Renowned Bollywood actor Naseeruddin Shah recites Hussain Haidry’s inclusive poetry ‘Hindustani Musalman’:
Shah, a couple of years later, created ripples in India and worldwide , when he said that ‘after 70 years I’ve come to realize that as a Muslim I can’t live in India’. READ…
He told The Wire that ever since the flaring up of religious politics by the current (BJP-led) government in India, he has become more aware of his Muslim identity and that he thinks is deeply worrying.
Poet Haidry (who gave up being a highly paid finance professional to pursue writing) wrote the poem when Hindutva (Hindu State ideology) started to emerge as a potent but divisive narrative in world’s largest secularist democracy –on PM Modi’s watch.
According to the Scroll, “Haidry’s recitation of Hindustani Musalman at Kommune, a performing arts forum in Mumbai, was shared by the forum’s Facebook page on February 10, 2017. Within a week, the poem was shared by over 2,000 Facebook users, written about in national newspapers and re-tweeted with comment after comment about how it moved people to tears”.
READ: Who is ‘Hindustani Musalman’, the man behind social media’s favorite poem?
