On X, Racists Blame Hindus for Baltimore Bridge's Collapse

Yesterday, the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland collapsed after a cargo ship struck the bridge. The ship, built by South Korea's Hyundai, was heading towards Sri Lanka. All 22 members of the crew were Indian and the Governor of Maryland, Wes Moore, called them “heroes”. He said that their prompt warning, before the collision, saved numerous lives. 

However, that hasn't stopped some racist account on X from attacking Hindus. Lauren Witzke, who was a 2020 GOP nominee for US Senate, said “A bunch of Pajeets pulverizing an American bridge named after the man who wrote America’s national anthem really is almost prophetic.” 

‘Pajeet’ is a slur that is used to refer to Indians. Hindus, to be more precise. The slur originally wasn't used in mainstream discourse and was limited only to the dark corners of internet. Over time, it has become more socially acceptable to use that term, under the guise of ‘fighting’ political correctness and woke ideology. 

Is Lauren Witzke a fringe commentator? 

Unfortunately, Witzke isn't the only bigot active on X. Several anonymous handles have passed similar comments. Suhag Shukla, executive director of the Hindu American Foundation, in a post on X said “The missing bridge workers haven’t been found yet, but alt right, garbage white supremacists are showing themselves. 10K likes in 3 hours tells you the malaise of Hinduphobia just below the surface in our country.”

A look at the key facts

The root of the issue is that a tragedy in America has been used to wrongly blame Hindus. A look at the facts reveals how inaccurate the comments of Witzke and her ilk are. According to Maryland Transportation Secretary Paul Wiedefeld, the crew wasn't guiding the ship at the time of the accident, the local pilots were. Due to Maryland's regulations, “each ship engaged in foreign trade coming to Maryland ports is required to take on a local ship handling specialist, know as the pilot, to navigate the vessel safely into port. Pilots are regulated by the State of Maryland under the Department of Labor, State Board of Pilots”.

In other words, the person in charge of steering the ship at the time of the accident, was a local pilot. Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of PM's Economic Advisory Council, highlighted this point in response to a racist tweet. In fact, in almost all ports of the world, when a ship arrives at a port or departs a port, it is under the command of a local harbour pilot. They are trained specifically to ensure the accident like these don't happen. In the past few weeks, bigotry against Indians on X has been surging.