Attacking Shah Rukh Khan Exposes Hindutva's Double Standards on Bangladeshis

You might have thought there was one positive feature to the auction of human beings in the IPL stock market, namely that its lucre brought homo sapiens from all sorts of climes together to the bull ring, setting aside considerations of nationality, race, religion, class. All that seemed to matter is how much spectacle the bulls could provide to the gasping zealots so the money could keep on jingling.

Even the so-suspected Kashmiri Muslim youth could find a place in its all-embracing merchandise, so long as the said youth delivered the fastest ball or the crookedest googly, or the longest sixer guaranteed to draw in the ticket sales.

Not any more.

In his commercial innocence, the actor Shah Rukh Khan who owns an IPL club chose to bid for a player from Bangladesh.

Lo and behold, a well-known, upfront scion of the Sanatan Parivar did not lose a minute publicly to dub the successful actor a “traitor” for cottoning to a Bangladeshi, who, it stands to reason, must be a Hindu-baiter.

Do remember that elections to the West Bengal assembly are due in a few months, and the anti-Hindu Bangladeshi is the centre-piece of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s campaign.

But here is the catch: what is one to think of the Indian external affairs minister from the Modi cabinet visiting Dhaka to condole the passing of an erstwhile Bangladeshi prime minister who was never known to be particularly friendly to India – indeed, if anything often in footsie with right-wing radical Islamists?

And what is one to think of S. Jaishankar shaking hands with her son, now expected to be the next hostile Bangladeshi chief executive?

What is one to think of India exporting goods worth some Rs 80,000 crores annually to keep Bangladeshis well-provided?

Why isn’t the Adani power establishment in Jharkhand which sells electric power to Bangladesh traitorous?

And, if Shah Rukh is such a villain for affording space to a Bangladeshi player, what is to be said of Narendra Modi who is shielding Sheikh Hasina?

After all, not a few Hindus were killed there even when she was in the saddle.

Further, if Pakistani players have been proscribed from entry into the IPL by the BCCI, why not Bangladeshi ones?

What does that say of Jay Shah’s patriotism?

Then there are those who equally treacherously suggest that Hindutva warriors may after all be devotedly engaged in doing that to Muslims and other “different looking” Indians at home which the Bangladeshi Muslim is accused of doing to Hindus in that beleaguered neighbouring country.

Be it Kangra, Kaithal, Bareilly, even a town in Kerala, and another in Madhya Pradesh, variegated with the racial murder in Dehradun, what is the difference?

Both in Bangladesh and in Bharat the overwhelmingly majority communities seem in dire danger from the 5% minorities of diverse description.

Only fascist times are known to have wrought such miracles of ideology.

Another thing: no Bangladeshi mullah that we know of has ever enunciated the thesis that all Bangladeshis are essentially Muslims.

But our own Oracle, Mohan Bhagwat has often claimed that all Indians are essentially Hindus.

That being so, how does a Shah Rukh Khan become such a heinous Muslim teaming up with another Muslim from abroad, and never mind the many movies this celebrity actor, married to a Hindu, has made denouncing “terrorists” and pleading “my name is Khan but I am not a terrorist”.

A time is here it seems when only well-protected vigilantes may certify who is or is not either a desh bakht (patriot) or a traitor, not just as polemics but as law.

Do recall that eloquent vignette from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar wherein a so-Roman mob, following the murder of Caesar, accosts a fellow named Cinna and , thinking him a Senator of the opposite political camp, sets to belabour him.

When the poor man screams “I am not the Senator, I am the poet Cinna” the shout goes up” kill him for his bad verses”.

Fellow Indians, that time may indeed be here, even as we write.

Tailpiece

It is rumoured that, inspired by Bhagwat, Donald Trump is readying to pronounce America a Christian Rashtra wherein all denizens are essentially Christians.

And those who disagree are free to migrate to other climes.

Imagine what a glorious prospect that would be for a fast-forward Bharat: all 54 lakh people of Indian origin would return to us as Hindus, making the Hindu Rashtra more secure both in economic and cultural terms.

There is also the wisecracker who observes how Shri Modi has received highest national honours from more than half a dozen exclusively “Muslim” countries.

The question therefore can be asked: should this exemplary fact at some point oblige honourable Modi to don the Muslim skull cap at home even if only to dignify friendship with those Muslim countries, if not with Muslims at home?

Badri Raina taught at Delhi University.

This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.

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