After Agrima Joshua, Netizens found out that now another standup comedian, Aadar Malik, has devasted the sentiments of the Hindu community by making fun of their Lord Ganesha in one of his comedy acts. Seeing this, people are full of rage and want all his shows to be banned.
Stand-up comedy is a relatively new genre of entertainment in Bharat. Influenced by iconic US TV shows like Seinfeld, many aspiring Bhartiyas started attending such shows and many left jobs to start working as ‘stand up comedians’.
So the genre was an instant hit. Hundreds of troupes and studios cropped up to cater to the demand and their clips started getting viral on social media. But how to beat the competition? Insulting Hindu Dharma and Hindu icons became the easy way out!
Aadar Malik is another comedian with a huge following. Nephew of the controversial sexual-harassment accused musician Anwar (Anu) Malik, Aadar has been recently called out for making fun of Ganapati and Bhagwan Shiva. Watch in the video below.
Standup comedian Aadar Malik (@TheAadarGuy) making fun of our Gods Ganapati and Shiv Ji. This is blasphemy, he deserves to be held responsible for the same. He should be made an example so cheap artists like him don't use cheap comedy for cheap audience.pic.twitter.com/SfSaPFwflW
— Gannuprem (@Gannuuprem) July 13, 2020
Recently, a little known comedian shot to limelight. Agrima Joshua, based in Mumbai made some flippant comments on Chatrapati Shivaji, the Hindu Maratha King who wrote the script for the demise of the mighty Mughal empire. The comments were in bad taste and not even funny. This upset many Hindus, specially Marathas. Some even threatened her in an unseemly manner and a few of them made a scene at the venue where the show had happened.
Apparently, Joshua is not afraid of ‘speaking truth to power’. When she was heckled on social media, she appealed to Uddhav Thackeray for help against ‘BJP IT cell’. It later became clear that members of MNS and Shiv Sena were also opposed to her comments, more aggressively so.
After posturing for a few hours that she will not apologize, she apologized twice, first in English and then with a video in Hindi. In her apology tweet, she marked Shiv Sena, Congress, NCP and MNS leaders – basically the parties which unapologetically wield street muscle in Maharashtra. The ‘BJP IT cell’ she had earlier accused of targeting her did not get an apology! So much for the ‘fascist BJP’ and ‘speaking truth to power’!
Another piece of casual Hinduphobia that everyone missed in her tweets is the twitter handle of her friend and fellow ‘comedian’ Ayushi. Insulting a revered figure in Hindu Dharma known for her devotion to her husband, she has named her to handle ‘@sluttysavitree’. Now if her name was Savitree, I would have thought nothing of this. But observe how our sacred spaces are so casually invaded and brushed aside as comedy!
Why Are Hindus Targeted?
This question keeps bugging us. This crass and casual Hinduphobia is not limited to ‘comedians’, we can see this in the film industry, media and also academia. The reasons are common in all these areas:-
Hindus have made a fetish out of tolerance. We are very self-image conscious. To talk about our Dharma or even defending it is considered backward. Please observe how easily a Christian or a Muslim can invite you to his faith. Still, Hindus will tolerate such a person among their friends and colonies. Very few Hindus have the courage or the training to invite people to Hindu Dharma.
Hindus are the only ones deluded by “Sarva Dharm Sambhav” and “All religions are equal!” slogans. Adherents of other religions do not believe in it. Once you say that all religions are equal, you not only accept there is nothing special in Hindu Dharma, you are also primed for conversion. If all religions are equal, how does it matter which religion one belongs to? It must be stressed here that this slogan of “Sarva Dharm Sambhav” is not found in any ancient Hindu scripture! Indeed, Gita says the opposite: “Swadharme Nidhanam Shreyah, Pardharmo Bhayawaha” i.e. “It is good to die in one’s own Dharma, and terrible to die in another’s!”.
Our Education system is deeply Hinduphobic. NCERT books leave no effort to denigrate Hindu dharma and praise other religions like Buddhism, Jainism, Islam and Christianity. Similar is the treatment meted out to Hindu Kings and dynasties. In our school books, each Mughal has a chapter on him, but dynasties like Cholas, Vijayanagar are finished in one chapter. Rashtrakutas, Chalukyas, Pallavas do not get even one chapter, despite ruling for centuries more than Mughals and ruling a much bigger area. Rajput states are mentioned only in context of Mughals. We have done a fantastic article on this issue, that you can read by clicking here.
Media also amplifies this Hinduphobia. It employs several dirty tricks to implicate Hindus and whitewash crimes of non-Hindus. You can read our article here to understand this issue in depth.
The incidents of Hinduphobia by comedians, media persons, movie stars and academics will continue unless we take certain urgent steps. This sense of urgency should be guided by the fact that with incidents of Hinduphobia, conversions out of Hindu Dharma also increase.
