"Muslim Hating Is Fashionable...": Naseeruddin Shah On "Disguised Propaganda Being Lapped Up"
Seasoned actor Naseeruddin Shah has said that the hate against Muslims is being "cleverly" tapped into and it has become "fashionable".
Seasoned actor Naseeruddin Shah has said that the hate against Muslims is being "cleverly" tapped into and it has become "fashionable". The actor also said that it is worrying how propaganda is being spread to the masses through art. For the unversed, Naseeruddin Shah has been a vocal critic of the ruling BJP government.
“Oh sure, these are worrying times absolutely. The kind of stuff that’s pure, undisguised propaganda is being lapped up and it’s a reflection of the zeitgeist of the times. Muslim hating is fashionable these days, even among educated people. It’s what the ruling party has very cleverly tapped into this nerve. We talk about secular this, democracy that, so why are you introducing religion into everything," the actor told The Indian Express in an interview.
“I mean how spineless is the election commission of ours? Who doesn’t even dare utter a word. If there had been a Muslim leader who had said, ‘Allah Hu Akbar bol ke button dabao’, sh*t would have hit the fan," he added.
Speaking further about the same, the actor said: "But here our Prime Minister goes ahead and says things like this and yet he loses. So, I have hope that this will wear off. But it’s definitely, at the moment, at its peak. It’s been a very clever card played by this government, and it has worked. Let’s see how long it continues to work."
Naseeruddin Shah is currently starring as Mughal emperor Akbar in ZEE5’s 'Taj: Reign of Revenge'.
Speaking in another interview to Bollywood Hungama about the changing school syllabuses, the actor said: "Theory of evolution is knocked out from the textbooks. Next, I suppose Einstein will be knocked out off the science textbooks. Then the head of ISRO saying that all the scientific discoveries are there in the Vedas (and) all these discoveries are attributed to the west falsely. Now what can you say to a thing like that?”
