The online space over recent years has been seeing a huge influx of ambiguous and confusing information. Some reports though highly delusive, succeed to impinge on the minds of readers. While the convenient molding of facts to suit a certain agenda has been on a continuous rise, simple scrutiny is highly essential to filter out genuine information from agenda driven narratives. Entities earmarked by these reports have also taken a proactive stance in countering claims made by many through legal and other methods.
In a similar incident, Audrey Truschke has been called out for spreading misinformation or ‘fake news’ over Twitter. Audrey had tweeted:
https://twitter.com/AudreyTruschke/status/1111168158822531073
In the tweet Audrey has claimed “India arrests a Belgium-born economist and activist, Jean Dreze, apparently for organizing a meeting on the right to food.” However the reality is far from the fallacious and misguiding Tweet.
Jean Dreze, who was detained by the Jharkhand Police for violating of the code of conduct, had organized a public meet in highly sensitive and Maoist affected Dumka in Jharkhand. Dumka which features in the 90 Naxal affected districts in India is under scanner for maintaining robust security for the upcoming general elections. Jean Dreze with other organizers failed to take permission from the local authorities for the said event, so he was detained by the police under preventive detention laws in the Bishenpur Police station. “The action was taken under Preventive Detention as we expected the peace and law and order of the region to be disturbed by the meeting,” the police official said. The Model code of conduct is applicable throughout the nation since the Election Commission had announced polling dates last month.
He is a highly educated man. Tell me, doesn’t he know he needs to take permission for an open public meeting, especially when the Election Commission’s model code of conduct is in motion?” asked a senior Jharkhand police officer. Jean and others were later released by the police, after interrogations.
Audrey in her tweet indicated that the reason for the arrest was that Jean organized a meet for the ‘right to food’. Exploitation of sensitive issues to subvert Indian legal framework is explicit from this case. Audrey, who in the past has also been criticized over her hostile remarks on Hinduism, has been exposed by several academicians’ for her biased and misleading remarks. Audrey has also been criticized for her out-rightly fallacious translations of Hindu texts. In an incident she claimed that Sita used used words such as ‘Misogynist pig’ and ‘uncouth’ for lord Ram, which she said were based on ‘loose translations’ however after firm criticism from academicians she claimed it to be a ‘failed translation’.
Concerns over undue interference from foreign ‘scholars’ like Audrey Truschke has been raised time and time again, however irresponsible and half baked knowledge of the so called ‘intellectual scholars’ is sure to hinder chances for civilized and truthful discussion on sensitive topics. Audrey Truschke has also been called out several times over her ‘Hindu hating’ remarks and misinterpretation of Sanskrit texts. Blatant misrepresentation and false narrative setting over the internet has faced sharp response from the users; however ‘fake news’ like this needs to be quickly identified and appropriately demolished.