'Keep Sana out of it,' Sourav Ganguly tweets after daughter indirectly calls BJP government 'fascist'

In what seemed to be an indirect attack on the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, Sana Ganguly, daughter of former India captain Sourav Ganguly, shared an Instagram post with an extract from one of late author Khushwant Singh's books.

The post, since then, has been deleted but it came in for a lot of attention and led to a great deal of commentary, both in favour and against it. This prompted Dada to entreat people to keep his daughter out of the debate.

"Please keep Sana out of all this issues .. this post is not true .. she is too young a girl to know about anything in politics," the former India skipper wrote on his timeline.

Sana's Post

But enough people had taken a screenshot of the post to share it wildly on social media. What Sana shared was an extract from late author Khushwant Singh's book 'The End of India,' written way back in 2003. This book came out as a response to the thumping victory of BJP in the Gujarat elections of 2002 which took place in the aftermath of the infamous riots earlier that year.

The extract reads: "Every fascist regime needs communities and groups it can demonize in order to thrive. It starts with one group or two. But it never ends there. A movement built on hate can only sustain itself by continually creating fear and strife. Those of us today who feel secure because we are not Muslims or Christians are living in a fool's paradise.

"The Sangh is already targeting the Leftist historians and "Westernized" youth. Tomorrow it will turn its hate on women who wear skirts, people who eat meat, drink liquor, watch foreign films, don't go on annual pilgrimages to temples, use toothpaste instead of danth manjan, prefer allopathic doctors to vaids, kiss or shake hands in greeting instead of shouting 'Jai Shri Ram'. No one is safe. We must realize this if we hope to keep India alive."

Truth of the matter

While the request from Ganguly to keep his daughter out of the acerbic debate going on in the country over Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) can be construed as an understandable paternal response caused by anxiety over her daughter coming in between the verbal crossfire on social media, his comment that "this post is not true" does not hold much water.

The screenshots of the post suggest it was indeed Sana Ganguly and not any imposter who put up this message. It is worth mentioning here that Sourav Ganguly has been seen by many as a possible Chief Ministerial candidate from BJP for the 2021 West Bengal state Assembly elections.

However, a couple of days ago, BJP President and Union Home Minister Amit Shah said categorically in a television interview on Aaj Tak that there have been no discussions between BJP and Ganguly on this possibility.

Earlier this year, Ganguly took over as the chief of Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) while Jay Shah, Amit Shah's son, became the secretary of the organisation. In light of these connections, Ganguly's more formal response to this controversy would be interesting to see.