In the last few weeks, people like Parvesh Sharma and Anurag Thakur have called anti-CAA protesters rapists, murderers, and deserving of nothing but bullets. Just truly despicable behaviour in general, but then things got a little bizarre.
One part of the entire hate-speech is a little confusing – The constant biryani-rhetoric that every right-winger seems to use as the ultimate insult. What is this, a classroom food fight?
For context – Recently, Yogi Adityanath arrived 90 minutes late for a campaign rally at Okhla, and conveniently blamed Shaheen Bagh for his tardiness. He then said,
The Kejriwal government is feeding biryani to protesters. Delhi voters have to decide if they want a nationalist government or one that feeds biryani to Shaheen Bagh.
Excuse me, kya? What did biryani ever do to you, man? It’s really confusing that this is being used as an insult. Are we supposed to be shocked at the religious undertones of this dish? Would distributing khichdi be more apt?
Setting aside the inherently preposterous (not to mention baseless) claim that biryani is being handed out to protesters, you also have to wonder if these people understand that they’re attacking food. The beef ban is already achieved, but why the heck are you going after spiced rice and meat?!
In fact, people should go one step further – they should start distributing some cool, refreshing Rooh Afza to wash all that free biryani down. Wouldn’t that be nice?
According to the right wing, Frooti would be more appropriate I suppose. After all, Rooh Afza was created by a person with the name Naqi Ali Shah, and that dude definitely sounds like he was all up in that biryani handi.
Hadd hoti hai, bro. Here’s their basic strategy – People protesting? They’re anti-national. Protesters eating biryani? Biryani is anti-Hindu. Biryani mein elaichi? Send elaichi to detention camp.
In case you’re not convinced, even people like BJP IT Cell head have been putting out ludicrous tweets about biryani that make no sense.
What does this tweet even mean?! Unfortunately for him, the internet never forgets, and Malviya’s own biryani-loving past was soon out for all to see.
These guys are willing to denounce anything even remotely connected to the protests, no matter how inane (or delicious). Please, just leave my beloved biryani alone! Problem kya hai?!
All this manages to show is that they’re using biryani as an insidious means of changing public opinion (there’s a sentence I never thought I’d write, let alone read). But this dish is an all-pervading hunger destroyer that won’t bow down to scare tactics from people with no taste.
Maybe that’s what this whole biryani madness is about – affecting public perception by furthering the ‘us vs them’ debate via food. To them, all I can say is – Go eat some milky toast, ‘cos that’s what you deserve.
What these biryani-haters (and closet lovers) fail to realise is just how goddamn tasty it is, and that they’ve put themselves into a corner, because they can now never eat biryani in public. So yeah, jokes on you, guys.