Kolkata Islamists protesting against insulting Pakistani cricketer!
What the metropolis of Kolkata witnessed today is not anything new these days – people just went on the rampage throughout the town, and the players in this chronicle are much known as well – Islamists, determined ever to make use of any issue and thus, hold the state to ransom. How can the use of a picture, published on Monday in t2, the entertainment supplementary of Kolkata-based English daily The Telegraph, be avoided then? The picture portrayed nude image of a model holding a frame of Lord Vishnu (face replaced with that of Sachin Tendulkar) and a Pakistani cricket player (in green dress with the cricket team’s star insignia ) performing a ‘sajda’ before it.
According to Islamists, such a portrayal happens to be the worst case of defilement of Islam and it can’t be allowed to go on. And what happened next is known to us already. There was a din throughout Kolkata and outskirts of the metropolis. It has also come to the knowledge that Islamists in different parts of Bengal, especially 24 Paraganas (North) and Howrah, took active part in the saga of preserving faith. However, as expected, Raja Bazar and Park Circus area, traditional of Muslim bastions in Kolkata, proved to be worst affected.
But there is a question as well. What is foremost reason behind this resentment? While there are enough reasons for Hindus getting infuriated (the prime being doctored image of Lord Vishnu, face being replaced with that of Sachin Tendulkar and holding a cricket bat, a cricket ball, a trophy and a helmet as well), Islamists took the cudgel of responsibility to resent.
Without doubt, Islamists would not express infuriation of Hindus. What irked them then? Was it the “sajda” before an idol only or the humiliation of a Pakistani cricketer or the trouncing of Pakistan by India in Asia Cup? We are yet to know the answer.
Expectantly Bengal administration is also groping in darkness still of the basis of this untoward development. What do we consider that this is culmination of the three said factors (clubbed meticulously) and thus to flex muscles and comprehend the strength of administration.
Even if The Telegraph has already made an apology in public stating, “A tweet by @iPoonampandey was reproduced in t2 on March 19 because of a technical error. The Telegraph had no intention to hurt the sentiments of any community. We apologise for publishing the tweet,” the issue refuses to end here.
We do believe that each person has the right to comply with his/her religious views and also to protest if it is assailed at any time. But any effort to derail social life for poking fun at demoralized Pakistan cricket team for its defeat to India is anti-national or an act of treason without a shred of doubt.
Can the Bengal administration be counted on still to express the main factor of resentment in clear terms?
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