Shehla Rashid Breaks Down In 5 Tweets How BJP Ensures Muslims Stay Away From Mainstream

Shehla Rashid, former vice president of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union and a Ph.D scholar, explained how the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) has ensured that Muslims are driven away from the mainstream.

Rashid posted a series of tweets on Sunday:

1) When BJP appeals to Muslims to come to the mainstream, it’s a drama. They do not want Muslims in the mainstream. They are actively driving us away from the mainstream, by abusing us, targeting us systematically, spreading fake news about us, instigating hatred against us, etc.

— Shehla Rashid (@Shehla_Rashid) July 8, 2018

2) Muslims who are in the mainstream are the ones who are fighting against orthodoxy, fundamentalism and extremism. By picking us out as targets and labeling us terrorists, etc., BJP weakens the fight against extremism. That makes sense because BJP itself is extremist.

— Shehla Rashid (@Shehla_Rashid) July 8, 2018

3) I’m labeled an Islamist extremist terrorist. So is @RanaAyyub and other moderate Muslims. We are subjected to the worst of abuses, fake news, targeting to the point where we are totally demonized. Whose purpose does this serve? We are the Muslim women BJP claims to fight for.

— Shehla Rashid (@Shehla_Rashid) July 8, 2018

4) While we have to fight extremist tendencies arising out of a minoritarian victimhood complex, we are also victims of majoritarian extremism. By insisting that we are “Islamic extremists”, BJP actually weakens the fight against extremism. This serves the agenda of extremists.

— Shehla Rashid (@Shehla_Rashid) July 8, 2018

5) It also gives extremists, absolutists and naysayers the chance to say, “Oh, Look! There’s no place for us in the mainstream.”

Every time a moderate Muslim is targeted by the BJP, it only confirms the biases of those who insist that Muslims should keep away from the mainstream

— Shehla Rashid (@Shehla_Rashid) July 8, 2018