Minority woman makes threat even as she decries labelling of community

Bollywood B-Movie actor Emraan Hashmi made allegations of discrimination against a housing society in Bombay. This issue is being hotly contested by the housing society.

Mid-day interviews a minority woman who also claims discrimination and harassment in a two part video (Part 1, Part 2 - the embedded above).

It is hard to make out Nagina Hasan's story from her long rant but as far as we could make out, she rented an apartment under the name of a business run by her husband. When the society folks found out that a Muslim family was occupying the apartment, they were asked to vacate immediately.

We generally sympathize with the woman's plight but she makes some highly objectionable statements:

In the interview, she says that the landlord threatened to cut off water and electricity supply to the apartment to which she had responded - I won't be responsible for what happens, what I do if you cut off my water and electricity etc. (at around 3:15 mark on the video). It pretty much sounds like a threat of a particular kind. This is astonishing as the woman objects to the labelling of all minorities as terrorists.

The woman also keeps referring to religion as jaat (literally caste, although she should have used Qaum or Mazhab or something like that) and India as Hindustan. Elsewhere in the video she also says humanity is above rule of law (Insaaniyat vs. Kanoon) and calls the society folks who had allegedly denied Emraan Hashmi housing Hijdas.

The Hijda epithet refers to a news report that some members of the housing society in the Emraan Hashmi case had claimed the actor was refused on account of being a serial kisser and thus a possible bad influence on women. According to Nagina Hasan the housing society males were unable to control their mothers and sisters and keep them away from temptation and thus they were Hijdas. The point about insecure males is well taken, although one could turn it around and make the same point about her religion which insists on certain dress codes.

At another point she says she was rudely treated as though she was from a scheduled caste.

As you can see, Bollywoodization of Secularism is quite entertaining.