On Thursday, 31 July, food delivery app Zomato stood up to a bigoted post from a user who did not want a Muslim delivery guy and demanded that the app reassign a Hindu delivery guy to deliver his food. This incident created a lot of buzz on Twitter, with people praising Zomato India for taking a strong stand against bigotry.
Soon after, another post appeared where a Twitter user named Vibhor Anand, a Delhi-based lawyer asked Twitterati if they “get suspicious or slightly uncomfortable” when they get a Muslim driver in Ola/Uber.
He also called it a “simple question”.
Most of Twitterati, however, did not think his question was that simple. The unwarranted and Islamophobic post received a lot of backlash on the micro-blogging site.
‘Get Help’
Another Twitter user listed out names of Uber/Ola drivers who are rape accused and said that if one were to go by that, “women have more reason to suspect non Muslim Uber, Ola drivers than Muslim drivers”.
“A Delhiite, my weird experiences (tho few) were mostly with Hindu men of UP, Delhi and HAR (Jats). But I never saw it via religious lens. Crooks exist everywhere,” she tweeted.
‘What If The Muslim Driver Is Scared Of Lynching?’
A few other Twitter users said they would be uncomfortable thinking if the Muslim driver is scared of being “forced to chant Jai Shri Ram and eventually lynched!”
‘Angry Hanuman Cabs Scarier’
Twitter users also brought up the ‘Angry Hanuman’ posters on the back of cars that had created a lot of noice a while back.
Some said the poster makes them more uncomfortable.
Some Twitter users contradicted this approach saying that judging cabs/cab drivers for having the ‘Angry Hanuman’ posters makes them no different than “this guy who is spewing hate”.
Another Twitter user, meanwhile, pointed that, “Hating someone for their religion is not the same as hating religious fundamentalists”.
‘Bigoted Tweets Are Uncomfortable’
Twitter users also pointed that it’s “bigoted tweets like this” that make them extremely uncomfortable.
“I get very uncomfortable when people post bigoted trash like this against minorities and try to disguise it as a ‘simple question’,” wrote one Twitter user.
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