Hyderabad: An anti-Islam video showing Prime Minister Narendra Modi attacking Muslims, which was posted by the official Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Instagram account, has been removed after intense outrage by several users. It is not certain whether the BJP deleted it, or whether it was removed after users reported against it.
The animated video, which had a voice-over, showed Modi repeating largely the same lies told by the Prime Minister in his previous public speeches in Rajasthan in the run-up to the ongoing Lok Sabha elections which are being held in different phases. In the video, he called Muslims “infiltrators” and repeated the same thing – that Congress would “redistribute wealth” if it came to power.
The BJP video, released on Tuesday, April 30, said the Congress manifesto was the same as that of the Muslim League (led by Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah). More importantly, the video, which called for Modi’s re-election, claimed that the Congress party “will snatch the wealth of non-Muslims and give it to Muslims”, a statement Modi himself made last month, which also sparked widespread criticism.
In his speech in Banswara (Rajasthan) last month, Modi described Muslims as “infiltrators,” and the video released by the BJP also directly targeted the community. It also showed Congress MP Rahul Gandhi holding his party, which in the animation changed into a green flag with a crescent and star – a symbol considered an Islamic flag.
The video posted by the BJP shocked many people especially on Instagram where it garnered more than a thousand likes within a day. Outraged by such a post in the run-up to the general elections, many criticized Modi and the BJP, while others simply stated that this was surprising given that Modi himself had made similar statements earlier.
In the video, the BJP, in typical right-wing fashion, invokes the old stereotypical narrative that ancient India was robbed of its glory by Muslim invaders. The cartoon included images of temples and a woman resembling the queen, soon followed by images of Muslim men riding horses. The voice-over was expected to claim that India’s prosperity was lost as “invaders, terrorists, thieves and robbers used to come again and again to plunder all our treasures”.
The BJP is clearly intent on making it look like the Congress is a Muslim-centric party and is trying to turn voters against it. The video ends with the sentence “Narendra Modi knows about this evil plan. Only he has the power to stop it. If you really care about Bharatiya civilisation, then you should come out and vote for Modi. ApkiBaar400 is the absolute need of the hour.”
We will see if a petition will be filed with the Election Commission again on this matter, just as opposition leaders and the general public have referred to Modi’s earlier statements as hate speech.
This post was last edited on May 1, 2024, at 10:26 pm
