"Hello, friends!" "Virat Kohli shared a Blog on Twitter some days ago," "in which he said," this year has been full of difficulties because of the second wave of Covid 19. "As we moved towards Diwali," he wanted to share some tips on how you could celebrate Diwali with your family. "Saying this, he shared some photos of sweets" and a photo of himself in traditional outfits. He didn't specify his tips on Diwali. But simply saying that "the has some tips that he'd share," was enough to trigger some people. It caused a ruckus. The trolling he had to face due to it "because of something so insignificant," you won't believe it. It reached such levels that some psychopaths were cursing at and threatening his young daughter. This wasn't the only case. "If you've paid attention to it, for some time now" it has become a regular trend in the country every month and every week some company or some film is being 'boycotted.' Celebrities are being trolled.
And to use crude language against them. "And a specific group of people," "a group of supporters of a specific
political party," are the most
active in doing such things. That group
has started believing that they are the guardians protecting 'culture.' """An Indian jewellery brand
has" pulled an advertisement featuring an inter-faith family "after a massive backlash on social
media.""" """Fabindia
has been targetted online" and by
the BJP after its ad for its latest
clothing collection called "Jashn-e-Riwaaz.""" """Virat Kohli in an ad on
Diwali," "is what really got
him into trouble with netizens."" " """Aamir Khan, it appears, has
landed himself in trouble"""
"""Can people not unite?" Why are motive read if there is an advert "which talks about communal
harmony?""" "Come,
let's look into Fabindia's case first."
Fabindia is a company that mainly makes clothes. "Recently, they released an ad" that caused a lot of outrage. What was shown in this ad? "In this ad, it was shown that at some
bus stop in Rajasthan," "a
group of girls get off the bus," and
a boy receives them in a car. They're in
the car and they pass by some people
wearing traditional clothes. And they
buy some traditional clothes as well. Two
people are seen in the village wearing traditional Rajasthani turbans on their
heads. "After this, they reach
home," "and there they are
welcomed by a woman traditionally,"
"with aarti and a tika on their forehead,"
and then they eat in the traditional style. And watch traditional dance in the
drawing-room. And then the women dress
up in traditional outfits with
traditional jewellery. Why am I
repeatedly saying 'traditional?' Because
their ad obviously wanted to highlight the traditional factor. "In it, they are also shown celebrating
Diwali" "by lighting diyas, a
traditional way of celebrating Diwali."
The theme of their whole ad was
'Celebration of Traditions.' To
celebrate one's tradition. Some
advertisement person sitting in their company must have thought wondered about what to name this marketing
campaign. How they could celebrate
tradition. "One, they could have
named it in English, ""Celebration of Traditions""." "Two, they could name it in Hindi,
""Parampara ki Dhumdham""." But perhaps it doesn't sound catchy. "So, someone in the advertisement team
must have thought," to name it in
Urdu. "It seemed like a good
name," because it sounds quite
stylish. And people would like it too. But they made a tiny mistake. The people who were in charge of advertising. They didn't think "that though people may like this
name," but would Tejasvi Surya like
this name? Will they get the approval of
the 'guadians of culture' on this name? They
didn't think about it. "Because
when this ad campaign was released,"
the uproar was on the fact that how could an Urdu name be used for
Diwali. That it was an attempt at the
Abrahamisation of Diwali.
Questioning how could a Hindu festival be given an Urdu
name. Although these people forgot to
think that they weren't renaming the
festival. And that name was for their
marketing campaign. They had named their
clothing line. They didn't call Diwali
as Jashn-e-Riwaaz. They named this
collection of clothes Jashn-e-Riwaaz. But
how can one expect even a little common sense from them? And then they diverted the uproar to how could an Urdu word be used on Diwali's
occasion? Calling Urdu the language of
Muslims. And that it was their Hindu
festival. "If I lay down some facts
about this, it will blow their minds."
"First, let's see this great person's fluency in Hindi." """The youth in the country
has hopes to," the Hindu youth hope
to... [wrong genderization of the word
'hope'. Asha/hope = feminine.] Gendering 'asha' among the youth as
masculine. "Not feminine,
masculine." "See, this can be
excused" because he is from
Karnataka. Many people in Karnataka
don't know Hindi.
But do the Muslims in Karnataka speak Urdu? Or do they talk in Kannada? "Obviously, they speak Kannada." "The Muslims living in Kerala," do they talk in Urdu or Malayalam? "And the Muslims living in West
Bengal," do they talk to each other
in Urdu or in Bangla? "The reality
is that looking for religion even in languages," is the lowest level of communal politics. They need to paint everything in shades of
Hindu and Muslim. And now they've
reached such extents that they're
looking for Hindu-Muslims even in languages.
The reality is that Urdu is an Indian language that originated in India. Just read some Indian history. There used to be a hybrid language
Hindustani. "Later, it separated
into Hindi and Urdu." "Did you
know friends, that our legendary author Premchand used to write in Urdu?" His novel 'Seva Sadan' was originally written in Urdu. "In fact, even during our struggle for
independence," the freedom fighters
raised slogans in Urdu. """We
are ready to lay down our lives." "Let's
see if the enemy is strong enough to kill us.""" "In fact, Bhagat Singh popularised the
slogan in Urdu." [long live the
revolution] "So had these people
lived then," they would have said
that 'Bhagat Singh is trying to Abrahamise the freedom movement.' "According to their logic," there was an attempt to Abrahamise the
independence. "After this, the next
ad that these 'guardians of culture'"
caused an uproar about was the
CEAT ad.
That featured Aamir Khan.
"In this ad, Aamir Khan didn't say that one shouldn't burst
firecrackers." "He said that
you can burst firecrackers," but
within your society. Not on roads with
traffic. """Anaar bomb,
sutli bomb, (Names of firecrackers)"
"rockets, we'll burst all the crackers!" But where?
In the society. Roads are for
driving. Not for bursting firecrackers! These are general safety measures "that if you light up firecrackers on
roads," "with vehicles all
around," it can cause problems for
those vehicles. "In fact, you are
putting your life at risk," if you
do this on the road. "That's why
for your own safety," do so within
your society or apartment complex. "But
alas, there was an uproar against it too."
"""Who is Aamir Khan to lecture us on our festivals?""" Aamir Khan doesn't tell Muslims to not pray on the roads. "They are always offering their prayers
on the roads.""" But I'll
say it. "Neither should
firecrackers be burst on roads, nor should prayers be offered." Roads are for driving. Now can I say that it is wrong to burst
firecrackers on roads? What reeks of
hypocrisy is that these 'guardians of
culture' talk about selective outrage and
no one can master them at selective outrage.
These are the same people
"that go and disrupt namaz,"
because it was on the road. "But
when something is said against them bursting firecrackers," then they tell you not to lecture them on how
they should celebrate their festivals. Or
their religion. But they will lecture
others on behaviour. "Interestingly
friends," there are millions of
Muslims in the country who celebrate
Diwali. But they want to hide these
facts. "Any fact that shows
communal harmony," "that shows
Hindus and Muslims peacefully and happily living together," they try to suppress them as much as they
could. "The examples of this were
the Tanishq ad," and Surf Excel ad. Those ads were showing communal harmony. Hindus and Muslims together. But it didn't fit their agenda. Their objective is to separate Hindus and
Muslims as much as possible. Because
that will be good for their politics. "During
Eid, this picture was widely shared."
"In it, a Haryanvi man is telling a Muslim man," """Brother, may Ram bless you
on Eid.""" This picture
can be seen as a message of communal harmony.
About how Hindus and Muslims greet each other. Are happy for each other. "Or if people started to think like
these sick people," this can be
seen as Eid being Hinduised. "When
Virat Kohli stood in support of Mohammed Shami," the 'guardians of culture' were enraged then
also. Why? Because you could see a message of communal
harmony there. Because a Hindu and
Muslim came together. They hate it so
much that they ran sick and disgusting
trends against Virat Kohli.
It is truly surprising that the situation in the country is
such that "even in the most
insignificant thing, these people" mix
in religious hatred. "In my
opinion, it has a very simple reason."
The policy of 'Divide and Rule.' "The
more the Hindus and Muslims move away from each other," "with more and more hatred among
people," the more votes they would
get out of fear. "More often than
not, this is done for political reasons."
"The people that outrage on social media," just check their social media accounts. "According to my observation, in 90% of
the cases," you'd find these
accounts to be aligned to a political party.
You'll find them to be fanatical supporters of the same political party. "I'm not even naming this political
party," but you would've already
understood which political party it is. "In
fact, the supporters of this party will understand it too" that I'm talking about them. But what about the 10% cases that aren't
politically aligned? They have nothing
to do with politics but they still join
their voices on such things because they
genuinely feel that they are protecting
their religion by doing so. "To
such people, I'd like to say," "first,
go read the Gita and learn something from it." "For you guys too," if you want to read the Gita "and take some lessons from it," then you have this audiobook on KUKU FM. And this audiobook is very interesting too.
The lessons that cricketers have learned from the Gita. Many crickets have revealed what they learned
from the Gita "The second thing is that while talking about culture and
tradition," "then critical
thinking, questioning and debating,"
are things that have been a part of the Indian culture for thousands of
years. Logically debating with people without debasing them or getting angry and
without fighting. I can list out many
examples of this. Buddha had rejected
the Vedas. Adi Shankaracharya had
criticised the traditions of Buddhism of his time. Kabir had criticised many Hindu and Muslim
customs. """You've built
mosques with stones and pebbles. " With
Mullah calling for prayer from the roof "Is
God so deaf?""" "On
the other hand, for Hindus, Kabir had said" """If you could find God by
praying to a rock," then I'd pray
to a mountain. A grindstone is better
than it "it helps feed the
world.""" "Also,
Guru Nanak had broken many superstitions in his life. " He had even eaten deer meat during an
eclipse. Raja Ram Mohan Roy had opposed
the practice of Sati. Swami Dayanand
Saraswati had strongly opposed idol worship.
Calling it anti-Vedic. "Swami
Vivekanand was against priest-craft, superstitions and mystery mongering." I talked about it in the last Blog. "Had
these 'guardians of culture' lived in these eras," "they would've spoken out against these
great people," But the truth
remains that "challenging
traditions," "critically
questioning the existing culture," has
been our culture. "Next time you
meet a troll spreading hatred on social media," share this blog with them. So that they could learn some things about
our culture. Thank you very much!