Malayalam actor Vinayakan has been facing casteist and racist slurs and abuse online for saying in an interview that the BJP and RSS should not gain foothold in Kerala.
According to TNM, he said to a Malayalam news channel that the defeat of the ruling Left Democratic Front in the state was shocking and the people of Kerala must reflect on the election results. The LDF secured one out of 20 seats, while the United Democratic Front (UDF) won the rest. Vinayakan said, “I don’t know what happened in Kerala. The people of Kerala should definitely think about this.”
He further said that the BJP and RSS should not gain strength in Kerala, and was confident this wouldn’t happen. “We are all smart people. We saw that in the recent elections as well.” He added that while he had no plans of joining politics, he will have a political stand on everything he says and does.
Hours after the interview was published on May 29, people began insulting and abusing the actor in the comments section of his Facebook posts. Some said that they stand by his views, but several others attacked him using racist and casteist slurs and abuses. Majority of them had PM Narendra Modi’s image as their display pictures. They said that Vinayakan was a communist and all his movies must be boycotted including the upcoming Thottappan.
After these threats started pouring in, Vinayakan apologised on Facebook and said he meant that the people’s representatives should reflect on the results, and not the people. He also changed his cover picture to an image of lord Ayappa.
The state award-winning actor is not the first from the film industry to be receive threats from right-wing supporters for an opinion against the BJP. Ahead of Lok Sabha elections, KS Radhakrishnan, the BJP candidate from Alappuzha district in Kerala had asked actors “from Mammootty to Fahadh Faasil” to explain the Sri Lankan Easter Sunday attacks. Actor Vijay Sethupathi was also targeted in February when he supported CM Pinarayi Vijayan’s stand that the Sabarimala verdict was correct.
Twitter user Advaidism pointed out similar incident had happened to Kalabhavan Mani in 2014
Even Kalabhavan Mani was attacked in 2014 by Online trolls just like Vinayakan was.
RSS cannot digest the fact that lower caste Hindus are still with LEFT despite playing every trick in the book in Kerala. https://t.co/7xqMv7Seit
— Advaid (@Advaidism) May 31, 2019
Image Courtesy: The Hindu
