Clerics ban women's football match in Bengal. Where's the outrage?
Social media is increasingly becoming a war zone. Hardly a day passes without a heated exchange of tweets among journalists or between journalists and readers. In the midst of such discussions, one particular trend is growing at an alarming pace.
When the BJP came to power at the Centre, many liberals and intellectuals warned of the imminent dangers posed to India’s secularism by the BJP and its affiliate fringe groups. Given our political leaders and their groups’ uncanny knack of making controversial and farcical statements to gain media attention, the internet glitterati have pounced upon such opportunities like hungry lions. From trending Twitter hashtags to signing online petitions, they (including journalists, policy experts and the liberal intelligentsia) have left no stone unturned in censuring such voices.
I have always ignored the imaginary concepts of "Hinduphobia", "Sickularism" and other such nonsensical terms coined by the BJP supporters. However, the finicky nature of such criticism is immensely worrying. A recent incident in West Bengal’s Malda, one of the two Muslim-majority districts, is a case in point. With a 52 per cent Muslim population, it is one of the few Congress strongholds in the state.
Last week, a women's football match in Malda's Harishchandrapur block had to be cancelled after Islamic clerics allegedly issued a fatwa to stop the match, terming it anti-Islam. The match was organised by a small group called the "Progressive Youth Club" of Chandipur village as part of their golden jubilee celebrations. It was supposed to be played between the Kolkata-XI and North Bengal-XI teams and some national-level players were expected to be present at the event.
Although the block administration had earlier granted permission for the match, the block development officer retracted it owing to the threat of deterioration of law and order, following the alleged issue of the fatwa.
After the incident was reported by few national dailies, I expected it to create a buzz on social media at least, thinking they would condemn the issue and write about it. No outrage, no hashtag trends, nor lengHthy editorials followed. However, had such a statement been issued by a Hindu radical group or its leader, a flurry of articles would have been churned out in no time. This growing trend of choosing to be fastidious about religious extremism is appalling.
Last year, Sakshi Maharaj, BJP MP from Unnao, left many an eyebrow raised with this infamous comment: "Every Hindu woman must produce at least four children to protect the Hindu religion." Newspapers and online media outlets were filled with criticism and discussions over it. A couple of days prior to the statement, Asaduddin Owaisi, the leader of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), had, in a political rally, said, "Every child is born a Muslim. His parents and society convert him to other religions. Islam is the real home of all religions. There is no forced conversion in Islam. It is you who need to come home but we can't give you money for that." However, Owaisi’s statement was not met with the same level of outrage and anger from the internet glitterati who had taken on Sakshi Maharaj.
Evidently, our portrayal of indignation and outrage against these fringe elements seem to be targeted only towards Hinduism-related comments, which seems to be fast becoming the norm. For various inexplicable reasons, we remain tight-lipped over issues of Muslims. “Aren't Muslim girls’ rights of playing football as important as those of Hindu girls wearing jeans?” “Are Islamic fundamentalists any less communal than Hindu fundamentalists?”
However, the biggest question that needs to be answered is: Does Hinduphobia indeed exist, as claimed by many?
By now, we should be used to such contentious incidents and not even be remotely surprised or express outrage. However, if we want to be surprised again and again, let our astonishment and fury be reserved for everyone, and not directed towards a specific party or religion. This will eventually turn into a fad. Sadly, in the minds of the English-speaking liberal intelligentsia, depriving some Muslim girls in Malda of their basic rights isn’t worthy enough of outrage.