TROLLS ARE MIFFED, I DON'T WEAR HIJAB
The only difference between Barkha Dutt’s trolling and the abuse and threats I face on social media is that mine are laced with religious connotations.
Jihadi Jane, ISIS sex slave, porkistani, Rana Hafiz Saeed, Islamic fundamentalist are just a few terms used for me by Twitter trolls, many of whom happen to be active BJP members. My face has been photoshopped over a naked body and Twitter trends like #RanaayyubCDand #RanaAyyubRandi run for days when the trolls can’t defeat me with facts.
That I am Rana ‘Ayyub’ makes it worse. That I profess liberal, democratic ideas of India and continue to be a practising Muslim is unfathomable for many. That It weet pictures of my Ramzan iftar and Eid celebration adds to the vitriol and sexist abuse I face for my comments, columns and tweets on politics and social justice. Being a Muslim and a journalist who is critical of the political dispensation, purely on journalistic merit, has added me to the list of condemned. I am everything that a ‘Muslim’ woman who speaks her mind can be. A terror sympathiser, an apologist for the terror accused, a slave to conservatives, an accused whose ideology is responsible for killings across the world.
On a recent television debate, a BJP spokesperson dared me to chant ‘Bharat matakijai’ and prove that I loved my country as much as any other did. Celebrity filmmakers aligned with the BJP make snide references to my affiliation with Islam and most recently boxer Yogesh war Dutt tweeted to ask if I had any love for my country.
It is also ironic that trolls are miffed that I do not wear a hijab, something that fits into their stereotype of a Muslim .‘ NationalistHindu’ Twitter handles lift pictures of me from my Instagram account in evening dresses in Goa and insist that ‘loose’ Muslim women like me are not to be trusted with their views. My colleagues can argue and put their point of view across on Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath and on the Ram Mandir debate but I cannot, for it makes me communal and gives them, the bigots, the license to inundate my timeline with hate. What the ha te-mongers do not understand, and I hope they get this straight for the last time: I am not going anywhere, I am here to stay.