India: Fake photo used to attack both political opposition and Christians

As reported by Matters India on 3 June 2021, a doctored photograph of Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi recently went viral on the Internet. The fake photograph shows a bookshelf behind her with a book entitled 'How to Convert India Into Christian nation' [sic], a copy of the Holy Bible and a statue of Jesus Christ. The image is actually a photoshopped screenshot of a YouTube video that was published by the Indian National Congress in October 2020 and which originally showed completely different bookshelf contents. World Watch Research analyst Rolf Zeegers comments: "This is a good example of the tactics of Hindu radicals. In order to attack opposition leader Sonya Gandhi (who has an Italian background) they "˜prove" her links to the missionary activities of Christians in India. This not only "˜incriminates" political opposition, it also targets the whole Christian community. The message is that the Congress Party has a secret Christian agenda to convert India. The danger is that this false information may induce Hindu extremists to violence, both against political opponents from the Congress Party, but also against Christians who are not connected with that party at all. Such attacks on Christians are happening all the time in India."