John Oliver’s weekly HBO talk show usually covers issues across a wide spectrum of topics. But last Sunday, he came out shooting from the hip with an awfully Hinduphobic segment about U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to India and his friendship with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Oliver describes his show as a satirical comedy and does sometimes bring to attention issues such as Robo Calls impacting literally everyone in the United States. Unfortunately, he also allows himself to be used for leftist hit jobs. That’s exactly what he did when going after the Coal industry in 2019. When sued¹ for defamation by an impacted businessman, his attorneys used the comedy show angle to hide behind the first amendment rights. Guess being a Republican donor is grounds enough to be attacked.

The latest hit job was executed by Oliver in his segment aired on February 23, 2020 titled “Modi”. In Oliver’s usual style, he tried to hide his outrageous Hinduphobia behind lame and crass jokes.

His segment started off with blabbering about Trump’s lack of love for his wife and made a mockery of them visiting the Taj Mahal. He then jumped to use Trump’s characterization of Prime Minister Modi as “Father of the Indian Nation” to do a psychoanalysis of Trump’s relationship with his father. While so far his so-called comedy was bland, maybe his writers or handlers felt using cheap and juvenile jokes could be more appropriate for their audience. His usage of an edited segment of a “Man vs. Wild” episode was the indication of the venom he was going to unleash.

“Being an Englishman, he should know the enormous amount of (bad) karma his country accumulated for partitioning India. The blood of 10+ million innocent Hindus and Sikhs are in the hands of the British administrators,” said Mr. Aadarsh Singh of New Delhi. He further added that if Oliver had any journalistic integrity he should have researched and explained how Citizenship Amendment Act¹⁴ (CAA) and National Register of Citizens¹⁵ (NRC) protects millions of poor and persecuted Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and others in Muslim ruled Pakistan and Bangladesh^{2 3}. Considering Oliver is from Birmingham, England, He should know firsthand what Islamist hordes can do to a peaceful place or people.

Per verified newspaper reports⁴, Christian, Hindu, Sikh places of worship have been attacked and burnt by the thousands across Pakistan. One of the significant issues being faced by minority communities is the abuse of the blasphemy law. People belonging to minority religions are being falsely accused of using derogatory remarks against the Islamic Prophet which can result in the death penalty. Often these accusations are made to settle personal vendettas and, due to the bias against minorities, victims are often immediately presumed guilty without any substantive evidence. Every year, countless Hindu and Christian girls are kidnapped and forcefully raped under the protection of Islamic seminaries.

Ms. Aditi Reddy, a supporter of India's ruling BJP party and resident of New Delhi, was forthright when asked about her thoughts. She said her residence is in the worst affected parts of New Delhi which saw Muslim gangs’ riot and kill during the past few days. “The Government of India is doing all it can to safeguard the rights of persecuted minorities in its neighborhood,” she said.

Ms. Reddy added that in 1947, almost 23% of Pakistan’s population was composed of non-Muslim citizens. Today, the proportion of non-Muslims has declined to less than 3%. The abduction, rape and forced conversion of Hindu girls^{6 7 8} – often barely in their teens – in Sindh province has been a brutal and terrifying reality of daily life for Hindus in Pakistan. Some estimates like the one from Dawn newspaper¹³ claims that each month, about 20-25 young Hindu girls are kidnapped and forcibly “converted” to Islam in Sindh province alone.

Oliver and his ilk do not bother to report on factual civilizational genocide being perpetrated against Hindus in India’s neighborhood. Further, Oliver’s blaming of Mr. Modi for the Gujarat riots shows how little research he has done. This accusation has been repeatedly proved false. The Supreme Court of India has cleared⁹ Mr. Modi of any wrongdoing. But alas the hit job money seems to be too big for Oliver to uphold basic journalistic ethics.

Mr. Abilash Shivam who owns a transport company, says that the media environment has become so toxic that almost every journalist in left-leaning western media houses is forced to make it a point to falsely accuse Hindus of wrongdoing, degrade their culture, finger point the BJP and Mr. Modi for all that is evil in the world. Just a cursory research of the western publications will reveal that the concept of balanced and unbiased reporting does not exist anymore when the subject being covered has any connection to Hinduism or India. Oliver went with the standard Hinduphobic script of communist sympathizers by blaming every riot on Mr. Modi and his party.

As per multiple research done by community groups, more than 80 million Hindus^{10 11 12} spread over 1300+ years have been massacred by Islamic invaders. His shameless usage of media from Muslim Brotherhood’s mouthpiece Al-Jazeera reveals the desperation he is under to be in good books of Hinduphobic powers to be.

Oliver seemed to have a particularly sadistic pleasure in labeling the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as a “paramilitary” organization. It follows a long queue of neo-colonial white elites who think their privileged birth entitles them to label some entity and it is enough for the rest of the world to follow its diktats. 

Mr. Pravin Kumar’s excellent article on the Lautenberg Amendment talks about how the US has instituted safeguards for Jewish refugees after the Soviet Union collapsed. His article points out the double standards of western media calling the Modi government’s act of humane protection of minorities as extremists but staying silent on similar safeguards in their own backyard. John Oliver has finally earned the well-deserved title of a “fake news leader”, but he already claims his show as such.

References

¹  Murray Confirms Lawsuit against John Oliver (https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/trending/xbe4rthkqfg4v0xhr6kwra2)

² Nehru promised citizenship to Pakistan minorities (https://www.financialexpress.com/india-news/nehru-promised-citizenship-to-pakistan-minorities-congress-protesting-caa-to-protect-vote-bank-amit-shah/1854927/)

³ Time to understand the CAA, with reason (https://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/time-to-understand-the-caa-with-reason/story-amSa0PNuZHqAT29xELuqgJ.html)

⁴ Hindus under attack in Bangladesh, Pakistan, face annihilation (https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/hindus-attack-bangladesh-pakistan-face-annihilation)

⁵ UNNATURAL DISASTERS: POGROMS HAVE KILLED THOUSANDS OF BANGLADESHI MINORITIES; MILLIONS MORE ARE REFUGEES IN INDIA (https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/unnatural-disasters-pogroms-have-killed-thousands)

⁶  The Atlantic: Hindu Today, Muslim Tomorrow (https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/08/hindu-muslim-pakistan/536238/)

⁷ Hudson Institute: Cleansing Pakistan of minorities (https://www.hudson.org/research/9781-cleansing-pakistan-of-minorities)

⁸ The Vanishing Hindus of Pakistan – a Demographic Study (https://www.newslaundry.com/2015/01/09/the-vanishing-hindus-of-pakistan-a-demographic-study-2)

⁹ BBC: India Gujarat Chief Minister Modi cleared in riots case (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-17664751)

¹⁰ NYTimes: The Hatreds of India; Hindu Memory Scarred by Centuries Of Sometimes Despotic Islamic Rule (https://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/11/world/hatreds-india-hindu-memory-scarred-centuries-sometimes-despotic-islamic-rule.html)

¹¹ Mughal India: The Biggest Holocaust in World History (https://www.sikhnet.com/news/islamic-india-biggest-holocaust-world-history)

¹² Tears of Jihad (https://www.politicalislam.com/tears-of-jihad/)

¹³ 1,000 minority girls forced in marriage every year: report (https://www.dawn.com/news/1098452)

¹⁴ Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019: What is it and why is it seen as a problem (https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/et-explains/citizenship-amendment-bill-what-does-it-do-and-why-is-it-seen-as-a-problem/articleshow/72436995.cms?from=mdr)

15 National Register of Citizens  (https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/all-you-need-to-know-about-proposed-pan-india-nrc/articleshow/72671119.cms)