A video that has recently gone viral on social media shows the BJP MLA CP Singh asking the Congress legislator Irfan Ansari to compulsively chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ while they were both standing outside the Jharkhand Assembly.
The incident had unfolded itself outside the Jharkhand Assembly when both the leaders were standing outside and speaking to media persons. Ansari said to a reporter that as the elections were coming closer, the BJP was hiding behind the fetish with these chants and deviating people’s attention from the fact that there were no jobs created in the state under its tenure. Infuriated at this statement, Singh asked Ansari to compulsively chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ in front of the media’
On this Ansari asked him whether he was trying to threaten him and in response he was told by BJP MLA CP Singh that even the Congress’s ancestors chanted ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and he couldn’t see why somebody living in India would have a problem doing that. Ansari responded that the BJP should not engage in defaming Lord Ram as he belonged not just to the BJP but to everyone. The BJP MLA CP Singh kept saying “ Your ancestors were not of Babur, Gazni or Taimur.”
Ansari then responded and said that the Minister who was talking so much about Ram should himself visit Ayodhya and see the condition of Lord Ram himself. The video has gone viral because it shows how the chant is being used in a large number of instances to threaten people and has also become a major instance where people are being lynched as they refuse compulsively chant the lord’s name.
It was only recently that 49 people including award-winning filmmakers Mani Ratnam and Aparna Sen and authors like Ramchandra Guha wrote an open letter letter to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting him to take note of the atrocities against the minorities in the aftermath of the incidents of lynching and alleged weaponisation of the slogan “Jai Shri Ram”. The letter has also sparked off outrage in reverse as persons like the CBFC chief Prasoon Joshi and actor Kangana Ranaut have accused them of selective outrage and political bias.
