Hawzah News Agency - After cheering the ban on Chinese apps, the latest coping mechanism of Indian TV news seems to be focusing on the plight of the Uyghur Muslims in China.

China ko Musalmano se itni nafrat kyun hai (Why does China hate Muslims so much)?” asked India TV in the first week of July. The anchor was referring to the atrocities committed by the Chinese Communist Party against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province, China. The question, which has been asked by many TV anchors in the past week, is legitimate, and the answer is a rather harrowing one.

But what must be noted is that these very TV channels have for long remained tightlipped about the atrocities committed against Muslims in India.

But most Indian TV channels have always preferred zooming into the atrocities against Muslims in Xinjiang. It again turned to the plight of the Uyghur Muslims as China clashed with India at the Line of Actual Control (LAC). The latest coping mechanism of chest-thumping channels after having cheered Chinese app ban seems to be the re-focus on Uyghurs in China.

In a ‘special investigation’ conducted by India Today last week, anchor Rahul Kanwal brought his viewers satellite images from ‘concentration camps’ in China’s Xinjiang province. Kanwal explained that these camps had proliferated at a ‘mind-boggling pace’.

Keeping aside the findings of this investigation, what stands to be the most ‘mind-boggling’ fact is the Indian media’s double standards.

Hypocrisy died a new death when India TV’s anchor Ajay Kumar said, “China ke musalmano ko dharmic azaadi nahi hai,” (China’s Muslims don’t have religious freedom).

While Muslims in India do have religious freedom, many fear for their safety in these polarised times — something that most Indian TV channels conveniently choose to not document.

Kumar found it easier to pin the blame of not speaking up for the Uyghurs on Pakistan — “Pakistan Uyghur Muslim ke masle par virodh nahi karta” (Pakistan doesn’t object to the atrocities perpetrated on Uyghur Muslims). Isn’t that just convenient?

In a brazen attempt to compare Chinese President Xi Jinping to Adolf Hitler, India Today chose to call it ‘Xi-tler’s demographic genocide of Uyghur Muslims’. Rahul Kanwal labelled these atrocities as the ‘greatest genocide of 21st century’. Such condemnations have not been used for any wrongs in India by these TV channels. Be it excesses in Jammu and Kashmir or lynchings or daily stigmatization of Muslims or discriminatory laws like the CAA.

The idea is not to compare the cruelties faced by Uyghur Muslims to the plight of Indian Muslims. Rather it is a call to question and investigate oppression of minorities everywhere. And we should start with our own country.