number of threat calls.
Despite warnings from the National Broadcasting and Digital Standards Authority (NBDSA), his campaign of Islamophobia and hate speech persists unabatedly. The NBDSA deemed two of his India Upfront episodes—dated September 14, 2020, and September 23, 2020—to be “impartial.” Shivshankar claimed on the program that Muslims protesting the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) had planned a ‘riot.’
In November 2022, at the opening of a temple corridor in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, he promoted the myth of Hindu Supremacy and Hindu resurgence on his show titled “Hindu Renaissance under Modi,” explaining why governments after Independence saw the Hindu civilizational Renaissance through a religious lens. beyond my comprehension, mystifying it, but the
Reticence had the unfavorable result of preventing India from rebuilding a significant portion of its damaged civilisation. Since the controversy will undoubtedly continue, many skeptics are already asking why the prime leader of a secular Republic is actively participating in a religious festival or identifying as a particular denomination (Hindu). We appreciate you taking the time to chat with our viewers this evening.You undoubtedly witnessed this dazzling celebration, but I’d like to learn more about the Hindu Renaissance under the Prime Minister and its significance. Let’s try to place it in the larger context that Mr. Sridhar has also spoken.
He frequently uses claims of ‘Hindu repression’ to downplay and delegitimize the situation faced by Muslims in the nation.
He used slogans like “Why Sanatan (Hindu) Culture Under Siege” in one of his broadcasts about reported violence in some Hindu religious processions in Deoghar, Jharkhand.
“Mosque roofs are launching pads.” He urged the audience to pay attention to the way Hindu deities and practices are mocked in India and the way Muslim religious organizations get away with murder. Day in and day out, he casually promotes misinformation and lies and stirs up anti-Muslim sentiment.