In most Indian cities, road rage is routine.
Bad roads, too many vehicles and tempers that snap in seconds.
What was a road rage clash in Bengaluru quickly snowballed into a full-blown language controversy.
And surprise surprise, the national media was happy to fan the flames.
Within minutes of Wing Commander Shiladitya Bose posting his video, it was distorted as a supposed attack on the armed forces—add to this, a claim of north vs south, you know, Hindi vs kannada
What’s disturbing is the major role played by the media and the right wing
Alarming headlines, toxic panel discussions and one-sided outrage.
So what really happened that day?
And why is a section of the media fueling the false narrative of the south versus the armed forces repeatedly?
Let me explain
Before I go into how a section of the media distorted the facts to spin an anti-kannadiga story,
Let me remind you, this is why The News Minute exists.
We don’t jump to conclusions. We verify. We report from the ground. And we push back against lazy narratives — whether they come from political leaders, primetime panels, or viral videos.
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On April 18, Wing Commander Shiladitya Bose of the Indian Air Force was involved in an incident. Bengaluru police are calling it a “clear-cut case of road rage.”
A video of him bleeding — shaken, emotional, and clearly distressed — went viral.
And of course, there was widespread outrage.
After all, this wasn’t just anyone.
It was a defence officer, his face bloodied, talking about being assaulted by locals.
And the outrage that followed wasn’t just about language discrimination.
It was about a civilian daring to lay hands on a soldier — a “hero”.
The implication is that a man who serves the nation could do no wrong. So if he is hurt, it’s seen as an attack on the nation itself.
But then, something happened. CCTV footage surfaced.
And it showed a whole different side of the story.
It showed Wing Commander Bose chasing, kicking and beating up the biker — again and again.
So violently that bystanders were forced to step in and pull him away.
One eyewitness told the media he feared the man being beaten — a call centre worker named Vikas Kumar — might actually die.
Now the police say none of this was about language in the first place.
It was a road fight, and both sides escalated.
Despite all this, the national media had already spun the story into another “Kannada vs Hindi” drama.
So why are facts being thrown aside for outrage clicks?
First, let’s go back to Bose’s video and the claims made
But visuals show Bose putting Vikas in a chokehold, punching him in the face, and hurling his phone to the ground in an apparent attempt to break it.
Vikas used his bike keys to attack Bose. but who started it all remains unclear from the footage.
Now, both Bose and Vikas have been booked.
Vikas was initially arrested but released on station bail once the footage came out.
And yes, a counter-FIR has now been filed against the Air Force officer himself, under serious charges like attempt to murder and voluntarily causing hurt.
So, how did this story go from “two people lost their temper on a Bengaluru road” to “Kannada speakers are attacking our jawans”?
The answer is simple.
Because outrage sells, and nuance is too boring for primetime. And let’s not forget that Karnataka is an opposition ruled state, so amplifying every incident has become a duty for these channels.
On News18’s Prime Time debate show ‘The Hard Facts,’ there were some hard twisting of facts.
As rahul shivshankar outraged
RIghtwing spokesperson Anand Ranganathan went further
As you heard- south Indians are being blamed for a lot of things including standing up for their rights if a delimitation exercise begins
Anand also recalled an old case from Kerala.
But the actual hard fact? One that Rahul Shivshankar failed to fact-check?
That case — the one where “PFI” was painted on the soldier’s back — had turned out to be a hoax.
The soldier, Shine Kumar, wasn’t actually attacked.
The police found that he staged the entire incident with a friend, hoping to go viral and get famous.
He faked the injuries. Faked the story. And the police caught the lie within hours and arrested him.
And this isn’t an isolated case.
In June 2023, another soldier — Prabhakaran — went viral with a much more serious claim.
He alleged that his wife had been “molested and stripped” by a 120-person mob in Tamil Nadu’s Tiruvannamalai district.
It was horrifying. Until we looked closer.
A leaked phone call between him and a man named Vinodh raised serious doubts.
So The News Minute went to Palavedu — the village where it supposedly happened — and found the story didn’t hold up. Residents denied it. The supposed “mob” never existed.
Turns out, the false claim was allegedly made to cover up a family dispute over a shop. But by then, the lie had already spread.
And that’s exactly the problem.
When stories like these are weaponised — without waiting for facts — it doesn’t just mislead the public.
It hurts real people, undermines trust in institutions, and deepens divides that didn’t need to exist in the first place.
Now, there have always been some fault lines between armed forces and civilians, in various parts of India.
Over the years, there’s been simmering tension in many parts, especially in cantonment towns.
In Secunderabad, for instance, roads inside the military area were shut to the public for years — turning a short ride into an 8 km detour for local residents.
When the Ministry of Defence finally ordered those gates open, army personnel weren’t happy — some even staged drills that blocked civilians.
The army says it’s about security. Civilians say it’s about access and accountability. Both sides are frustrated.
And this isn’t new.
In Pune too, cantonment roads were closed without public consultation, causing massive inconvenience.
What starts as a civic issue often snowballs into emotional rhetoric of “anti-national,” and the “ungrateful public.”
But it’s really just people trying to get to work, or back home.
Does that mean people in Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu or Kerala have problems with armed forces? Of course not. But if you had watched some of the channels or followed some of the social media posts- you would believe so.
So when a video goes viral — when the uniform is invoked — it’s worth asking: what are we really reacting to? The story, or the symbolism?
Look, the visuals from the Bengaluru case make it clear—Shiladitya Bose behaved shamefully. Bringing the IAF into a personal fight is both unwarranted and disrespectful to the armed forces.
But my question is also to those who amplified many of his lies without question
And they even went after people who were standing up for their state
Did you not think to even once verify facts before starting a smear campaign?
Because such distortions only increase the animosity between the locals and those who don’t speak the local language
Including the armed forced
Standing up for one’s language, culture or state is not anti-national
or divisive.
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Produced by Megha Mukundan, Edited by Nikhil Sekhar, Script and Research by Pooja Prasanna and Lakshmi Priya, Graphics by Dharini Prabharan
