Bollywood veteran Naseeruddin Shah slammed the Indian government for spreading Islamophobia in the country to get votes.
In a new interview with an Indian news publication, Shah, who has been quite vocal in criticism against the ruling party, blamed the government for ‘cleverly tapping’ hatred against Muslims into the minds of people.
Naseeruddin Shah said that the unabashed Islamophobia being portrayed in films these days is a reflection of what is happening in reality in the country. “These are worrying times absolutely. The kind of stuff that’s pure, undisguised propaganda is being lapped up and it’s a reflection of the zeitgeist of the times,” the veteran stated in the conversation.
“Muslim hating is fashionable these days, even among educated people. It’s what the ruling party has very cleverly tapped into this nerve,” he added. “We talk about secular this, democracy that, so why are you introducing religion into everything?”
Shah continued to criticize the election commission of India for being a mute spectator to the blatant tactics of politicians used to get votes.
“I mean how spineless the election commission of ours is? Who doesn’t even dare utter a word? If a Muslim leader had said, ‘Allah Hu Akbar bol ke button dabao’, sh*t would have hit the fan. But here our Prime Minister goes ahead and says things like this and yet he loses. So, I have hope that this will wear off. But it’s definitely, at the moment, at its peak. It’s been a very clever card played by this government, and it has worked. Let’s see how long it continues to work,” noted the ‘Gehraiyaan’ actor. Meanwhile, on the work front, he was last seen in the web series ‘Taj: Divided by Blood’ co-starring Dharmendra, Aashim Gulati, Sandhya Mridul and Aditi Rao Hydari.