Goddess Kali meme: Ukraine defence ministry’s outrageous tweet proves its ‘cool’ to denigrate gods and beliefs of Hindus

On Sunday, Ukraine’s defence ministry, which represents the Volodymyr Zelensky regime, shared a meme via its official Twitter handle that mocked, denigrated, and ridiculed the faith of billions of Hindus around the world. Not only was the morphed image obscene and explicitly Hinduphobic, but also the fact that it was posted by an arm of the Ukrainian government should raise serious questions over Ukraine’s attitude towards India.

The now-deleted tweet juxtaposed an image of plumes of smoke emerging from a Russian fuel storage facility in the Crimean port of Sevastopol, which was allegedly hit by a Ukrainian drone on Saturday, alongside the purported image of Ma Kali in a risqué pose imitating Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe’s ‘flying skirt’ photo from 1954. It carried the caption, ‘work of art’.

It is not clear what the Zelensky regime in Kyiv, which has been at the receiving end of frequent accusations of Nazism even from friendly Western media was hoping to achieve through an image that demeaned a Hindu article of faith, stigmatized Hindus and sought to normalise Hindu hatred.

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Despite its history of  condemning India and voting against the country at the United Nations — not to speak of supplying weapons worth $1.6 billion to Pakistan — the Ukrainians have been demanding India’s support for Western sanctions against Russia and at the UN, and heaping moral opprobrium on New Delhi for its decision to keep purchasing Russian oil. A senior Ukrainian lawmaker had even urged the United States to impose secondary sanctions on India.

Dmytro Kuleba, a former Ukrainian ambassador to India who is now the country’s foreign minister, had accused India of profiting from “Ukrainian blood” and tying it to Kyiv’s assistance in the evacuation of Indian students.

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Ukraine accepts humanitarian aid from India yet takes dramatic, performative moral positions in an attempt to force New Delhi into formulating its foreign policy based on morality, not self-interest. From that moral perch, for Kyiv to not know what causes hurt to the sentiments of billions of Indians who call themselves Hindu, and in effect, mock one of their most revered goddesses with a burlesque caricature that runs a Leopard tank over their faith is shocking, hypocritical and tragic.

Till the time of writing, no apology has come from Kyiv except the deletion of the tweet. Ukraine recently sent its deputy foreign minister Emine Dzhaparova to New Delhi ostensibly to stop moralizing, take a more pragmatic view of India’s compulsions and build better ties with India. Sharing such a blatantly Hinduphobic image won’t help.

The image also raises a larger question. Is mocking Hindu gods and goddesses, and making fun of their cultural beliefs acceptable and not morally onerous because Hindus don’t impose costs on those doing it? The fact is that Ukrainians won’t dare to pull off such a stunt against, for instance, followers of Islam because steep costs are involved, including the possibility of violence, sanctions or both. Denigration of Hindu beliefs, and taking liberties with their gods is safer.

This duality, which has now been normalized in societies across the world, inadvertently incentivizes violence and encourages fundamentalism. It sends a message to Hindus that their pacifism makes it easier for others to play with their sentiments.

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