Two-time Grand Slam winner Sania Mirza served an ace when she >asserted , “I am an Indian and will remain one until the end of my life,” to silence those who questioned her nationality following her appointment as brand ambassador of Telangana.
>Narrating her lineage, the 27-year-old tennis star said she would condemn any attempt to brand her as an outsider.
The Floor Leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Telangana Assembly, Kova Laxman, >raked up this row while speaking on the Telangana government’s announcement that only students whose parents were residents of Telangana as on 1956 would be eligible for fee reimbursement under the proposed Financial Assistance to Students of Telangana (FAST) programme.
Criticising the government in this context, Dr. Laxman wondered how Ms. Mirza could be made the brand ambassador of the State as she was born in Mumbai and was married to the Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik. His attempt to expose the ambiguity in Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s words on FAST gave ammunition to critics to embarrass the top BJP leadership as national media picked up and debated the issue.
“I never spoke against Sania Mirza per se . In fact, I hailed her achievements. I was only trying to fault the government for its stand on the nativity issue,” explained Dr. Laxman saying his comments were twisted to give a communal colour.
Be that as it may, the controversial remarks have catapulted the ongoing “turf war” and game of one-upmanship between the BJP and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi to the centre stage of Telangana politics, coming as it is against the backdrop of recent government decisions.
These include appointing a Muslim Deputy Chief Minister and a Cabinet resolution to provide 12 per cent reservation, much to the discomfiture of the BJP. The TRS’s attempt to cosy up to the Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen has not gone down well with the BJP, which failed to do well in the State in the general election despite the Modi factor.
This is reflected in the reaction of the BJP’s official spokesperson in Telangana, N. Ramachander Rao. “Ms. Sania Mirza’s appointment certainly has to be seen in the context of minority appeasement of the TRS government. We do not have any personal grievance against her. She is a good player and there is no need to comment on her personal life,” he said.
His grouse is that the government did not consider other luminaries like “Actor Nitin, cricketer V.V.S. Laxman, balladeer Andesri and others in diverse fields” for the brand ambassador tag. However, the BJP leader’s comments got all-round criticism.
But is the remark on Sania a ploy by the BJP to expand its political space and the Hindutva agenda? Syed Aminul Hasan Jaffri, a senior journalist and MLC, observed that it was a “well-laid-out BJP action plan” to expand its base in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
Mr. Jaffri cites instances of right-wing activists preventing Muslims from celebrating Bakrid in Nizamabad and Adilabad districts last year and communal skirmishes in Sangareddy, Tandur, and Nalgonda in recent years. In the twin cities, there have been periodic skirmishes intensifying the animosity between the two communities.
Both Right wing organisations and Muslim youth organisations have been taking out aggressive rallies to coincide with ‘Hanuman Jayanthi’, ‘Sriramnavami’ and Milad-un-Nabi. The vanquished Congressmen too see a deliberate ploy on the brand ambassador issue.
“Amitabh Bachchan was not born in Gujarat and Shah Rukh Khan in Kolkata, but they continue to serve as brand ambassadors of Gujarat and West Bengal, respectively. It is common for governments to sign celebrities as their ambassadors. However, by giving a communal touch to such appointments, the parties like BJP were exhibiting their sectarian thinking,” former Congress Minister Md. Ali Shabbir said.
Rehana Sultana, Dean of Arts and Social Sciences, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, observed that Ms. Mirza became a victim of politics between two parties. Abid Rasool Khan, chairman of AP Minorities Commission, says: “An apolitical girl has been caught in a battle of political one-upmanship.”
Mallepalli Laxmaiah, Chairman of the Centre for Dalit Studies, said such a controversy did not augur well for the secular fabric of the country. Andhra Pradesh Endowments Minister Manikyala Rao’s recent statement that Santana Dharma would be introduced in the syllabus from KG to PG is “ominous”. There is also a move to accommodate a top Vishwa Hindu Parishad man in the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), Mr. Jaffri said.
