Yes, just a small step and it grew into a big one!
On 22nd October 2015, 36-year old Ram Subramanian, who is formerly settled in Bandra, Mumbai and is a writer & an ad filmmaker by profession, was all set to broadcast a selfie photo denoting a deep and profound message to the millions of people around stating that “there is a limit to every action, that too which includes banning of Pakistani artists”.
Now, what made him do so? Here lies one of those abyssal undisclosed facts which enforced not only him but also many of the people around who participated in this viral campaign knowing the issues and the truths lying behind it. Going beneath the story, most of us know that there were a series of different protests regarding anti-Pakistan thoughts by the major Shiv Sena group which definitely gave rise to several campaigns online that were focused on abandoning “hate politics” and were giving their endless efforts to cultivate amicable relationships between the two neighbouring countries- “India” and “Pakistan”. Adding up more, during these days there have been many such occurrences of antagonism against Pakistan by the various political leaders.
Just three days back, in an event where few Pakistani actors who took part in a play were agitated vigorously by some men who later believed to be from Shiv Sena. Soon there was a ban on writers, artists and persons from other backgrounds like sportsperson etc and they had to face a lot of hate politics over the couple of 2 weeks. Not only this, there has been commotions between India and Pakistan for above 50 years, both the country have been in this position since the 40’s over expansionism and various disputes over land. In fact, they have had many such battles between them following the loss of life of boundless people over the past years. Seeing through the history between them, just a few days back, Pakistan’s prime minister made India aware of the fact that his country will be tight in their defending positions if India persists to grow up strong armours.
Henceforth, in between such rising tension on either side of the border, a beautiful message regarding love and peace is being dispersed through the whole social media movement by the people of both India and Pakistan to show comradeship. Subramanian, a citizen of India and founder and director of the Handloom Picture Company, having enough of such antipathy, took the whole matter into his hand. With the help of the social media, he posted a simple picture of his own holding a paper note in front of him conveying his deep feelings about Pakistan. Yes, his “just a Simple” idea expanded like a fire and went viral within a few hours among the thousands of people on both the sides who also decided to join their hands in this campaign spreading the same message with their selfies on the internet through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
He changed his profile photo on Facebook, holding that note which quoted – “I am an Indian. I am from Mumbai. I don’t hate Pakistan. I am not alone. There are many people like me.”
Along with that, there was a caption which stated that- “This is the idea. Do join in if you believe in peace being the way forward. Write this message on a post-it note, take a selfie and make it your profile picture #ProfileForPeace. No more artists being banned. This is my voice. This is our voice for our Mumbai, our India. Enough of hate politics. #SpeakUp.”
When asked, he stated that – “It had been brewing in my head ever since I heard of a series of bans and attacks. Most of us common blokes don’t feel such hate nor want these fights. And when you close the doors to art you open up a door for dark and unwanted things to come in, It’s important at this point to communicate with each other, and the internet allows us to do that.” (Source: TOI)
In fact, he asked people to join in this campaign using the hashtag #ProfileForPeace and motivated them whether they want to speak up or want to voice up against hate politics. Subsequently, people thought that this idea might bring in some changes and hence they put forward their contributions to foster this campaign.
Within a few hours, thousands of people from India and Pak like Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Mumbai, Kashmir, Lahore, Karachi etc started changing their Facebook DP’s just the similar way like Ram Subramanian suggested, like holding or displaying their warm lovely note stating their place, their feelings and a deep warning saying that they aren’t alone in this case.
Starting from Facebook, it jumped over to Twitter and Instagram and the posts increased highly by the seconds. As for now, Indians and Pakistanis are posting their selfies along with the hashtag to spread and express their love and affection for each other. Now they are least bothered about the political parties who always have variant concepts and who always try to keep the two nation split like this.
Few Indians who posted some of their acceptations on social media-
Sudheendra Kulkarni, who was a victim of the attacks by Shiv Sena, for participating in Pakistani minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri’s Event on the book launch, said on his Twitter account, “Let us – Indians and Pakistanis – make #ProfileForPeace a massively powerful people’s campaign to isolate hate-mongers on both sides.”
Vishal Dadlani tweeted, “#ProfileForPeace because only love can defeat politically-generated hatred! Thanks, @TweetOfRam, for starting this,” along with a picture of his own.
The #ProfileForPeace pictures also flooded Facebook and Twitter, and they were surely a ‘pleasant sight’.
Ram Subramanian has no idea that his remarkable campaign with the simple hashtag can go such viral that it would be taken into consideration so highly by both the border’s people that would initiate a nationwide movement at its best.
