I have written earlier on how the only ‘scam’ in Rafale is in the media’s treatment of it. You may read it here to note that neither has Mr. Modi gifted one single rupee to Mr. Anil Ambani nor has he chosen Mr. Ambani over HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Limited) to manufacture the Rafale. Nonetheless, the narrative in the media continues to be contrary.
This divergence between the actual facts of the case and the narrative built is not unique to Rafale but has been a trademark of most, if not all, smear campaigns that have been launched against the government. While many of them like the Church Attacks, Minorities under attack, Dalit Attacks etc. have been sufficiently exposed by social media, many others, like the Judge Loya case, for instance, have largely escaped public scrutiny.
Let’s focus the lens of scrutiny on one such sinister aspect of the Judge Loya case – the ‘involvement of RSS’, which was trumpeted as a ‘clinching evidence’ of criminal conspiracy in the case. Look at the extracts from the Caravan story which fueled most of the suspicion in this case:
You would note from the above extracts from Caravan that:
- It is first projected as if a certain Mr. Ishwar Baheti, unknown to the family, happened to somehow get involved in the case.
- Once the suspicion about a ‘stranger’ getting involved in the case is built, then it is ‘revealed’ that this stranger Mr. Baheti is actually an ‘RSS worker’ – thus implicating the entire organization in it.
- The suspicion is further fuelled by insinuating that this ‘unknown RSS worker’ who was “coordinating everything,” ‘knew everything’ while the family of Judge Loya knew nothing.
- All doubts are then, finally, sought to be nailed by claiming that the ‘unknown RSS worker’ was “not even responding to any queries!”
It is but natural for anyone to suspect foul play when the picture is as strange and suspicious as one painted above. However, the picture changes completely when we look at the findings of the Supreme Court. Look at the extracts from the judgment, given below:
It turns out that:
- Ishwar Baheti, the ‘unknown RSS worker’ was not ‘unknown’ to the family but was, in fact, almost like family!
- He had been a “close friend” of Judge Loya for nearly 35 years and Judge Loya treated him almost “like his brother”.
- Anuj Loya, son of Judge Loya, referred to Ishwar Baheti as “my uncle.”
- Moreover, Ishwar Baheti was so close to the Loya family that he organized a big function on Judge Loya’s first death anniversary.
So much for a person ‘unknown’ to the family!
Let’s look into the details of the ‘RSS’ involvement now:
You would note that Mr. Ishwar Baheti, in his own words, far from being an ‘RSS worker’ was actually a well-wisher and worker of the Congress Party! How truthful of the Caravan magazine to present a Congress worker as an RSS worker!
This, however, is not the end of the of cook up on RSS. There is more. Read the details in extracts given below:
It seems that to lend credibility to the ‘RSS worker’ story, Ishwar GOVINDLAL Baheti (Ishwar Baheti S/O Govindlal Baheti) who was a Congress party worker and a close friend of Judge Loya, was falsely projected as Ishwar BAJRANGLAL Baheti (Ishwar Baheti S/O Bajranglal Baheti) who used to be an RSS worker but had absolutely no contact with Judge Loya.
Imagine the extent of prevarication in this case. Imagine projecting Rahul Gandhi as KL Rahul or as Rahul Dravid by taking advantage of their first names and by obfuscating their surnames. This is exactly what Caravan did by taking advantage of the same names (Ishwar Baheti) while obfuscating the name of their respective fathers.
Thus, as can be seen, every lie related to the RSS in the Judge Loya case was summarily dismissed by the Supreme Court. Yet, how many channels, newspapers or news portals have you found covering this fact?
Nonetheless, now, having looked at the above facts in Judge Loya case, take a relook at the facts in Rafale case – the fabrication and obfuscation of reality in both will seem similar. RSS in Judge Loya case and Mr. Ambani in Rafale case – each will seem like innocuous strawmen foisted in the battlefield of narratives to unnecessarily draw attention and arouse suspicion.
Hope that the people see through all this and understand the level of deception and duplicity that they are being subjected to in the name ‘fearless’ and ‘non-pliable’ journalism.