Amidst ongoing outrage over ‘Pathaan’, Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair today cast aspersions on the Muslim identity of Maulanas who did not subscribe to his worldview and protested against Shah Rukh Khan’s upcoming action movie.
In a post on Twitter, Zubair, who has, of late, fashioned himself as some authority on dishing out Muslimness certificates to Muslims online, shared some pictures to undermine a Muslim organisation’s protest against SRK’s ‘Pathaan’.
“There are reports that an organisation “All India Muslim Festival Committee” has also opposed the movie ‘Pathan’. A few pics of the ‘Maulana’ behind the organisation,” Zubair tweeted.
There are reports that an organisation “All India Muslim Festival Committee” has also opposed the movie ‘Pathan’.
— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) December 16, 2022
A few pics of the ‘Maulana’ behind the organisation. 🤡 pic.twitter.com/g9TD0ydCq9
As protests erupted over a particularly raunchy song featuring Deepika Padukone in skimpy dresses and racy dance moves, a Muslim organisation named ‘All India Muslim Tyohar Committee’ extended its support to the demonstrations calling for a ban on the screening of the movie.
Zubair shared pictures of the Maulanas associated with the organisation from his participation in events attended by Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan, insinuating that Muslims attending events organised by the BJP or their leaders are lesser Muslims than others and perhaps undeserving of identifying themselves as Muslims.
The tweet by Alt News co-founder, notorious for his polarising views and inveterate dog-whistling on Twitter, reflects his polarising attempt to lord over a community of more than 20 crore people who have the democratic right to align with the party of their choice and protest against a movie they deem inappropriate without questions being raised over their piety.
However, Zubair, who rose to fame after dog-whistling against Nupur Sharma, precipitated a diplomatic nightmare for India in the Islamic autocracies in the middle east and spawned widespread domestic protests, Muslims who attend events organised by democratically elected governments or socialise with politicians for the betterment of their community should be stigmatised and discredited for political choices that run counter to his dogmatic beliefs.
For Alt News and Zubair, Muslims cease to be Muslims if they do not hate PM Modi and BJP
But this is not the first time that Zubair has called into question the religiosity of a Muslim whose political ideology does not converge with his. For Zubair and his propaganda website Alt News, whose entire existence rests on vilifying the Modi government and painting the regime as anti-Muslim, it is difficult to reconcile with the fact that some Muslims might be BJP supporters and admirers of PM Modi.
When Muslims express their association with the BJP, RSS or any other party that is bracketed by liberals as parties with ‘Hindutva’ ideology, Alt News goes into overdrive discrediting such voices. It denounces the Muslims who voice their support for PM Modi and his government and raising questions over their Muslimness by highlighting the fact they are associated with the RSS. Sometimes, they don’t even have to support the PM. The mere fact that as a Muslim they do not hate PM Modi with all their guts is sometimes enough to lose their Muslim credentials.
In 2020, on PM Modi’s birthday, members of Muslim community celebrated the occasion at Nizamuddin, Delhi. The event was covered by news agency ANI. However, this did not sit well with the anti-Modi propaganda website AltNews which was quick to slam ANI for presenting an RSS-backed event as ‘Muslim community’ celebrations of PM Modi’s birthday.
In yet another report published in August 2018, Alt News slammed ANI and News 18 for reporting RSS-affiliated Muslim organisation as “people in Lucknow” celebrating Bakrid by cutting a cake. Alt News was perturbed that some of the Muslims abhorred the custom of sacrificing a speechless animal and were exhorting others to shun the practice. This provided a reasonable opportunity to the leftist online rag to cast doubt over the Muslimness of the people by pointing out their association with the RSS.
For Alt News and its co-founder Mohammed Zubair, Muslims cease to exist as Muslims if they do not oppose the BJP and the RSS. Any association of the Muslims with the aforesaid organisations automatically raises doubts over their adherence to Islam. According to Alt News, resistance and opposition to PM Modi, BJP and its affiliate organisations, is the only measure of one’s Muslimness. Any Muslim who is found defying these conventions, his Muslimness is liable to be questioned by Alt News and its self-described custodians of Muslim community.
