Hindutva activists in India are enforcing a hardline Hindu culture and promoting Islamophobia by pushing for the withdrawal of recently aired progressive advertisements, as part of the ruling BJP regime’s campaign to make the neighbouring country a Hindu authoritarian state.
This was stated in an article published in the Washington-based international online magazine, the Diplomat
‘It is no longer ‘Incredible India’ but ‘Intolerant India’,’ read the headline of the article, pointing to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling BJP’s lack of inclination to fight hate.
The Diplomat’s correspondent, independent journalist, Kavita Chowdhury said this year’s Diwali-related advertisements faced “backlash” from Hindutva activists across India.
“Clothing brand Fab India’s promo advertisement in the run-up to Diwali titled ‘Jashn-e-Riwaaz’ was targeted for using Urdu words to describe the Hindu festival of Diwali,” she wrote.
The ruling BJP’s Yuva Morcha (youth wing) president Tejasvi Surya lashed out at the advertisement stating that it was a “deliberate attempt of Abrahamisation of Hindu festivals,” according to the report.
“Significantly, Surya has been a serial rabble-rouser with a history of inciting people against Muslims by generating controversies”.
The report said: “The BJP’s troll army soon took to Twitter, with #BanFabIndia trending and some even demanding that models in advertisements should have ‘Hindu appropriate dressing’ with women sporting a bindi, a traditional dot on the forehead of Indian women.
A right-wing influencer lashed out at the ‘secularisation’ of Hindu festivals, tweeting #NoBindiNoBusiness and calling for a boycott of brands that did not comply with the sentiments of Hindu culture.
Consequently, Fab India not only withdrew its promo advertisement but tried to mollify the right-wing by stating that its soon-to-be-launched Diwali campaign was titled an innocuous ‘Jhilmil Si Diwali’.
While the targeting of a skin bleach advertisement is an attempt to enforce rigid codes of normative Hindu culture with a homophobic worldview, the Fab India advertisement controversy is an attempt to entrench Islamophobia in the masses.
The saffron brigade and its votaries, namely the BJP politicians, assign themselves the role of custodians of Indian culture.
Highlighting India’s cultural and religious diversity, especially Hindu-Muslim brotherhood, angers the right-wing.
Significantly, the increasing attacks on advertisements have coincided with the mainstreaming of hate politics championed by the BJP under PM Modi
Islamophobia in India has escalated to ridiculous heights.
Linguists point out that the language Urdu is not the sole preserve of Muslims in the country, but Urdu words are widely used in everyday speech and literary texts of the Hindustani language.
Incidentally, these were not the only advertisements that were targeted by the Hindutva brigade this festive season.
The brand CEAT Tyres was viciously trolled and faced an onslaught of online abuse after its Diwali advertisement featured Bollywood actor Aamir Khan, advising children not to burst firecrackers on the streets but within the apartment complex.
BJP Member of Parliament Ananth Kumar Hegde, who habitually spews communal venom, wrote to the CEO of CEAT Tyres accusing the company of ‘creating unrest among Hindus’. In his letter, which he made public on Facebook, Hegde also attacked the Muslim actor.
‘Nowadays, a group of anti-Hindu actors always hurt the Hindu sentiments whereas they never try to expose the wrongdoings of their community,’ he wrote.—AFP
