Twitter buzz after Malayalam critic M M Basheer aborts his Ramayana column

M M Basheer chose to write on Valmiki's interpretation of Rama and landed in controversy.

Staff correspondent, September 4, 2015, NewsCrunch

Malayalam Muslim critic M M Basheer aborted a six-column series on Ramayana, which he was writing for  Matrubhumi.

The former professor of Calicut university said he was getting calls from people identifying themselves as Hindus and saying he did not have a right to write on Ramayana, reports The Indian Express.

Last year, Basheer had done another series dwelling on the godly-qualities of Rama and it had passed on without any incident. This  year he chose to write on Valmiki's interpretation of Rama. Valmiki treats Rama as human and questions many of his actions such as subjecting Sita to agni pariksha.

People who called Basheer were reportedly upset that a Muslim was criticising Rama treating him as an ordinary man.

The controversy found its echo on Twitter where many agreed with the sentiments of the Hindu groups in opposing a Muslim scholar writing on Ramayana.

The conservative Hindu opinion also asked if Basheer would dare to write critically about Islam  or Christianty.

Almost no one in this group went into the nuances of the issue and examined if Basheer had read Valmiki right.

However, there were also a few tweets in support of Basheer. One of them said India was not Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan to enforce that only Hindus could comment on Ramayana.

Twitter chatter on Malayalam critic Basheer's Ramayana controversy