Former cricketer Harbhajan Singh found himself at the receiving end of flack on Twitter after he put out a tweet congratulating the country on the successful launch of Chandrayaan-2.
His tweet said that while some countries have the moon on their flags, other countries have their flags on the moon. The former category, however, defines the flags of Islamic countries, and many found his comment to be distasteful.
‘Rise Above This’
Many Twitter users were not happy with this and Harbhajan was called ‘bigoted’. Activist Kavita Krishnan pointed out that the Nepal flag also has the crescent moon on it. “Literally 'flagging' all 'Muslim' countries, is the essence of Islamophobic baiting & profiling. Wish you cd learn from Sri Lankan cricketers and rise above this,” she tweeted.
Another Twitter user listed out six other non-Islamic countries which have the moon on their flags. “But no one will mention them because 'Its not Kwel',” he tweeted.
Another Twitter user also put up flags of Nepal and Singapore to drive the same point home.
Incidentally, Former Chief Election Commissioner of India (CEC) S Y Quraishi also tweeted the same post. That too, got more or less the same response from Twitterati.
‘Celebrate With Grace’
Journalist Irena Akbar said that we should celebrate with grace and without taking a dig at others. “Some countries sent missions to the moon before we did. What if they had taken a dig at us too,” she wrote.
A few others echoed her thoughts.
But Quiraishi replied with a tweet saying that he was “appalled to see the stupid comments of lots of dimwits on the ‘flag on the moon’ tweet.”
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