Earlier yesterday (May 6), former Somaiya School Principal Parveen Shaikh was handed over a termination letter by Somaiya Vidyavihar, weeks after OpIndia published an expose detailing her controversial social media behaviour, which involved liking pro-Hamas tweets, pro-Zakir Naik posts among other things.
In a statement issued by Somaiya Trust, the prestigious Mumbai-based school said, “Recently, it has come to our attention that the personal social media activities of Ms Parveen Shaikh, who holds a leadership position at The Somaiya School, have been starkly misaligned with the values we cherish.”
“Given the gravity of these concerns, and after careful consideration, the management has discontinued Ms Parveen Shaikh’s association with Somaiya Vidyavihar to ensure that our ethos of unity and inclusivity is not compromised,” the statement released by Somaiya Trust said.
The statement added, “Somaiya Vidyavihar remains dedicated to providing a nurturing educational environment that honours and respects all cultures and beliefs, contributing positively to society and our nation.”
The development came days after the Somaiya management sought an explanation from Parveen Shaikh over a report published by OpIndia on April 24 that tracked the Islamist views of the former principal and her bent towards anti-Indian elements on social media. She frequently liked Hamas pronouncements endorsing their ‘resistance’ against Israel along with those supporting its senior leadership such as terrorist Ismail Haniyeh. From her social media activity, she came across as an ardent advocate of Hamas who rationalised all the atrocities it commits as ‘resistance’ or ‘retaliation.’
But no sooner did OpIndia publish its first report detailing the problematic behaviour of the former Somaiya School principal, than a bevvy of left-leaning liberals and ultra-leftist propaganda portals, namely Scroll and The Wire, came to the defence of Ms Shaikh, using cliched tropes to downplay allegations against her and paint her as a victim of “online bullying and trolling.”
Reports published by Scroll and The Wire described OpIndia as a ‘Hindutva portal’ in a bid to discredit the serious allegations levelled against Ms Shaikh, an educator who was tasked with the responsibility of managing one of the notable knowledge centres in the country’s finance capital.
These portals then went on to invoke the time-tested formula that leftists often resort to when they are boxed into a corner and find themselves entangled in a situation from which extrication is almost impossible: feign victimhood. These portals claimed Ms Shaikh supported Palestinians against the bloody war inflicted upon them by Israel.
However, as is their wont, they remain economical with the truth and don’t hesitate to peddle lies if it comply with their agenda. They would either not mention the trigger that compelled Israel to mount an unprecedented attack against Gaza or allude to it as a passing reference. Even worse, they would conveniently distort support for Hamas as solidarity for Palestinians and condemnation of Hamas for the October 7 attacks as grounds for rationalising the aggression of “occupying force”, which they use for Israel, depending upon whether they want to protect one of them or peddle propaganda against their opponents.
Since it was to protect Ms Shaikh in this case, several leftwing trolls and portals such as Scroll and The Wire pulled out the victim card, asserting that Ms Shaikh was hounded for merely championing the Palestinian cause, and has now lost her job for expressing solidarity for the Palestinians who are at the receiving end of Israel-Hamas conflict.
This, of course, is a straw man argument since the sacking of Parveen Shaikh is not about any ’cause’ but Islamofascism, a supranational Islamic fundamentalism epitomised by Hamas, whose central aim is to destroy Israel, the Jewish land, and create a Palestinian country in its stead.
Since its inception in December 1987, Hamas has utilised militant interpretations of Islam to lead a Sunni extremist movement dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Hamas distinguished itself from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), a longstanding coalition of Palestinian groups with diverse ideologies, by promoting resistance within the religious framework of jihad, or a sacred struggle and martyrdom.
In its initial statement in the late 1980s, Hamas declared, “Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.” Predominantly Shiite Iran has provided support to Hamas since the late 1980s, primarily due to its opposition to Israel and shared Islamic ideology.
Hamas, an Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement, has urged adherents of Judaism and Christianity to acknowledge Islamic hegemony in the Middle East. It stated that followers of other religions should refrain from challenging Islamic authority in the region, warning of potential violence, displacement, and terror if they were to assume control. Additionally, Hamas firmly opposed any prospects for peace or coexistence with Israel, dismissing diplomatic efforts as futile endeavours.
This support for Islamic hegemony and intolerance towards adherents of other faiths is evident in the constant attacks it mounts against the Jewish nation. The dastardly October 7 attacks, in which over 1,200 Israelis, including elderly, women, and children, were killed by Hamas terrorists who raided the border villages, were the most recent testament to the Islamist group’s depravity in fulfilling its fantasy of taking control of Israel and subsequently imposing a Sharia rule within its geographical contours.
Manifestly, Hamas is not a benign organisation that is fighting for the rights and safety of Palestinians and whose sole aim of existence is the governance of the Gaza Strip. Its religious and organisational goals go much beyond the borders of Gaza, as the cowardly October 7 attacks demonstrated. It aims to establish an Islamic theocratic nation governed by Sharia rule where non-Muslims are treated as second-class citizens, something which ISIS failed to accomplish in its neighbourhood in Syria and Iraq.
The Islamists and Hamas sympathisers in India wailing over Parveen Shaikh’s termination lament that she was sacked for merely standing in solidarity with Palestine. However, let us not be fooled by these leftist tropes that she was “targeted” for her support of Palestinians. The leftist apparatchiks and its propaganda machinery can cry a sea over it, but that does not change the facts on the ground.
Ms Shaikh was fired not because of any run-of-the-mill ’cause’ that her supporters would have us believe; she was sacked because she appeared to endorse the Islamofascism championed by Hamas, and was quite unapologetic about it. After all, no flourishing secular and democratic nation can afford to bestow the power of influencing and informing the worldview of the nation’s future—the young and impressionable children—in the hands of Hamas simpers.