Kumar Vishwas, the one-trick wonder, is back again with a new claim to fame, that of a serial fake news peddler. Vishwas has donned many hats in his ‘career.’ Riding on the popularity of his ‘catchy’, on the surface and bereft of any literary value ‘poem’, he decided to join politics. In his political journey, Vishwas had been a close confidante of Arvind Kejriwal, a man infamous for ‘shoot and scoot’ politics. Despite the bitter fallout with him, it seems Vishwas has retained Kejriwal’s habit.
This was clearly visible in two supposedly news stories Kumar Vishwas has shared in recent times which turned out to be completely fake.
Yesterday, Kumar Vishwas joined the rest of liberal-media to pontificate Haryana CM ML Khattar for his supposedly misogynistic remarks regarding Kashmiri women.
Vishwas tweeted, “In your state, daughters will be killed in the womb, there will be honor killings and you will bring daughter-in-laws from Kashmir. If not the daughters of our country, at least consider your position and age? How will you make your Kashmiri brothers and sisters your own?”
अपने प्रदेश में बेटियों को कोख में मारने दोगे, ऑनर किलिंग होने दोगे और बहुएँ कश्मीर से लाओगे @mlkhattar 😡? देश की बेटियों का नहीं तो कम से कम अपने पद और उम्र का तो ख़याल करो ? ऐसी जहालत से अपना बनाओगे पहले से शंकित कश्मीरी भाईयों-बहनों को ? उपनाम बदल ही लो 😡 https://t.co/t3SIS9p7Qx
— Dr Kumar Vishvas (@DrKumarVishwas) August 10, 2019
Only the news was completely false and Khattar’s comments, explicitly made in jest, were completely blown out of proportion.
Nonetheless even after the full version of the video had surfaced, Kumar Vishwas is yet to delete his tweet and apologies. Earlier Kumar Vishwas was also called out after he had shared fake and misleading news regarding Indian Railways. Several shocking media reports came into limelight, which alleged that an old man was denied entry into Shatabdi Express, despite having a confirmed ticket, due to his simplistic clothes. Kumar Vishwas had tweeted on the issue and said “Such a kind of shameless imperialism, railway officials are getting salary from my tax money. The whole government speaks “Pujya Bapu” a hundred times in 2 minutes and shoves the elders of our house as the British did .Be afraid of time”
https://twitter.com/DrKumarVishwas/status/1147834682794315778
Furthermore, like many similar incidents, this narrative also turned out to be completely false. Later investigations had concluded that the said passenger was not discriminated against on the basis of his clothes. The investigations had further made it clear that the Indian Railways does not follow the policy of discrimination on the basis of the kind of clothes. And that every passenger is given the same kind of treatment.
tfipost.com had done a comprehensive fact-check of the story as well and had found it to be completely false.
As per the report, the aggrieved passenger was standing near the power car of the Shatabadi Express instead of the coach in which his ticket was booked. When the passenger tried to board from the power coach, the RPF staff asked him to go towards the coach in which his ticket was confirmed. However, the old man could not reach his coach on time, given that the train has only a two minute-stoppage at the Etawah Railway Station. Therefore, he missed the train. The staff tried to arrange his seat in the next train passing from the railway station but he chose to go by road.
In this incident as well, Kumar Vishwas had not apologized even after the conclusive reports had refuted any discrimination. Within the span of a month, Kumar Vishwas was caught again spreading fake news, however in both the cases he refused to apologise or at least delete his misleading tweets. One mistake could be dismissed as an ‘isolated incident’, two point towards a pattern.
Kumar Vishwas is one man who, despite his associations with Kejriwal and AAP, is respected by the nationalist audience. The reason for this is his stance on nationalist causes such as Article 370 which he supported unequivocally. Despite the nationalist persona he tries to project on stage and on social media, his continued association with AAP (which often takes contrarian and dangerous stances on issues of national interest) points towards a duplicitous behavior. For Vishwas, it seems, nationalism is not an ideology he believes in but a convenient medium through which he can put forth his mediocre rhymes he likes to term ‘poems’ to a patriotic Hindi speaking audience. Quite simply, the patriotism of Kumar Vishwas is driven by commercial value rather than belief and it is reflected in the pattern of attack on BJP leaders based on fake news.
The least Kumar Vishwas can do at this point is to apologize to Piyush Goyal and ML Khattar for tarnishing their image and put an end to the serial fake news peddling.