On Wednesday, Rajiv Malhotra fell for what looked like a badly-planned hoax in which he shared an image of Lord Ram at Times Square – replete with horizontally flipped images – on the day of the Ayodhya Bhumi Poojan.
The image shared by Rajiv Malhotra has already been viral on social media for a few days which looks like a bad hash job by an intern and has laterally flipped images.
Malhotra, who on his own website called himself a ‘world renowned researcher’ asked on Twitter: “Was it real or fake? I hear both claims. There WAS a fight by BI Forces trying to remove it but I don’t know the final outcome. Any info? Pls share.”
Malhotra’s website has this bio of him: “Rajiv Malhotra is a world renowned researcher, author, speaker, thinker and public intellectual on contemporary issues as they relate to civilization, cross-cultural encounters, spirituality, and science. He studied Physics at St. Stephens College in Delhi and did his post-graduate education in Physics and then Computer Science in the USA. Rajiv has experience in various domains, including as a software development executive, Fortune 100 senior corporate executive, strategic consultant, and successful entrepreneur in the information technology and media industries. At the summit of his career when he controlled 20 technology companies in several countries, he took early retirement at age 44 to focus full-time on philanthropy, research and public service.”
Earlier, a handful of groups in the United States had protested the plan to beam portraits of Lord Ram and the images of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya across Times Square on August 5, The Wire reported on Wednesday. The report said that activists from groups such as Coalition Against Fascism in India, Hindus for Human Rights, Ambedkar King Study Circle and Indian American Muslim Council.
The groups had reportedly written to New York Mayor Bill de Blasio against what they call an ‘Islamophobic billboard set to be projected in Times Square in order to dehumanise Muslim New Yorkers and celebrate human rights abuses against Muslims in India’.
The protest called Fight Hindutva At Times Square was shared by Hindus for Human Rights on its Facebook page. It says, “A naked display of fascism is planned for tomorrow at Times Square, when its digital billboards will be taken up to further the toxic politics of the Ram Mandir. To find out more about why there is nothing holy about this, watch this video.”
This however, does not seem to have amounted to anything as on Wednesday evening (IST) images of the upcoming temple were indeed flashing across billboards.
Take a look:
