KANNUR: Amid the fervour that marked Milad un Nabi on Monday that commemorates the Prophet’s birthday, the social media was awash with posters containing quotes hailing Prophet Muhammad in the name of the Democratic Youth Federation of India(DYFI) Kannur city unit.When contacted, DYFI district secretary V K Sanoj denied that the posters were brought out by the outfit or its local units in the district. However, he revealed that he had indeed come across the posters on the social sites.
Interestingly, the quotes lauding the Prophet were juxtaposed with the images of various renaissance leaders and political leaders. Curiously, none of these posters could be seen at any of the city areas or across Kannur.While one of the posters depicted Fidel Castro praising the Prophet as a true Socialist, another had the picture of Sreenarayana Guru, referring to the Prophet as a pearl and diamond. Similarly, there were posters of Swami Vivekananda, Gandhiji, Jayalalithaa and others hailing the Prophet.
The only one in the list, who is not so popular-- at least in this part of the globe-- is Arnoud van Doorn, former far-right politician from the anti-Islamic Dutch Freedom Party, who later embraced Islam.The posters became a talking point especially in the wake of the criticism levelled at the CPM by political adversaries and hard-line Hindutva proponents for its failure to celebrate any festival belonging to the minority community. However, the absence of these posters on the streets created ambiguity and the real purpose behind posting them on the social sites remained mired in mystery. Earlier, the Marxists had drawn flak for organising parallel celebration on Janmashtami and Ganesh Utasav, celebrated by the BJP and the RSS in Kannur.