‘RSS-BJP cherry picking Sharjeel’s speech’

This picture has been used for representational purpose

Sharjeel Usmani, ex-student of the Aligarh Muslim University, is under heavy fire - with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena targeting him, the Pune police charging him with ‘promoting enmity between different groups,' and sedition charges against him in Lucknow. Organisers of the Elgar Parishad have released a statement firmly standing by him and the controversial speech he allegedly delivered on January 30 at its conclave.

The statement released by the organising body of the Elgar Parishad - the Bhima Koregaon Shaurya Din Prerna Abhiyan - implores people to read Usmani's speech in its entirety and understand the context, while also stating that the persecution due to his speech is primarily because of his religion. "The ‘Muslim' part of his identity had to be mentioned because the perverted, vile, and violent reaction to Sharjeel's speech is solely because of his religion," says the statement.

The Elgar Parishad was held in Pune on January 30. Usmani, actively involved in the anti-CAA/NRC/NPR protests, was previously one of the many students arrested by the UP police on charges of inciting violence and was one of the speakers there. "The one tiny bit amongst Sharjeel's entire speech that they find problematic and have created such a hullabaloo around is, ‘Hindu society within Hindustan has been rotten'," reads the statement. "This bit constitutes not even 10 seconds of the 26-minute-long speech...It is clear that RSS-BJP and other Brahminical organisations have cherry-picked just this tiny bit from Sharjeel's speech to spread hatred amongst us."

It concludes, "If we start cherry-picking such bits and pieces from the speeches, writings, and literature produced by our intellectuals, academics, activists, artists, and students; with the intention of creating communal and casteist tensions...then we run the risk of letting our country slip further into chaos and anarchy."