Who is the REAL Yogi Adityanath Beyond the Prejudiced Media Narrative?

For last 35 years, Yasin Ansari has been working hard on construction inside the Gorakhnath Temple.  He has not just been supervising each aspect of the construction work inside the temple but also keeping accounts of the expenses.

Known as “Chhote Maharaj”, Yogi Adityanath – the new UP Chief minister – is anything but communal in his dealings and working.  In fact, a lot of shops in the temple precincts are owned and run by Muslims.  Something that very few Waqf properties can boast of!  In fact, one such shop owner had this to say about the poster-boy of Communal hatred in the MSM – Mainstream Media.

“For the last 35 years, I’ve been running a shop at the temple. I’ve never felt any disrespect or discrimination on the part of Yogiji. He’s a real saint,” said Azizunnisa.

The famous temple – of which Yogi Adityanath has been the main Mahant (Priest) has been a picture of communal harmony for years now.  How many mosques or churches can boast of such intermingling of communities inside the temple workings is anybody’s guess.

“There are any more Muslim families inside the temple who earn and live fearlessly,” said Mohammad Mutaqim, who has been running a bangle shop in the temple for the last 20 years. Yasin said that his father’s elder brother had come to the temple during the priesthood of Mahant Digvijaynath, and the temple kitchen was his responsibility. “My mother-inlaw, Hamida Begum, was supervisor of the kitchen and my father-in-law was a gardener. I was the temple cashier from 1977-83. Since 1984, I’ve been the temple’s construction supervisor,” said Ansari.

The engineer who first started working on Gorakhnath temple and all the associated temples like Sadhna Bhawan, Yatri Niwas, Hindu Sevashram, shops of the temple, new building of Gorakhnath hospital, Sanskriti Vidyalaya, Radha Krishna Mandir, Shankar Mandir, Vishnu Mandir, Hanuman Mandir and others is also a Muslim – Nisar Ahmed.  He later became the Principal of Maharana Pratap Polytechnic.  He is now retired.

Some more examples have been shared by a friend.

One may say that these remarks and anecdotes have been part of a newsreport – as rare as such reports are – so maybe we need some more evidence.  Let us therefore, now look at tweets of a Nuclear Engineer who now lives in Boston, MA in the US who happened to be Yogi Adityanath’s neighbor.

The Gap – Perception and Reality?

It is very easy for the so-called journalists who make their money thanks to their vested ideological patrons to push their line, but it takes honesty to look at things the way they are.

There is a genuine crescendo of appeasement politics in India – that is decidedly against one community.  A friend I know wrote recently on his facebook about how the UP administration officials did not allow him to open an NGO that was to work for opening more Gaushalas (cow shelters) and contribute to improve the state of the cows in the state.  Why?  Because there was a clear directive from the then CM Akhilesh Yadav that nothing even remotely related to Hinduism should be encouraged.  That is the level of paranoia that has been prevalent in the state.

It is true that the politicians appease the Jihadi mindset more.  But surely a lot if not most “normal” Muslims know about this appeasement and injustice.  Why haven’t they gone to the media and newspapers and written about that?  Why aren’t the Muslim media – Milli Gazette type of outlets – talking about it?

There are individual attempts by a few but so many of them are either tempered or are sidelined.   It is important for people to speak their minds, something that is very rare in the Muslim community.  And, in absence of such voices, the Jehadi narrative takes over.  While many moderate Muslims walk a substantial distance with such people, they try and take a different route at the very end of the road.  They love the appeasement and the assymmetric prejudice that the administration showers on them and complete lack of accountability on the part of media for such politics – unlike how they would do if the roles were reversed!  But, the same Muslims do not like that those minds who are cultivated in such a biased environment take over to define the narrative that is damaging to the basic decency of “normal” individuals.  The point of divergence has to be at the beginning!   You cannot create the culture of terror and extremism and then protest why that is happening?  It doesn’t work that way.

Yogi Adityanath’s speeches have touched upon all these issues within the context of the state situation.  Even that is something that the Secular folks could not handle!  And, that is where the gap comes from.  Truth of on-the-ground reality and working cannot be washed away by prejudiced narrative, no matter how virulent your venom is.