Much ado about Muslim girls' flash mob

Malappuram: Three Muslim girls,   who dared to perform a flash mob on a highway during an awareness rally held by the district administration and health department to mark the World AIDS Day here on December 1, have received bouquets and brickbats from different quarters.  The video of the act performed by the girls wearing  headscarves went viral on the social media  on Sunday  triggering a debate for and against it.   It may be  pointed out that a flash mob  is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then quickly disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire and artistic expression.  

The religious zealots launched  a tirade against the girls for the video set  to the tune of the hit song Jimikki Kammal, while a large number of persons came in support of the girls. Many  opined that the performance was an assertion of Muslim girls’ openness and that society should take note of it especially in the wake of allegations of oppression faced by  women in the community.  Even Popular Friend of India, considered as a  radical Islamist outfit, supported  the performance which passed off unnoticed at Malappuram and gained attention only after the video was uploaded on social media sites.     

“The conservatives often berate Muslim girls for not wearing the hijab,” said Basheer Vallikkunnu, a commentator with a large following on Facebook.  “Now they cannot stomach the fact that the girls are performing with hijab. It’s ironic,”  he said. C.P. Mohammadali, a social media commentator, pointed out that the incident showed  that Malappuram is not an abode of medieval religious obscurantist.     It may be recalled  that a girl performing in a flash mob dance was slapped in public at Kannur recently while in Kochi a girl was subjected to moral policing by cops while she was walking alone at night.