The Caravan’s designer, Samyak Prajapati, who was accused of stealing The Netherlands based artist Tijana’s artwork for the March 2023 issue to attack EAM Dr Jaishankar had earlier used Ganesh ji’s idol imagery to refer to ‘sab but uthwaye jayenge’.
Prajapati had put up the image of idol of Ganesh ji with caption “hum dekhenge” (We shall see).
One of the couplet in the poem by Faiz Ahmed Faiz is
Jab arz-e-Khuda ke kaabe se
Sab but uthwae jaenge
Hum ahl-e-safa mardood-e-harm
Masnad pe bethae jaenge
Sab taaj uchale jaenge
Sab takht girae jaenge
Bas naam rahega Allah ka
It means when from the God’s Kaaba, all idols (but) will be removed. Then we, of clean hearts, the keepers of Faith (Islam) would be placed on throne… All crowns will be thrown, all thrones will be demolished… and only the name of Allah shall prevail.
The couplet by Faiz Ahmed Faiz essentially talks about the destruction of Murthis, the idols whom the Hindus worship. To demonstrate the same, The Caravan illustrator Samyak Prajapati put up an image of Ganesh ji.
The above couplet from the poem glorifies Islamic supremacy. Idol worship is prohibited in Islam and over the years, Islamic invaders have destroyed Hindu temples and idols in India to establish the same. The Somnath idol was broken and parts of the idol have been used in foundation of Islamic structures such that those who enter walk over what were Hindu idols.
Even now, we read about news from neighbouring Islamic countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh where Hindu temples, whichever remain after decades of destruction, are desecrated and broken. Hence, for Samyak Prajapati to show an image of a Ganesh idol when he talks about destruction of ‘buts’ (बुत – idol) is no coincidence. As a visual artist, he knows exactly what he has been doing. Murti puja is an integral practice of Hinduism.
When netizens had asked Samyak Prajapati if he would make such artwork on divine figures of other faiths, he mocked them.
In reality, visual depiction of Prophet Muhammad is ‘blasphemy’ as per Islam and is punishable by death. When French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo published a cartoon of the same, terrorists blew up their office. When French teacher Samuel Paty showed the same image to his students in a class, he was beheaded publicly by an Islamic terrorist.
However, insulting Hindu gods and making a mockery out of them is hailed as something that is a liberal thing to do and aptly rewarded like how Samyak Prajapati was hired by The Caravan to create illustrations for them. Except, he seems to have stolen the artwork from someone else.
That’s not all. Samyak Prajapati also insulted the Hindu epic Mahabharat and other Hindu gods and goddesses.
In what appears to be a perverse manner to create awareness about sexual abuse, Samyak Prajapati with an extremely skewed understanding of Hindu epics, talked about the episode in Mahabharat about the ‘vastra haran’ of Draupadi. Other illustrations around the ‘satirical’ news piece also mock Hanuman ji and Lord Ram.
In another image, he has shown an ‘advertisement’ for ‘Fair and Godly’ (a so-called satirical take on Fair and Lovely), and in a racist comment mentioned how using the said cream will turn ‘Kali’ into ‘Lakshmi’. Kali is Goddess Kali, called so because of her ferocious form of ultimate power, time, and destruction. She is the ultimate manifestation of Shakti. Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth.
Samyak has since removed the artwork he created for The Caravan from his public Instagram profile.
Here is the LinkedIn profile of The Caravan giving credit to Samyak Prajapati for the artwork for their December 2022 edition which Samyak has now removed from his public Instagram profile.
His other Hinduphobic content, however, remains.
As per his Behance profile, Samyak Prajapati is a visual communication student at the National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmedabad, India.
