Read this piece, may be bit cynical but touches upon some relevant points.
https://theprint.in/opinion/munawar...g-him-bail-is-to-keep-muslims-in-line/591143/
Munawar Faruqui should not have cracked a joke on Hindu deities, if he did. It is objectionable. What was he thinking? That too in a ‘rashtra’ that’s going from secular to Hindu.
But in a nation where every second person’s second word in a conversation is choicest abusing in the name of mother or sister, isn’t it bizarre that we don’t take offence to our daily vulgarities? Instead, we choose to have over-the-top reactions when we watch movies, TV shows, stand-up acts, songs and paintings that we may not agree with, and find offensive.
It is no one’s problem that he was arrested for allegedly making objectionable jokes. Law must take its course. The issue here is his continued arrest as though he is a hardened criminal. This, in a country where people facing grave charges of rape and murder also get bail. Think Chinmayanand and Manu Sharma. But Munawar has been kept in jail for 25 days now. For what? Playing on the lyrics of ‘Mera Piya Ghar Aaya O Ramji’?
The idea that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is checking Muslims and keeping them in line panders to the very insecurities created within the majority community — of being attacked and taken advantage of by the minority. Munawar Faruqui is just another peg in the propaganda machinery of ‘Hindu Khatre mein hain’. Ali Abbas Zafar, director of web series Tandav has also been summoned by the cops for hurting Hindu sentiments. The pattern is fixed — Hindu sentiments are hurt by Muslims. Add to this, the ‘love jihad’ trope and you have an entire circus of ‘minority out there to bully and dominate majority’.
If anything, Munawar Faruqui has tried to overcome his tough circumstances. A boy who comes from a difficult household where his mother died by suicide, Faruqui went out there to establish a stand-up career for himself, paying money at open-mics to get a slot to perform. In fact, Munawar is the poster boy of a modern young Muslim man who is unconventional (seeking a career in stand-up comedy), aspirational and sees himself beyond his religious identity. And yes, in the process of making a career for himself and get noticed, he ended up making a mistake, allegedly. But to vilify him and make an example out of him, especially because he is a Muslim, just to satiate the Hindutva palate, is inhuman.