The ugly face of Indian version of secularism smacked JNU student leader Shehla Rashid when she claimed in a Facebook post on February 8th that right-wing being held guilty for Ankit Saxena’s brutal murder is nothing but a conspiracy theory and supported Muslim women marrying Hindu men. She was not only lambasted for her Facebook post, but countless hoodlums threatened to rape and murder her. Communist leader Kavita Krishnan claimed that all of them were Muslim men who misinterpreted Shehla Rashid’s view.
This comes after the orchestrated efforts to pin the blames of the Chandan Gupta’s murder on Hindus, however U.P. police has already arrested suspects, all of whom are from a specific community. Ankit’s murder was given a similar twist by the president of Kisan Kranti Dal, Amaresh Misra, on February 5th. Amaresh Misra, in a Facebook post, opined that the involvement of Bajrang Dal along with BJP leader Manoj Tiwari in the case made it a communal case. He ridiculously went on to claim Ankit’s murder by his Muslim girlfriend’s family as a conspiracy of the Sangh Parivar.
After receiving all those rape and murder threats, a scared Shehla Rashid deactivated her Facebook profile, probably she could gauge that those weren’t hollow threats and those issuing them meant business.
Shehla Rashid is a leading light of the left liberal cabal in India. She has been opining about Muslim rights and the gaschamber that the country has become for the Muslims after PM Modi stepped in as the prime minister of India. Shehla Rashid has been quite criticial of Right Wing and the Modi government. Despite her relentless criticism of the Hindus and the right wing, she was never ever rebuked, let alone issuing rape and murder threats. A few comments from her own community and she immediately realized that secularism remains a one-way street in India and an actual action could follow like it happened in poor Ankit’s case.
And this is not the first time, Shehla Rashid had to bear the wrath of her correligionists in Feb 2017, The Aligarh Muslim University Students’ Union (AMUSU) had filed an FIR against her for allegedly disrespecting Prophet Mohammad in a Facebook Post. Ironically, Shehla Rashid had ranted against the right wing in that now-deleted-facebook-post.
Kavita Krishnan on the other hand attacked Khap panchayat and Sangh in the same post out of the blue. Because she is a smart leader who knows what the larger motive is. She must have been afraid that right wingers may get an unfair advantage in this episode. This would have been detrimental to the larger goal.
The age-old backward thinking of Muslim fundamentalists is surely a major impediment to India’s growth. One would expect the young members of the community to rid the community from the aged and defunct norms of society, but strangely it is not happening. No one needs to justify a murder but sadly it happened in the case of Ankit and Chandan.
Muslim fundamentalists must realize that this is a secular country they live in and they share it with inarguably the most tolerant community in the world. This country is governed by the constitution of India which permits inter-faith marriages. Those who oppose interfaith marriage are in a way opposing the constitution of India.
As for the fake news peddlers and propagandists like Misra – get a real job sir. It is very easy to look out of the window and proclaim that it is night when in reality it is day. You don’t insult yourself or lessen your credibility because you have none in the first place. What you really do is that you belittle someone’s death and embolden the fringe elements of this country.
Rape threats to a vocal member of the community is despicable. Nobody has the right to take away Shehla Rashid’s freedom of expression. While we are completely opposed as far as political and ideological inclination is concerned, we at The Frustrated Indian and tfipost.com and I am sure the right wing community in general, completely support her on speaking against the fundamentalism and the ridiculous conspiracy theories.
We sincerely hope Shehla Rashid carries the fight forward like she has done it against the right wing in the past!