Religious Blackmail of an Indian Actor

It is unfortunate to observe that Media is becoming a party to exploitations by individuals to meet their narrow personal needs by hook or by crook. The recent case of Actor Emraan Hashmi in claiming with the active and direct support of particularly the visual media that he was denied the purchase of a flat by the Co-operative Society on grounds of being a Muslim is pure and simple blackmail. By projecting it on TVs again and again this will have negative impact and widen the communal bias.

2. It is no body's case that such incidents do not happen in India or other parts of globe. However, India has diverse cultures and traditions which have bearing on social structure of each group. And we cannot force any one to break them to satisfy the ego of a particular person or section of society. For instance no Jain landlord will accommodate a Non-vegitarian tenant or member of their Housing Society irrespective of whether he is a Hindu or Muslim. Like wise, landlords are reluctant to accommodate single females, advocates, Doctors, event managers etc for various valid or invalid reasons. No one can force them to this type of blackmail as Hashmi has tried to play. There are many Group Housing Societies et up by religious groups under many names viz.Islamia, Brahman,Shiva. Then there are Societies based on regional bases, Kangra, South India, Malalyam, Uttarkhand, Gujarati etc. In Delhi we have Societies based on professional links like Press Enclave, RBI Colony, Swasthya Vihar and Nirman Vihar, AGCR colony etc. These groupings were set up as a matter of convenience , cohesiveness and more importantly as a filter to ward off undesirable element. By playing the religious card, Hashmi has adequately proved himself as an undesirable and unwanted person for the Society in question. It is regrettable that media went beyond its brief in this case.