After Wikipedia, an open-source information website, asked its Indian users for donations to "keep thriving", prominent right-wing personalities including columnist Shefali Vaidya, BJP leader Nupur Sharma, IAS Sanjay Dixit, Indian-born American author Rajiv Malhotra and others took to Twitter and accused Wikipedia of being "anti-Hindu".
Vaidya wrote, "One word advice to EVERY Indian who cares. DON’T! @Wikipedia is full of editors who are biased, anti-Hindu and anti-India!"
"Wikipedia is no longer neutral, rather intolerant to people/ideologies they disagree with, known to carry fake info & completely taken over by a certain cabal is no secret," said Nupur Sharma.
However, it is Rajiv Malhotra's claim that has got the internet talking. On Saturday, the author took to Twitter and claimed that he had publicly criticized Wikipedia in the 1900s.
"The first time I publicly criticized @Wikipedia was in the 1990s in a talk in Auroville that got published in their magazine. Soon after, the Canadian National Radio folks called me & did a radio interview where I explained this. Indians found my views embarrassing for years," he tweeted.
Interestingly, the open-source information website was launched in 2001. "The domains wikipedia.com and wikipedia.org were registered on January 12, 2001 and January 13, 2001 respectively, and Wikipedia was launched on January 15, 2001," read a page on the website.
Meanwhile, Twitter users trolled Malhotra for his claim. A Twitter user wrote, "Such a negative person. Wikipedia was launched in 2001, yet Mr. Malhotra criticized it in the 1990s. Or maybe he had time traveled with his buddy Nithyanand?" "What a visionary!! He was able to criticize #Wikipedia years before it existed," said another Twitter user.
