On Friday night, renowned Bollywood lyricist, Urdu poet and Rajya Sabha MP Javed Akhtar tweeted an image that showed Jashodaben, the estranged wife of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, within minutes, he deleted it.
The image was supposed to be a joke on BJP MP’s Sakshi Maharaj’s statement that Hindu women should produce four kids to counter Muslim population threat.
It showed Union Ministers Uma Bharti and Smriti Irani, along with Jasohdaben, getting “confused” if they should follow Saskhi Maharaj’s suggestion.
The image was re-tweeted by around 100 users before it was deleted by Javed Akhtar.
While some thought that it was a good joke, many Twitter users were quick to point out that this was unfair to someone like Jashodaben, who is a victim of child marriage.
Furthermore, Jashodaben is no active member of BJP, who could be dragged into such a political cartoon. Many argued that it was in poor taste and not expected from someone like Javed Akhtar.
Maybe Mr. Akhtar realized that the picture was indeed unfair to Jashodaben, and thus he deleted it.
He later claimed that he never intended to tweet the picture in first place and agreed that it was indecent and poor in taste:
https://twitter.com/Javedakhtarjadu/status/553614663636627456
The clarification by Javed Akhtar is a bit stupid as he can’t delete someone else’s tweet. Maybe he meant someone sent him a “message” (on say, WhatsApp?) but wrote “tweet” instead? That’s only possible explanation. However, in that case it will be interesting to know who sends him such images. Maybe it is someone connected to West Bengal, as the image has a watermark in Bengali language.
One Bengali connection of Javed Akhtar is Farhan Akhtar, his son, who had earlier helped TMC Youth Wing in 2011. Maybe Farhan and family are still getting some unsolicited “forwards” from TMC youth wing!
Or was it a case of strong distaste for Modi getting the better of Javed Akhtar’s literary tastes?
Whatever be the reason or source of the image, it surely caused a little storm on Twitter.
However, the most intriguing response was from Reham Khan, whom Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan recently married.
She was all smiles after seeing the picture:
https://twitter.com/RehamKhan1/status/553601266140454913