Ravish Kumar hasn’t tweeted from his Twitter account in more than five years — but he seems to have logged in to delete a tweet that happened to inadvertently reveal his religious bigotry.
Ravish Kumar has deleted the tweet in which he’d declared “Ghantaa Hindu Hu”. The tweet, sent on 29th June 2012, was in response to a user who’d asked him about his stand on the BJP supporting PA Sangma’s candidature as President, and then asking him if he was really a Hindu. To this, Ravish Kumar had replied with “Ghantaa Hindu hu (B*lls I’m a Hindu.)
The tweet had resurfaced on the internet yesterday, and had immediately gone viral. Several users had shared the tweet saying that the tweet explained why Ravish’s coverage was so condescending towards Hindus. Others had said that they had an inkling of religious beliefs all along. Yet others were shocked that Ravish Kumar would not only so obviously reject his Hindu identity, but would use a phallic slur while doing so.
It now turns out that the tweet has been quietly deleted. As of early morning on 27th December, the tweet is no longer available, which would indicate that Ravish Kumar, seeing the visibility that the tweet was getting, logged on to his Twitter account and deleted it.
But the deleted tweet raises even more questions than it answers. Does the quiet deletion mean that Ravish Kumar no longer feel that being a Hindu is “ghanta“? Or does the deletion mean that he still doesn’t consider himself a Hindu, and only wants to go back on the “ghanta” slur? Or has he gone a full 180, and now considers himself a bhagwadhari Hindu? One can only wonder.
But while Ravish Kumar has now deleted the tweet, some alert netizens, fearing that Ravish might try to hide evidence of rather interesting religious beliefs, had archived the tweet while it was still up. This is the archive where it will stay for posterity, constantly reminding India that a man with such bigoted views has managed to remain mainstream journalist for decades.
