Scroll published a ‘ground report’ today which claimed Muslims in Kasganj are feeling threatened despite a peace meeting. In Kasganj, violence had broken out over a Tiranga Yatra which led to the death of a 22 year old boy, Chandan Gupta. Scroll is following in the footsteps of mainstream around the world who engage in the same trope after every terror attack.

After the terror attack in Barcelona, the media was overflowing with articles which spoke about in some detail of the fear of backlash in the Muslim community in the city. The same was the case after the attack in London when The Guardian published a report about the fear of backlash among Muslims who attended mosques linked to Khalid Masood, the terrorist responsible for the attack.

It was the same story in the aftermath of Orlando where the Americans were absolutely battered with a slew of articles that highlighted the imagined fear among the community of a possible backlash.

And as you might have guessed, the aftermath of the attack on Brussels reveal a similar pattern.

After a truck rampaged through the streets of Nice, France, it was again only the Muslims who were feeling an extreme sense of fear in the country.

And do you really have to guess who were extremely scared after the terror attack in Berlin?

And after the terrorist attack in Paris too, they were extremely scared of a possible backlash.

Despite the barrage of articles portraying the very real fear of a backlash, it has become clear at this point that contrary to what the media wants us to believe, the fear was mostly imagined and the media, intentionally or otherwise, emphasized a threat that was never there in the first place. In fact, the whole ‘Muslims fear backlash’ narrative has become a meme on the internet that has been the object of much ridicule and derision.

The environment that has been created by such misleading articles and encouraging the fear psychosis of a particular community has led to a situation where some Muslims have been reportedly caught lying about being attacked and the media laps up the lie wholeheartedly until it is revealed to a be a complete sham. Very recently, an 11 year old girl lied about her hijab being cut off with scissors which attracted the attention of people across the board who offered her support and sympathy including the Canadian Prime Minister. But then, a police investigation revealed it was a hoax.

Instead of contemplating upon the role it had played in creating an environment where such stories are believed without the slightest bit of scrutiny, the media chose to lecture people about how Muslims were fearing a backlash over the Hijab hoax.

So, according to the media, Muslims were fearing a backlash over a fabricated story of a backlash which the media itself deemed credibility to.

Scroll seems to have learnt a few tricks from their foreign counterparts. A Hindu boy got murdered for reportedly chanting Vande Mataram and Bharat Mata ki Jai and yet, Scroll wants us to believe that the perceived sense of fear among the Muslim community should be the bigger concern here, just as international media wants us to believe the rightwing gaining electorally and offending Muslim sentiments with mere words is a bigger cause for concern than the actual rising threat of terrorism across the world. As has become the norm, the media will overextend itself in trying to deflect attention from the core issue at hand and exhaust all its resources to paint the Muslim community as the victim here. Of course, the livelihood of Muslims was affected, it was communal violence, but to paint a picture where only one community feels fear as innocent victims while the other comes across as vile aggressors is symptomatic of a larger malice and a grander agenda.

If the muslim community is now living in fear, one has to ask if the Hindu community is fine? 1 of their children was shot dead for a rally. Do u think these parents will readily send their children for patriotic rallies, or in areas where muslims are in number? Is this not fear? Is the fear of only one community fear and other is to be ignored? These are questions that the Media that readily peddles this overdone trope must answer.