Telugu Actress Faria Abdullah Addresses Bonalu Trolling

Responding to online trolls, Telugu actress Fariha Abdullah broke down in tears while responding to criticism over her participation in Hyderabad's Bonalu festival. While the traditional festivals celebrated in Telangana, especially in Hyderabad and Secunderabad, honour the goddess Mahakali, and it sees devotees carrying decorated pots of rice, milk and jaggery as offerings. The festival is marked by prayers, music, dance and colourful processions. On the 10th of August, Fariha attended the festivities at the Sri Mahankaleshwara Mavari Temple in Miralam Mandir. Here she carried abonim and joined devotees in the celebrations, videos of the actor dancing to the tapu beats, along with the traditional Pothuraj performers went viral across social media. While many praised the actress for embracing the culture of Telangana, a section of the public and fundamentalists criticised her participation because of her religious identity. In an emotional video posted on her Instagram account, Fariha rejected the criticism and trolling and spoke about her multicultural upbringing. She says her father embraced Islam out of faith and taught her the positive values of the religion. My dad is a converted Muslim bro, do you understand what that means? He got converted to Islam because he liked the religion. Recalling her mother's explanation of God as light and everything, everywhere, Fariha says her message is ultimately about love, unity and peace. She says that she sees life and divinity in everything around her, from trees and rocks to butterflies, while stressing that she will respond to hatred with love and praise for the well-being of those criticising her. And for more on this, our Principal Correspondent Siddharth Empi is joining us on the phone line. Siddharth, what can you tell us? See, basically the actor has taken on the trolls head-on while she is emotionally disturbed and really sorrow-stricken by the kind of comments and trolling that she's been subject to. She's taken the trolls head-on by saying that what kind of an upbringing would I have had if someone is bringing me up with showing me all the good things about the religion because they loved it so much that they wanted to accept it. And she's saying that I've always seen the good about Islam. She also questioned why participating in another community's cultural tradition should be seen as a rejection of one's own religion. So she's actually wishing her trolls well. She's not sort of attacking them or she's not going after them. Instead, what she's doing is she's just defending her actions by saying she grew up in a multicultural background and her upbringing is such that she's been taught to take the good out of every religion and respect those values and traditions. And she's firm that she's not regretting her actions or she's not committed any wrong. And she's telling the trolls to go get a life because she believes that she's done nothing wrong and she believes that this is the kind of faith and the kind of tradition that's been instilled in her by her family. Absolutely, Siddhartha. We understand that many have praised the actress for embracing, you know, the culture of Telangana and participating in the festivities. But the kind of ire that it has drawn also says a lot about, you know, how people are perceiving it. What kind of reactions do you see coming in post, you know, this is broken out? See, largely the controversy has died down after this video has come out because ultimately she has clarified that she has done it out of respect for her own religion and she has also spoken about her family's history and religious past. So I think that has largely settled the issue. But the fact remains that online trolling is a vicious activity that sort of emotionally damages people irrespective of being common people or even celebrities. And this is one of the social evils which is really affecting the mental health of people as is evident in this particular case. She's free as an Indian to follow her own religion and constitutionally and as far as her personal rights are concerned, she's free to follow her own culture and take part in different traditional events based on personal preferences, based on family traditions or based on faith traditions. So, I mean, these kind of things, you know, becoming the target of trolls is absolutely unfortunate. That's all that can be said. Thanks Siddhartha for getting us those details. That was our principal correspondent Siddhartha MP joining us on the phone line.