TMC MP Nusrat Jahan takes oath, trolled by extremists for chanting ‘Vande Mataram’

Yesterday, Nusrat Jahan, TMC MP from Basirhat, took oath as a member of the Lok Sabha. She took the oath in Bengali language as soon as the lower house met for the day. Nusrat Jahan had to skip the original oath-taking ceremony when all other MPs took oath because she was in Turkey for her marriage. She was supposed to take oath on June 19 but she missed it owing to her marriage.

Nusrat Jahan, who recently tied the knot with businessman Nikhil Jain, was dressed in a saree and also wore sindoor during her oath-taking. Many extremists seem to have now taken objection to her attire during the ceremony. She took the oath in the name of ‘Ishwar’ and ended by saying, “Jai Hind, Vande Mataram, Joi Bangla, Thank you.”

The way she ended her oath-taking with Vande Mataram among other slogans is in sharp contrast to Samajwadi Party MP Shafiqur Rahman Barq’s controversial remarks during his oath-taking. “Jahan tak Vande Mataram ka taaluq hai (as far as Vande Matram is concerned), it is against Islam we cannot follow it,” he had said. Many other MPs had chanted the Vande Mataram slogan after taking oath as members of the lower house of the Parliament. Rahman’s remark hinted at how certain elements assume the right of dictating terms to a specific religious community. It should be the right of every individual to decide upon something as personal as faith and no one has the moral right to determine what is in accordance with or opposed to a particular faith.

Nusrat’s oath-taking ceremony, however, tells a different tale. She said Vande Mataram at the end of her oath-taking which clearly showcased the tenets of free speech and individual liberty over any superficially imposed community standards and prohibitions.

However, certain trolls seemed absolutely enraged about how Nusrat Jahan embraced the Hindu culture and the way she ended her oath with Vande Mataram. Some extremists from a particular community seemed particularly offended by her and targeted her by labelling her as an anti-Muslim. Some of the users hurled unspeakable abuses at her. Along with these hate-filled remarks and abuses, some of these social media users tried to remind her about Islamic values and teachings. This showcased how a few extremists from a particular community lost their cool, because an individual supposedly crossed the line arbitrarily set by these extremists

https://twitter.com/Soumyadipta/status/1143431662266548224

This shows the kind of disdain and hatred that these Islamist extremists harbour against Hindus and their traditions. If anyone even adopts a few traits of the Hindu culture, they try to target and bring down that person out of their blind hatred towards the Hindu culture. This event indeed goes down as a shameful display of extremism, orthodoxy and fundamentalism.