Amidst the controversy surrounding the Tanishq Jewellery’s advertisement that was accused by many as a shoddy attempt to promote subtle ‘love jihad’ and its subsequent efforts to make amends by removing the advertisement, social media is replete with posts that broaden the horizon of ‘secularism’ and shifts its blame entirely on Hindus.
A Twitter user uploaded a picture of a comment made by one of her friends on her Tanishq Jewellery post. In her comment, the lady, who had tested positive for the coronavirus, ranted against her Hindu neighbours for escaping to their hometowns and not being there for her husband and son to provide them with cooked meals.
A friend commented on my @TanishqJewelry fb post.I felt its important to share before we fall deeper into an abyss of hate. pic.twitter.com/r9PbKGATfA
— Saira Shah Halim سائرہ 🇮🇳 (@sairashahhalim) October 13, 2020
“You know I am COVID-19 positive and my old mother-in-law cannot cook and my husband and son have never entered the kitchen…so there is no one to cook food because society is sealed and maids are forbidden from coming inside…Now all my Hindu neighbours who were my close friends have gone to their hometowns not thinking how I will manage the situation,” the lady said in her comment.
She further adds that it was her Muslim maid who provided her family of four with cooked food for the last 12 days.
There are multiple issues in the lady’s argument. While “smashing the patriarchy” trope is in vogue these days, with most of the ‘liberals’ vociferously supporting it, it evidently takes a back seat as the social media user appears unapologetic in pigeonholing her family members on the basis of their gender. She asserts that her husband and son cannot cook food because they have never entered kitchen which implies that cooking food is the remit of the women in the house.
Secondly and more broadly, the lady is holding Hindu neighbours around her accountable for her food crisis. One of the primitive instincts of living beings facing a mortal threat is self-preservation. It was but natural that neighbours around her may gone into panic when they found emergence of COVID-19 cases around them. In a bid to safeguard themselves against coronavirus, which has proven to be both highly contagious and potentially life threatening, the neighbours around her chose to safeguard themselves and bolt away to their escape hatches.
However, the social media user’s grouse with her Hindu neighbours was that they chose to save their lives over waiting in the society and cater to her food requirements. In doing so, she gave it a communal flair to her argument, alleging that her Muslim maid and her husband came to her rescue and not her Hindu neighbours.
