For the past two days, social media has been greatly divided over an incident that took place in a paramedical college in Karnataka's Udupi. Three female students were caught recording a female student in the ladies restroom. The incident has since stoked a major controversy in Karnataka politics, with BJP and Congress at loggerheads.
It has been alleged that BJP and several pro-BJP online activists are communalizing the incident. The three women who perpetrated the offence allegedly belong to the Muslim community. On the other hand, the victim who was filmed in the bathroom is a Hindu.
The Congress government, led by Siddaramaiah, has been trying its best to impress upon people that the incident is not of communal nature.
Meanwhile, some media outlets tried to dilute the gravity of the incident by saying that the perpetrators did what they did with the sole intention of playing a fun prank on their fellow college-mate. This narrative has offended many Hindus, who are now accusing the media of adding insult to injury. "Whether the crime itself may or may not be communal, the commentary around whitewashing and trivialising it, very clearly is," wrote Swarajya columnist Pratyasha Rath.
Hindu activist Shefali Vaidya and Udupi-based online Hindu activist Rashmi Samant have argued that the incident in the college goes to show the extent of Hindu victimization happening in Karnataka. Whether the people of Karnataka see this as a Hindu-Muslim issue is another point. As far as social media is concerned, the Udupi college incident is a Hindu-Muslim headache.
