Pakistani trolls tell Adnan Sami to now become a ‘swami’

Singer Adnan Sami (above) has not stopped taking the heat from Pakistani Twitterati ever since he became an Indian citizen in December 2015.

Speaking to us over the phone from Germany, Adnan reveals that he is still “bullied” by the social media users from Pakistan. “There’s a famous saying, ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’. I want to change it to ‘Hell hath no fury like a nation scorned,’” he says laughing. The 43-year-old singer was born to Pakistani parents in England and schooled there, and it has been years since he moved to India to take his singing career forward, but Pakistan social media users still have a grudge against his Indian passport.

“I get sarcastic comments from them saying that ‘if you have become an Indian, then change your religion, and become a swami or something like that’. If we go by their logic, then all Pakistanis who live in America should become Christians,” says Adnan. “Who are they to tell me that I should change my religion? The biggest irony is that there are more Muslims in India than in Pakistan. Pakistan is not the torch-bearer of Islam.”

“I can understand,” he adds, “when people say that they’re not a big fan of my music. That’s an individual opinion. But you don’t have the right to comment on my choice of citizenship, my skin colour, or my religion.”

Every time he expresses his support for India on any issue, Adnan gets “browbeaten and abused by the natives from the neighbouring country”. This is a reference to the Snapchat incident: the singer was trolled by Pakistani users for his tweet against the Snapchat CEO, who had allegedly said that India was too poor for him to consider it a market. The anger was not because of his tweet being against the CEO, but because he counted himself among the 1.2 billion people of India.

On the personal front, Adnan and his wife Roya had a baby girl, named Medina, on May 12, and this experience opened up a new aspect of life for him. He says, “It has been only a few days since she was born, and ever since then, even if I go away from her for a minute, I start missing her.”

If we go by their logic, then all Pakistanis who live in America should become Christians ADNAN SAMI, SINGER