So @gauravcsawant put out this above tweet some weeks ago. Something similar had been playing on my mind too for a while. Social media as a force came into its own in the 2014 general elections. And with that come the dirty tricks associated with influencing minds.
Once again, I may be totally wrong out here, but it is a matter of what you want to believe Vs what you want to laugh away as a matter of someone’s fertile imagination. But here goes ..
I started putting default location for trends on my twitter profile as Pakistan some time ago, on a whim. What it has led to is quite a .. let me call it ‘fascinating’ observation every once in a while. The trigger was #Bihar trending in Pakistan on 08 Nov 15, soon after Bihar Assembly Election results were announced.
Interesting, no? Hashtags like #IhateIndiaBecause and such likes keep popping up out there every once in a while. But #Bihar? Yes, #Bihar, because the BJP / NDA lost and the left leaning media went into a celebratory frenzy!
What one inferred from this was (strictly my personal opinion, btw) that atleast some of the so called ‘secular’ handles were based out of Pakistan, or had in fact, ‘outsourced’ some of the outrage industry over there. The next example came soon thereafter.
Aurangzeb Road in Delhi was renamed, sparking another outrage from so called seculars. And ‘Lok Kalyan Marg’ trends in Pak!
It took a while for subsequent examples since I was no longer looking. Next one came by in August 2017. Gurmeet Ram Rahim was arrested and much of Punjab – Haryana went into a tizzy. Social Media was up in arms against the government of the day, and right on cue, #GurmeetRamRahimSingh starts trending in Pak too!
Guess, Pakis too were quite ‘concerned’ about the law and order situation inside India, apparently! Or maybe they were just adding fuel to fire in perfect sync with the ‘secular’ ecosystem out here? Your call.
Move ahead a week or so, and a journalist in Bangalore is murdered. Almost instantaneously, a call goes out in the secular media that it is the handiwork of ‘Hindu Terrorists’, some even creating fictitious Hindu groups that might have done it, and the social media world is on fire. Oh, btw ‘Gauri Lankesh’ also starts trending in Pak on 06 Sep!
Fast forward another week, and Amnesty International releases its report on use of pellet guns by Indian forces in Kashmir.
Remember pellet guns? And the ‘randi rona’ that seculars created because it was quite an effective crowd control tool to keep Pak sponsored stone pelters in check?
Well, the same randi rona started again, this time on BOTH sides of the border!
And soon #AmnestyExposesIndia was trending in Pak! Interestingly, the tweets associated were quite similar on both sides too!
Two days later came the #IHateIndiaBecause hashtag. Quite normal actually, since such juvenile hashtags keep coming up every few weeks. Except that quite a bunch of tweets were STILL about the topics mentioned earlier in this blog post.
Point is, it might just be a flight of fancy that I have posted above, but then, I thought I might as well put it out here. Generally speaking, the Leftist ‘secular’ ecosystem over here and Pakis do tend to ‘agree’ on a few matters of opinion.
Why else would a handle called Pakistan Defence be interested in a protest march for a murdered journo in Bangalore?
This screenshot, I offer without any comments.
And before I sign off on this blog post for the time being, just try and recollect the narrative on the #TerrorBoat incident in Pakistan as well as the ‘secular’ ecosystem within India.
’nuff said.
Ok, so time to add more this blog post!
What is interesting is not that Gujarat was trending earlier in the afternoon of 18 Dec 2017, but the sheer number of tweets – 284k, a figure which should have crossed 300k by now. And this in a country that only had 3.1 million twitter users last year! (source: https://geo.tv/amp/131187)
Looks like I missed this one below while blogging this post!
11 Dec 2018: A total of THREE hashtags on Assembly Elections in India trending in Pakistan this afternoon .. I wonder why! Now waiting for a new hashtag with the word ‘Modi’, ‘BJP’ or ‘RSS’ within!
04 Jan 2019: So this was trending in Pakistan today at about 2pm when the govt was replying to the opposition about their allegations on the Rafale Deal. Totally coincidental, no?
10 Jan 2019: A very ‘interesting’ trend right now .. wrt the Kartarpur Corridor. The corridor issue was always a wild herring in middle of election season in India. And they say Khalistanis have no connection with Pakis whatsoever!
Just plugging this tweet here in this blog post before moving ahead:-
14 Oct 2019: So the Prime Minister of India travels to a South Indian state for a summit with the Chinese President. And #GoBackModi tweets start greeting him. But get what, most of such tweets emanate from Pakistan!
25 Feb 2020: So Delhi sees communal violence and Voila .. the TOP THREE trends in the Land of the Pure get dedicated to that!! Now pl tell me there is no ‘moral’ support from across the borders to the instigators – both online as well as those on the streets.
26 Jan 2021: With all that happened in Delhi today, the 2nd & 3rd highest trending hashtags in Pakistan are no surprise, including the sheer numbers of tweets with them – pretty large for a country with hardly 3 million twitter users! Enemies within & enemies outside as a tag-team!
27 Jan 2021:
And it continues .. not just the hashtags, but the sheer numbers of tweets as well. Now if you tell me that it is a mere coincidence, then I have a red coloured building in Old Delhi to sell to you. Packies and Khalistanis are the two sides of the same coin. Period.
04 Feb 2021: TOP FOUR trends in Pakistan – all related to the ongoing Farm Bills ruckus.
10 Feb 1846 – A 60yr old Khalsa General, Sham Singh Attariwala donned white clothes depicting the pure attire of one devoted to death, as he rode into what he knew was his last battle. Some time earlier, he had dismissed his servants and told them to return to his village with orders to tell his family that he would not be coming home.
Mounted on his sturdy white horse,Sham Singh spurred forward at the head of his Khalsa contingent, into the ranks of the 50th Regiment of the British army facing him. The Khalsas fought like men possessed, in a battle for the future of their very lands. Ironically, Sabraon and nearby areas were the scene of another epic battle some two millennia ago when Alexander, in his lust to reach the rich lands of India, fed by life giving waters of its holy rivers, clashed with the native armies under similar circumstances.
The battle was a bloody affair. No quarters were asked for, and none were given. Grossly outnumbered, the Khalsas gave an excellent account of themselves. However, at a critical stage of battle, Misr Tej Singh fled back across the Sutlej with his men, destroying part of the bridge in his wake. Far from being disheartened by this treachery, Sham Singh, along with the last 50 of his men made a spirited charge against the advancing British army.
Needless to say, each and every one of the Khalsas were martyred. In the words of Andrews Adam, “Thus saw the Battle of Sabraon the basest treachery of all opportunists on one hand, and the shining heroism of noble patriots on the other.” Unquote.
In the evening, after the battle was over, Sikhs swam across the river and recovered Sham Singh Attariwala and his men’s bodies. The General’s mortal remains were found ‘where the dead lay thickest.’ The victors too were suitably awed by this ferocious enemy.
JD Cunninghan wrote, “Gradually each defensible position was captured & the enemy was forced towards the river; yet; although assailed from all sides, no Sikh offered to submit, and no disciple of (Guru) Gobind (Singh) asked for quarter They,everywhere, showed a front to the victors, and stalked slowly and sullenly away, while many rushed singly forth to meet assured death by contending with a multitude. The victors looked with solid wonderment upon the indomitable courage of the vanquished, and forebore to strike when the helpless and the dying frowned unavailing hatred.” Unquote.
Hugh Gough, the British commander-in-chief, under whose leadership the two Anglo-Sikh wars were fought, described Sabraon as the ”Waterloo” of India. Paying tribute to the gallantry of the Sikhs, he said: “Policy precluded me publicly recording my sentiments on the splendid gallantry of our fallen foe, or to record the acts of heroism displayed, not only individually, but almost collectively, by the Sikh sardars and the army; and I declare were it not from a deep conviction that my country’s good required the sacrifice, I could have wept to have witnessed the fearful slaughter of so devoted a body of men“. Unquote.
Lord Hardinge, who saw the action, wrote: “Few escaped; none, it may be said, surrendered. The Sikhs met their fate with the resignation which distinguishes their race” Unquote.
The Khalsas planted a standard on the battlefield that day which stands even today. Assured victory was turned into defeat by the treachery of one of our own. Else the history, and the present of this nation might have been much different. Sham Singh Attariwala was cremated at his native village on 12 Feb 1846.
Shah Mohammed immortalized Sham Singh and his men’s last stand as:
‘They squeezed the blood out of the Whites
As one squeezes juice out of a lemon
If only Ranjit Singh were there,
He would have been proud to see,
How the Khalsa wielded their swords.
Oh Shah Mohammad, without Ranjit Singh, such was our plight
We won the battles, but lost the fight.‘
Unquote
Former COAS, Gen JJ Singh pays respects to Gen Sham Singh Attariwala on his martyrdom anniversary, Amritsar, 10 Feb 2016
Punjab Police pays tributes to Gen Sham Singh on his 169th martyrdom day at India Gate, Amritsar, 2015.
So Air India ‘Kanishka’ & Talwinder Singh who played a major role in its bombing are back in news. Canada,this one will haunt you till time’s end ..
Letting out some thoughts and some facts when it came to Western nations not merely looking away at terrorism aimed at India in the 70s, 80s and the 90s, but in cases, actually encouraging it. This state sponsored terror cost us dearly then & costs us dearly even now.
70s – 90s were not very popular years for Govt of India in Western capitals. At best, they looked away when it came to matters that were detrimental to Indian interests and at worst, they actively fomented trouble within Indian borders. Primary reason was that the geopolitical interests of the US and UK were not aligned with Indian ones.
Germination and nurturing of the Khalistani terrorism was but one manifestation of this ill will. Two quick examples:-
1. After the Khalistani terrorists hijacked an Indian aircraft on 24 Aug 1984 to Lahore (5th such incident, btw), the Pakis found out that the hijacking was done with a toy pistol and in order to help them out, gave them a revolver. Then they asked the hijackers to take the plane to Dubai. Over there, the hijackers demanded that they be handed over to US authorities instead of India. However they were tricked by the Indian and UAE security agencies and brought to India. Upon investigation, it was found that the revolver was of German origin. Germany confirmed that that particular piece was part of a consignment delivered to Pak Army. This was promptly shared with the US. Unsurprisingly, the US refused to believe this due to ‘lack of evidence’, despite eyewitness accounts by the hijacked passengers having seen the revolver handed over in Lahore!
2. In second instance, Talwinder Singh Parmar, a known terrorist was arrested in West Germany in 1983 as he travelled by train from Zurich due to an Interpol lock-out notice. CBI was informed by the Germans thru the Interpol who asked for his custody for trial in cases against him in India. Germany asked for details and was info that a CBI team would be flying to Bonn with the same. However, even before the CBI team took off, the Indian consul general in Vancouver messaged that Talwinder Singh had been released and had even addressed a religious congregation in a local Gurudwara wherein he’d threatened violence against India. Upon being asked as to why they released him, the Germans claimed it was due to delay on Indian part, a patently false statement since the Indian authorities had been prompt in their actions. Talwinder Singh would get back to Canada and play a major part in the Kanishka bombing, an act for which the Canadian Govt’s role is still under a cloud.
Ok, now coming to the shameful ‘Kanishka’ episode.
Talwinder Singh Parmar had been on the run from Indian authorities since 1981 and and had found refuge in Canada. In 1982, India issued a warrant for Parmar’s arrest for six charges of murder stemming from the killing of men of Punjab Police in Ludhiana & notified Canada that he was a wanted terrorist. However, Canada refused to extradite him.
Soon thereafter, BlueStar and subsequent massacre of Sikhs in Delhi followed. The Khalistanis in Canada started plotting revenge.
In late 1984, at least two informers reported to authorities on the first abortive plot to bomb Air India Flight 182, which flew out of Montreal’s Mirabel International Airport at that time. In August 1984, the known criminal Gerry Boudreault claimed that Talwinder Parmar showed him a suitcase stuffed with $200,000, payment to plant a bomb. He refused to do so.
Then in September, in an attempt to get his sentence for theft and fraud reduced, Harmail Singh Grewal of Vancouver told the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) of the plot to bomb the flight from Montreal.
What did the Canadians do? They fcuking DISMISSED these two reports pointing to the SAME plot from two UNRELATED sources as UNRELIABLE.
Finally, in early 1985, the CSIS obtained a court order to place Parmar under surveillance for one year. On 09 June 1985, a police informer in Hamilton reported that Parmar and Bagri had visited the Malton Sikh Gurudwara, warning the faithful that “it would be unsafe” to fly Air India.
The CSIS / RCMP couldn’t have asked for any more red flags pointing towards a plot to bomb an Air India flight out of Canada. But nope, nothing was done.
Ultimately, the Kanishka (pictured above) would get blown apart near Ireland, taking 329 souls with it, at the hands of terrorists based out of Canada, with bombs assembled in Canada. 268 of the victims were Canadian citizens.
What followed was an investigation that still continues to this day in some respects, uncovering utter incompetence on part of Canadian authorities at best, and wilful / malicious oversight at worst.
Much has been written about that, so I’ll cover only some basic, glaring lacunae.
As has been mentioned earlier, Parmar was under surveillance since early 1985. Late in the afternoon of June 4, 1985, CSIS surveillance teams followed Parmar’s maroon car as he drove to pick up his friend Inderjit Singh Reyat from his home in Duncan. From Reyat’s home, three men, one of whom has never been identified, drove to a clearing in the woods around the town. CSIS agents Larry Lowe &Lynne Jarrett soon heard a loud blast.
It was the terrorists testing the detonation system for the bombs. The agents reported it as a shotgun blast.
Then happened the most incredible thing in this entire dirty saga .. On 16 Jun 1985, surveillance over Parmar was lifted!
This was the time when preparations for the bombing would’ve been at their peak!
Funny, no?
Esp since this blast was NOT the only sign of trouble.
But it gets even more ‘funnier’.
Apparently, James Bartleman, then Director General of the Intelligence & Security Bureau of the CSIS External Affairs Division, told the Air India Commission that he had seen secret info which “indicated that Flight 182 would be targeted.”
Now intelligence cannot get any more pointed than this. But when he brought this same info to the notice of an RCMP official, Bartleman testified that ‘he was met with a hostile reception’.
Mind you, he was a DG in the CSIS!
And then we are to believe it was mere inter agency turf wars at play!
Sorry, I refuse to believe that. Just as I suspect, the 329 departed souls would refuse too.
What is even more glaring is that based on Indian agencies’ inputs, on 01 Jun 1985 Air India’s Mumbai office sent a telex message to the airline’s offices worldwide warning of “the likelihood of sabotage attempts being undertaken by Sikh extremists by placing time/delay devices, etc., in the aircraft or registered baggage.”
Air India’s Montréal office passed on the information to the RCMP.
A good, professional agency would have reconciled it with inputs it already had, and upped its vigil. But then it was the RCMP. They chose to not only NOT forward the input to CSIS, but not even to THEIR OWN internal dept responsible for preparing threat assessments.
The RCMP were already aware of possible plots to target Air India aircraft, yet they dismissed even this input from Air India itself as a ‘ploy’ by the national carrier of a third world, commie aligned nation (remember, Afghan ‘Jihad’ was then underway) to secure additional security FOR FREE!
To be charitable, I’ll say the RCMP were not an intentional party to this terror attack, but merely, as Justice John Major of Canadian Supreme Court said, “Time and again in the Air India investigation, RCMP came down on the side of skepticism based on a superficial assessment of credibility, which led them to dismiss info long before its truth could reasonably be assessed”.
But this ‘incompetence’ carried on even after the attack actually happened.
Once again, not going into the nitty gritties of the trial as such. Just listing out a couple of facts over here.
In his verdict, Justice Josephson cited “unacceptable negligence” by CSIS when hundreds of wiretaps of the suspects were destroyed. Of the 210 wiretaps that were recorded during the months before and after the bombing, 156 were erased. Amazingly, nay, ‘Funnily’, these tapes continued to be erased even after the terrorists had become the primary suspects in the bombing! Because the original wiretap records were erased, they were inadmissible as evidence in court. In a lame excuse,CSIS claimed the wiretap recordings contained no relevant information, but an RCMP memo states that “There is a strong likelihood that had CSIS retained the tapes between March and August 1985, that a successful prosecution of at least some of principals in both bombings could have been undertaken.”
Then there was the case of Tara Singh Hayer, the publisher of the Indo-Canadian Times & a member of the Order of British Columbia who gave an affidavit to the RCMP in 1995 that he was present during a conversation in which Bagri admitted his involvement in the bombings. Hayer was, however, shot dead in 1998 in Surrey, consequent to which his affidavit was inadmissible as evidence in court.
Ok, so this was in England – another ‘stronghold’ of Khalistanis. But in Canada itself, many refused to testify since the Canadian Govt couldn’t provide sufficient guarantees of their safety, of two witnesses, one cited memory loss in refusing to testify, and another was forced to enter the Witness Protection Program two years earlier than planned, due to the RCMP’s ‘inadvertent‘ disclosure of her identity.
So professional of them, no?
But the ‘funny’ doesn’t end here. Justice John Major noted in amazement as to how could the RCMP not share the telex from Air India with the CSIS.
On the contrary, RCMP provided erroneous information to former Ontario Premier Bob Rae during his 2005 investigation.
Yup.
The RCMP didn’t lie or hide facts. They merely provided ‘erroneous’ information!
This was not the only part of the aviation security lapses by the Canadian law enforcement agencies, Justice Major stated. He referred to one summer employee, Brian Simpson, who ‘boarded Flight 182 at Pearson International Airport in Toronto without detection on the afternoon of June 22, 1985’ and this person ‘had complete access to the aircraft from the cockpit to the equipment at the rear.’
Tragic?
NO.
The saddest part to Major was that during testimonies the ‘government counsel’ tried ‘to discredit this witness.’ Simpson’s evidence, he said, ‘revealed numerous weaknesses in security.’ I think I’ve said enough. Time to stop now, since my blood is still boiling at this wilful murder.
Yes, that’s how I look at it – Wilful.
Wilful, because it could have easily been prevented. Wilful, because the perps could easily have been convicted. Wilful, because petty egos, masquerading as ‘turf wars’ caused the loss of 329 souls.
At the most charitable, I’ll say it was an ‘innocent oversight’ that nurtured, and continues to nurture anti India terrorists over Canadian soil.
At the opposite end, someone can just as easily call out Canada for willfully nurturing them for their own reasons. How else can a visa denial to an ex CRPF officer over assumed human rights abuses be justified? (LINK)
Btw, the Canadian Govt was forced to apologize for this act by an employee of theirs. Fair enough, but it does show the mindset nurtured over decades, just coming to the foreground – Selective Amnesia, I’d say.
And it is only getting more and more mainstream each passing day.
I’ll sign off on this blog post with what I said in my first paragraph – Canada, this will haunt you till time’s end.
Continued fromPART 1, published some weeks ago. Didn’t realize then that there would be so much new ‘content’ so soon. Anyhow, here’s chronicling the same ..
Cow -> Buffalo -> Ox It’s alleged MAGIC .. #NDTV Style!! (Then there is the quintessential ‘alleged’ too!)
At times when th ‘alleged’ key on keyboards is stuck due to overuse, ‘single quotes’ come handy ‘Molested’ & Molested – guess the difference. And it has absolutely NOTHING to do with anyone’s political leanings!
Offered without comments, except for just one word in single quotes – ‘SECULARISM’
Internationally Renowned reputation when it comes to gaffe’s .. oops .. ‘editorial oversights’ of #NDTV!
You know what, GOI can save a TON of money by disbanding its intel agencies & relying on #NDTV instead! (Oh, and the Supreme Court too! (ref Nidhi’s Video in Part 1 of this blog post!)
‘Technically’, #NDTV is correct. Factually too. That said, folks, this is the very PINNACLE of ‘secular’ reporting, don’t you think?
To be fair, they did use the ‘T’ word subsequently. That said, my heart goes out to the poor ‘members’ of this ‘exclusive club’ that found themselves on the wrong end of the stick!
‘Reputations’ are built not on a one off event, but on ‘consistency’ .. THIS is where the good folks at #NDTV trump everyone else!
Yet another piece of a genuine editorial error from the #NDTV stables .. damn those ‘innocent’ mistakes!
Talking about ‘secularism’, internationally so .. #NDTV style!
Uncanny resemblance, no?
So PROUD .. and deservedly so After all, which other news channel has the ‘distinction’ of airing such a ‘World Premiere’, hain?
‘Innocent’ wordplay? Or is it ‘brilliant’ editorship? Why does it seem to me that someone is NOT happy with the wisdom of the courts ..
Just another day in office .. spreading secularism et al!
Oh, and in case you wonder what a mirror looks like, just check out the responses to this tweet. ’nuff said! Haters gonna hate .. our courage of conviction stays strong .. WE DON’T RUN FAKE NEWS!
(PS: Pl ignore the 1000+ replies to this tweet!)
Talking about ‘mirrors’, here’s another classic!
Btw, on a VERY serious note, #NDTV, you aren’t just secular, but so sexist too!
Fact Checking? Ye kis chidiya ka naam hai, hain ji? (LINK)
Wondering why @republic on a thread ‘dedicated’ to #NDTV? Well, there’s only one way to find out – CLICK on it – LINK!
Folks, we don’t have details right now. But if it is a lynching, it HAS to be beef related. Take our word for it! We’ll apologize later!
Double Standards? Ye kis chidiya ka naam hai, hainji?? We at #NDTV have only ONE standard!
Another innocent mistake .. I’m sure the good folks at #NDTV must be very very sorry for talking about the PM’s samadhi
They had SOOO MANY details on the incident, except for the fact that he was a Police Officer. Not even AFTER the JKP tweeted about it.
Pakis and Separatists refer to Anantnag in South Kashmir as Islamabad. . . . Oh, and #NDTV too
Recycling is good for the environment .. THAT’S why we do it, even with old, unrelated visuals!
Step 1: ‘Create’ fake news .. that too in the thick of election season.
Step 2: Apologize
Step 3: Move on!
Even Prashant Bhushan has apologized and issued a clarification. Yet this report keeps insinuating something that is factually incorrect
Who needs fact-checking when you can simply apologize later on!!
Ah, when decline in growth RATE become decline in growth! And then they take offence to the word ‘AGENDA’!
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