Ace Indian bowler Mohammed Shami was recently subjected to copious amounts of Internet trolling and abuse after him sharing a picture of his daughter celebrating Saraswati Puja caught the eye of radicals lurking online.
Shami, who played a pivotal role in helping India clean sweep New Zealand at their home turf in the recently concluded five-match T20 series, shared a smiling picture of his 4-year-old daughter ‘Aaira,’ dressed in traditional puja attire wearing a red and yellow saree standing next to a puja stall. Shami posted the picture with the caption, “ Looking so sweet beta love you so much. God bless you beta see you soon.”
This infuriated a large number of radicals from the Muslim community who then proceeded to hurl abuse on the photo’s comment section. One user wrote, “Dear Shami plz don’t write Muhammad with ur name it is our humble request.” Another wrote, “Aap Muslim ho toh beti Kaise Hindu hai.”
This is not the first time that Shami has had to face the ire of the radicals online. During 2017, Shami posted pictures of his family celebrating his daughter Aaira’s 2nd birthday which had his wife without a hijab in it. This prompted a flurry of insults from the troll army. One user wrote, “ drown in shame, are you Muslim, I don’t think so you’re muslim…. Islam can’t allow you to celebrate birthday in that fashion.” Another wrote, “Celebrating birthdays is haram.”
Star all-rounder of the Indian cricket team, Irfan Pathan also found himself in the midst of chaos after receiving massive backlash when he shared a picture of himself and his wife in a car in 2017. In the picture, his wife was seen wearing a hijab while covering her face with her hands, but even that proved to be insufficient for the fanatics who insulted the couple for being negligent in covering up the one-fourth part of her arms which showed skin.
It’s not just the cricketers in India who have had to dig themselves out of an Internet hole, even the king of Bollywood, Mr. Shah Rukh Khan himself was questioned on his dedication towards his faith and parenting skills when fundamentalist trolls discovered a picture of his daughter ‘Suhanna Khan’ wearing a tank top and pants, which she posted while attending college at the prestigious New York University (NYU) in the United States in 2019. A user wrote, “Dear you are Muslim so please must be covering your body.” SRK, in particular, was also subjected to relentless trolling when he posted a picture of himself along with his wife and youngest son Abram celebrating Diwali while sporting a ‘Tilak.’
This pattern of unceasing religious policing on the Internet is putting tremendous amounts of pressure on renowned Indian celebrities to take up the mantle of being a paragon of the faith to which they belong to or risk getting vilified at the hands of keyboard warriors.
Gaurav Agarwal,
Guwahati