Football Player from France Paul Pogba has shared a propaganda post on Instagram supporting the Muslim girls demanding to wear Hijab and Burqa in colleges. He shared a video of Hindu students protesting against the demand of the Muslim girls, which claimed that the Hindutva mob is harassing Muslim girls for wearing Hijab. The one-minute video shared by Pogba on his Instagram stories was posted by an extremist Islamist page called “Islam is my deen” on Instagram.
In the video originally posted by the page, it can be seen that students wearing saffron robes were protesting against the adamancy over Hijab, whereas Burqa-clad girl students were seen gathered in a corner. While no portion of the video highlights harassment by one individual/group to another, The title of the video read, “Hindutva Mobs continue to harass Muslim girls wearing Hijab to college in India.”
The caption posted by the admin who resides in London asked, “Where are the feminist organisations calling for the right for these girls to wear what they want? Where are the girl education activists calling for the rights of education for these girls?” Footballer Pogba, a practising Muslim himself who has shared the video in his story hails from France – The first country to impose a ban on full-face veils in public areas.
The page ‘Islam is my deen’ on Instagram from where Pogba has shared the controversial post has earlier shared open hateful, misogynistic and communal content with Islamist undertones. On Thursday morning the page asked in a story that when politicians in India can wear cultural dresses including saffron robes and Sikh turbans, then why Hijabs in schools are being opposed.
The Page has often engaged in misogynistic content while strictly advocating for hijabs. One of the posts shared by the page has the blackened photo of Miss Universe Lara Datta (suggesting that the woman should wear a Hijab) and compared her inferior against a Niqab clad Woman winning a beauty contest.
The page has also involved itself in mudslinging against India and hindus by sharing offensive content with Kuffar (Kufr) mentions and comments against Hindus using cow pejorative.
While Paul Pogba has put hateful content by Islamic extremists on a pedestal, it can also suggest that global level narratives have started to infest the Hijab debate in India. This looks like a similar case with the Farmer protests when the likes of International celebrities like Rihanna and Mia Khalifa were found doing paid endorsements of anarchic elements in India. The protests for Hijab too were found to be motivated by banned Islamic outfits like PFI and Jamaat-E-Islami who were found counselling girls to wear Hijabs last year.
The post by Paul Pogba stands as yet another example where foreign elements are used to amplify issues concerning Indian society. With this the unworthy demonization of Hindu students protesting against the adamancy of Hijabs in educational institutions has also come to play.
