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New Delhi: A man laced up with a microphone walks into a shop and says, “It’s been 12 years since you rented this shop to him. They are running away with our sisters. You are strengthening them.” 

It turns out that the person being spoken to is the owner of a building and a Hindu. The shopkeeper, to whom he has rented the premises, is a Muslim man.

In a three-minute 15-second-long video with multiple cuts, the man goes on to call for the economic boycott of Muslims and says they are purveyors of ‘love jihad’ – a bogey popularised by Hindutva politics claiming that Muslim men convert Hindu women through marriage. 

“If a Muslim asks to rent a shop from you, never rent to him. Even if you have to rent a shop to a Hindu for a lesser price, rent it to a Hindu. They take shops for jihad, not for business. Your money is used for love jihad and spit jihad,” the man is heard saying.

He then brings up a third kind of jihad – “name jihad”. “They have named the shop ‘Aasu’. I want to know if Aasu is a Muslim or not.” He is seen going up to a young boy, probably a minor, and asks him for the name of the owner. The boy replies, “The owner’s name is Ehsaan.”

The original Reel is no longer on Facebook. But until at least May 25, it was up and could be seen and shared by anyone. The video had over 2.5 million views, 23,000 shares and 190,000 likes.

The man giving the hateful monologue in the video is Aman Swedia. Swedia has a full shooting set-up – complete with lighting, microphones, and what appears to be a good camera. 

Swedia says that his father is a journalist and that he studied at the DAV College in Dehradun. “After graduating, I started a security company that provides bouncers and guards to companies and outlets,” he tells The Wire.

Swedia’s Facebook bio describes him as a digital creator but he says that his videos on Facebook are not monetised, i.e. he does not make money from them, and that he is “serving society” through his work. “I am not doing it for money,” he says. 

The Wire has asked Meta, Facebook’s parent company, if Swedia’s claim of not making money through this page is true. This report will be updated when an answer is received. 

When asked how he manages to produce videos with a reasonably high quality of sound, camera work, and editing without any money coming in, he says, “Our dedicated Bajrang Dal workers record and edit the videos.”

The Dehradun Exclusive page which uploads many hate videos.

Is Swedia concerned that what he is doing amounts to hate speech? Is he worried that he is in effect vilifying all Muslims? “Not all Muslims are terrorists, but why are all terrorists Muslims?” he asks in response.

“There is a conspiracy to change the biography of Uttarakhand,” he adds. When we asked if he is referring to demographic change, he corrects himself, “Yes, yes, demography of Uttarakhand.”

Swedia’s personal Facebook account is full of reshared content from another Facebook page called ‘Dehradun Exclusives.’ Dehradun Exclusives is where Swedia posts videos of harassing Muslims and giving hate speeches. This page has over 3,89,000 followers. The profile picture of the page appears AI-generated and shows the Hindu deity Hanuman holding his mace above his head. In the cover photo, a man is feeding a cow. The text on the cover photo says, “Gau Seva (serving cows). Feed, protect, respect. Stand with us for cow welfare.” The bio of the page says, “Bajrangi Dehradun in action, a powerful glimpse into devotion, discipline, and dedication towards protecting dharma.”

The Dehradun Exclusive page which uploads many hate videos.

Aman Swedia has no qualms about claiming to be a member of the Bajrang Dal, the youth wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a militant Hindutva group closely linked to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and India’s ruling Bharatiya........

© The Wire