What did some Kerala medical students do when a BJP sympathiser communally attacked their two friends for dancing to Boney M’s famous Rasputin song? They, too, danced. After the video of two medical students from Thrissur Medical College — Naveen K Razak and Janaki M Omkumar — dancing to the Rasputin song with their impressive dance moves went viral, an advocate and BJP sympathiser named Krishna Raj ‘advised’ Janaki’s parents to be ‘careful’ as a Naveen is a Muslim. As his Facebook post received flak, messages of solidarity, too, poured in for the two medical students, with a group of other medical students protesting the hate message by emulating the viral video.
In a video, which has been posted on Aikya College Union 19-20, the official Facebook page of the college union of Thrissur Medical College, a few students can be seen emulating the same dance moves by Janaki and Naveen. The students are dancing in their blue scrubs and masks. In the final move, Janaki and Naveen, too, join them in white casual outfits.
The video was accompanied by a strong message against hate speech: “If the intention is hate, then the decision is to resist. #resisthate.” Taking a dig at Krishna Raj for his “effort” to find Naveen’s surname, the students tagged the respective Facebook pages of every person in the video, including the medical students who shot and edited it. “You will find more details of each person if you search the head (first name) and tail (surname) of their names, to put a Facebook post accordingly,” the post read.
Naveen and Janaki first put the viral video as part of the popular Rasputin TikTok dance challenge. People from across the world danced to a portion of the song and posted it on the video-sharing social media network. Janaki and Naveen’s video received appreciation from all quarters and was widely shared as well.
Watch: More students take up Rasputin dance challenge in protest
On Thursday, Krishna Raj, who has sizeable followers on Facebook, decided to give a communal spin to the viral video, saying that he “smells something wrong” in two medical students dancing. He even remarked that if Janaki’s parents are not careful, “they won’t have to be sorry later, as Nimisha’s mother has proven.” Nimisha alias Fathima was one of the women who had converted to Islam and left Kerala between 2016 and 2018 to join the terror outfit Islamic State in Afghanistan.
Responding to the post, Naveen told the media they are not bothered by the communal remarks as they are the new generation. Janaki, too, said that she and her family considered the comments not worth reacting to.