There’s a thin line between satire and reality and in Indian politics the line is many times blurred and even crossed over. So-called farmer leader Rakesh Tikait on Tuesday claimed that it was actually Prime Minister Narendra Modi who got Indian cricket team to lose the T20 World Cup match against Pakistan so that it can help him win elections.
Modi govt made Team India lose match against Pak for votes, alleges Tikait https://t.co/uTtfYZoxTQ
— TOI India (@TOIIndiaNews) October 27, 2021
He claimed that the BJP government at Centre can make the cricket team lose if it can bring them votes. He claimed that he had not really seen the match himself but he got to know from villagers that Modi government made India lose to Pakistan. He alleged that villagers claimed that when India will lose to Pakistan, as orchestrated by PM Modi, people will burst crackers and that will get people to vote for BJP in turn.
So as per ‘villagers’ whom Tikait spoke to, there are indeed people in India who would burst crackers when India loses to Pakistan? And how is that not more problematic than ‘PM Modi got Indian team to lose match’ conspiracy theory? This conspiracy is even wilder than the time Mamata Banerjee claimed coronavirus was a ‘panic’ created by PM Modi to ‘divert attention’ from the 2020 Delhi riots which took place during the anti-CAA protests.
When it was pointed out that cricket lovers may get offended at what he spoke about Indian cricket team deliberately losing match on Modi’s instructions, Tikait brazened it out and said why would anyone be offended by truth. “There are two types of Hindus, those who believe in Sangh ideology, who are most dangerous and others who are the peaceful kinds and are harmless,” he claimed.
Tikait further claimed that he himself is a sportsperson (?) and that his sentiments are hurt by this loss of Indian cricket team. While he did not elaborate which sport he played, he claimed that the BJP government carried out a hate campaign against one Muslim player on social media. The Muslim player he is speaking about is Mohammad Shami and there have been few things which are very suspicious about the ‘attack’. Most people were angry at the captain Virat Kohli and were upset at loss of early wickets. While the angry messages were mostly directed towards them, there were hardly any specifically on Shami.
Suddenly, some ‘journalist’ somewhere tweeted obscure screenshots from Instagram account to claims that Shami was being abused on religion lines. Amusingly, those were the only few screenshots which were making rounds. Everyone from the ‘liberal’ jamaat came out to condemn the attack on Shami, and rightly so. However, their stoic silence whenever he was abused by Islamists for being a ‘bad Muslim’ has been quiet deafening to say the least.
Back in January 2020, Shami was trolled by Islamists on Instagram after he posted a picture of his daughter standing at a Hindu puja ceremony with a caption, “Looking so sweet beta love you so much god bless you beta see you soon”. However, no such condemnation against these vicious attacks were made. This clearly shows that there is more to it than what meets the eye. Now that even Tikait has chosen to speak about it it just shows how this was the new ‘toolkit’ in the market.
Tikait further equated beggars and businessmen and claimed that beggars and businessman are not loyal to anyone, especially not the country. He claimed that a beggar begs on one crossroad and then moves on to another one where he gets alms, similarly, businessmen also do the same. They go wherever they see business opportunity. He again reiterated that whatever skirmishes took place after some people celebrated Pakistan’s win over India was all orchestrated by the government.
