Over the past week, criticism on social media of the protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act at Shaheen Bagh has increased. In part, the criticism has been attributed to a video uploaded by Amit Malviya, chief of the BJP's IT operations. The video alleges the protest at Shaheen Bagh was not spontaneous but was an orchestrated campaign involving payment of up to Rs 700 per protester.
Two women participating in the protest sent Malviya a defamation notice of Rs 1 crore for allegedly attempting to defame them.
It appears the 'cash for protest' allegation has been taken too seriously by some. On Sunday, Gulf News, a newspaper published in Dubai, reported that a consultant based in the Emirate had told a job seeker to stop looking for work and instead join the protest at Shaheen Bagh.
Gulf News reported that Abdulla S.S., a Keralite, had applied for a mechanical engineer's post in a Dubai-based company to a consultancy run by one Jayant Gokhale.
In screenshots of the email exchange uploaded by Gulf News, Abdulla purportedly mentions he was willing to work without salary for the training period.
However, the purported response by Jayant Gokhale dated January 23 is shocking: “Just a thought. Why u need a job? Go to Delhi and sit in Shaheen Bagh for protest. Every day you will get Rs 1,000. Free food i.e Biryani, Unlimited amount of tea and milk, some time sweets also."
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The email screenshots were shared on social media by some associates of Abdulla, who demanded action against Gokhale. Abdulla himself told Gulf News, "I don’t want any controversy. All I want is a job."
Jayant Gokhale also sent a statement to Gulf News, declaring his response to the email "is being blown out of proportion". He wrote, “My message to candidate was not intended to hurt anyone in any manner or discriminate. I have already sent apology message to the concerned person [Abdulla]... I very much value UAE’s outlook, policies and culture. I do not in anyway like to go against values of UAE...”
Ironically, like in many such instances of trolling, the wrong Jayant Gokhale was subjected to abuse over the incident on Facebook. The other Jayant Gokhale, who is apparently based in Mumbai, posted on Facebook that he had "been receiving multiple messages threatening... legal action and with abusive language on Facebook messenger & LinkedIn" for two days. He told Gulf News the "confusion arose because we share the same name and have Dubai connections".
