Everyday, one comes across news of horrific crimes being perpetrated upon Hindu women by Muslim men in one part of the country or the other. Such events have become so ubiquitous that no more do they cause the discomfort, rage and distress that such crimes must do in our minds. This social menace – of men from a particular community selectively targeting Hindu women – has also forced the State Governments of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh to bring about laws in a bid to curb these appalling crimes.
In a further shocking development, Amazon’s Kindle Store has been circulating pornographic and rape fantasy content on its platform, explicitly portraying Hindu women and Muslim men.
Journalist Swati Goel Sharma reported yesterday that there are at least 90 pornographic and rape fantasy books on Amazon’s Kindle Store that portray Muslim men having extramarital, often forced, sexual relationships with Hindu women. All these books are available on Kindle Store for an annual subscription fee. The Kindle Direct Publishing Service also makes it easier for any unscrupulous writer and publisher to sell such pornographic and rape fantasy literature on the Kindle platform.
Here’s a list of more than 90 books which we found on @KindleIndia, on pornographic and rape fantasy novels. Most of them specifically depict Hindu women and Muslim men.
Pls take note @NCWIndia @sharmarekha @AmitAgarwal @amazonIN https://t.co/B1a6zHIx0h
— Swati Goel Sharma (@swati_gs) December 29, 2020
The book covers feature men wearing skull-caps and sporting beards, while the women are scantily-clad and are wearing bindis. Furthermore, the Hindu women in the books are depicted as coming from “conservative”, “Iyer”, “religious”, ‘upper middle class”, “religious” backgrounds. By using derogatory phrases like “Madrasi prostitute” and “whore Hindu bitch”, the women are also dehumanized in the eyes of the reader. While one book gives a story of a Muslim “mafia don” raping a married Hindu woman, another presents a story of a married Hindu woman having sexual liaisons with two Muslim “mafia brothers”. It is noteworthy that in almost all the pornographic books, the men are not only Muslims but also have a criminal career, whereas the women are not only Hindu but are also married. The books are clearly meant to appeal to the male audience of a certain community. One can only speculate how men from that community who read such content would act around Hindu women, and if at all, make attempts at fulfilling this ‘fantasy’ in real-life. In fact, there are several scary real-life parallels of the rapes and other crimes portrayed in these books, as has often been reported by Swati Goel Sharma herself. More often than not, Hindu women have been killed by Muslim women for rejecting their advances. Videos of barbaric rapes and gang-rapes of Hindu women by Muslim men have even been circulated on WhatsApp.
Amazon’s Kindle is full of e-books on porn literature & even rape fantasies featuring Muslim men & Hindu women. With titles like ‘Hindu wife’s affair with Muslim lover’, covers showing skull cap-wearing men & bindi-wearing women. Scores of books by dozens of authors.
Report soon pic.twitter.com/V5XTb7wLIS— Swati Goel Sharma (@swati_gs) December 28, 2020
NCW reacts
Reacting to all this, the National Commission for Women has written to Amazon India, and has asked Amazon to take measures to stop the transmission of content that would “perpetrate and promote crime against women and convey a wrong message to the society”.
“Moreover, e-commerce websites shall not be instrumental in dissemination of pornographic and rape content as it violates provisions of law,” the NCW said in a statement.
MHA asked to investigate; Kindle replies
Swati Goel Sharma and her lawyers have also written to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to probe the matter and to find out who is behind the publication of this content.
Since we had an inkling that our report on porn literature specifically targetting Hindu women could stop at books being removed from Kindle Store, we – @SanjeevSanskrit and me, and our lawyer @shashank_ssj – hv written to home ministry to probe & reach those who published these pic.twitter.com/HnuKJld2A7
— Swati Goel Sharma (@swati_gs) December 29, 2020
Kindle has also replied, stating that they “are investigating this matter”.
Received an email from @amazonIN on our report:
“Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) enables independent authors and publishers to self-publish their eBooks on the Kindle store. We have strict policies against illegal, illicit or infringing content and are investigating this matter.”
— Swati Goel Sharma (@swati_gs) December 29, 2020