The kinky wink hullabaloo that stormed internet a few days back and the immediate controversy should have been ignored as a sheer marketing gimmick of a film maker, who has the history of marketing his film by crook or by hook. However, it has snowballed into another vociferous discourse, on ‘hurting religious sentiments’ versus freedom of expression, thanks to the ‘suspicious’ Raza academy of Hyderabad, a Barelvi outfit masquerading as ‘prophet lovers’ , who were, ironically, hand in glove with Sangh Parivar, in hounding Dr Zakir Naik, the world famous Islamic Preacher, who has his whole life, dedicated for replying to the accusations and criticism against prophet. Still, it did not qualify to be a hot topic in Kerala, where the movie is set to be released, as nobody here had raised a dissenting voice, primarily because the song has been fondly played in thickly populated Muslim villages of Kerala for the last few decades, without any objections. However, CM of Kerala, stirred up the issue again with his Facebook post, hitting out against the ‘intolerance by Muslim fundamentalists’ referring to the complaint lodged by a section of Muslims in Hyderabad.
Even when disagreeing with the complainants, I have some questions to the CM.
1)How come a police complaint became an instance of intolerance? 2) Isn’t it the most democratic and constitutional way i.e., to lodge a complaint, if someone feels that his religious sentiment is hurt, rather than going for riot, arson or vandalism? 3) Is freedom of expression a right, every citizens should have had? If so, what about the attacks against V T Balram MLA, and Congress offices following his Facebook comment on AKG? 4) When was your Facebook post on Hindutwa intolerance, since they created ruckus over Padmavat film, vandalized schools &buses, attacked children etc in connection with that.? 5)What would you like to confess to your Facebook followers about the brutal murder of Shuhaib, a Youth Congress leader,allegedly by your party workers which occurred at a place, not far from your native? 6) Can we lodge a complaint to the police in future; if we think, an art form or literary work is deliberately insulting the prophet; or will it be muzzled as an act of intolerance? 7) What about the freedom of expression of a group of ‘Wisdom Global’ workers, who were brutally attacked in front of your police and later, arrested? Wasn’t your statement then , that they were ‘helping’ sangh parivar to unleash violence by doing Islamic propagation, a sheer instance of intolerance towards their constitutional right of Article 25-28.? 8)So, isn’t what is sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander?