Shah Rukh Khan’s prayer for iconic singer Lata Mangeshkar at her cremation in Mumbai on Sunday sparked outrage on social media because of the way he prayed for the departed soul. Several Twitter users, including Haryana’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) IT in-charge Arun Yadav, questioned if Khan spits during his prayer after videos of him reciting a ‘dua’ (prayer) near to Mangeshkar’s mortal remains surfaced.
On Sunday, Khan paid his respects to Bharat Ratna Lata Mangeshkar at Shivaji Park. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar, and actor Aamir Khan were among those in attendance.
Khan lifted his hands in dua and then removed his mask to blow air as he came onto the platform with his manager Pooja Dadlani to send a last farewell to the icon. He clasped his hands and encircled Lataji’s body to pay homage. After the dua, he blows air, which has been misinterpreted as him ‘spitting’.
According to Professor Akhtarul Wasey, Board of Studies, Department of Islamic Studies, Maulana Azad National Urdu University in Jodhpur, the gesture of blowing air after reading a dua is a traditional Islamic practice during funerals. ‘When a Muslim attends the last rites of a near one, they read prayers and then blow air like (SRK did). This is their way to say a final goodbye. This shouldn’t be seen in a wrong way’, said Wasey.
Several others retweeted the video, calling it a faith-based act. Congress lawmaker BV Srinivas, actress Urmila Matondkar and Bollywood film producer Priya Gupta were among them.
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Some individuals even attempted to justify the conduct by tweeting a scene from the 2010 Karan Johar film ‘My Name is Khan’, in which SRK’s character is seen blowing air on his son after praying.
Following the outrage on Twitter over this bigotry, Haryana BJP leader Arun Yadav attempted to claim that he was only inquiring about what Khan had done, but the criticism of his tweet only showed that opponents of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath don’t like his work in national interests.
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