Mirchi’s RJ Naved spreads communal harmony through a fabulous prank

Prathap Suthan, Chief Creative Officer, Bang In The Middle, lauded Naved’s initiative and said it should be made into a national campaign

Sarmistha Neogy | Mumbai | May 16, 2014

Click on the image to listen to the prank.

Radio Mirchi’s RJ Naved recently, through one of the episodes of his show ‘Radio Murga’, conveyed a very important message to all his listeners, which has gone viral. With the entire nation gripped in the election mania, a though-provoking audio clip like this makes us realise that we need to take a pause in our daily lives for a moment and question ourselves: ‘Are we humans?’

Naved, who loves to be called a social media buff, especially a Facebook lover, is fascinated with the beautiful digital networking world. Like an excited kid, Naved blurted when called up by BestMediaInfo, “You have no idea, I was so thrilled to find all my old friends here on Facebook, I love to go through the beautiful pictures shared by them, interact with my fans and, most importantly, it is my saviour as it reminds me of all the birthdays and anniversaries in my friends circle which otherwise I wouldn’t have remembered!  However, like every good thing, social media also has a negative side if it is misused or falls in the wrong hands.”

Let’s take a flash back of how the events unfolded. Like any other usual day, RJ Naved was checking his Facebook page and he spotted two individuals of different castes, Hindu and Muslim, spreading communal angst about each other. This incident perturbed him to such an extent that he decided to bring them live on his show ‘Mirchi Murga’ to make the two understand how peaceful people like them can also turn communal when some politicians sow the seeds of hatred.

It was not an easy task because both of them were completely unknown to Naved. So his first job was to gather some important information about both of them. He sent out messages to their respective friends on Facebook, requesting them to help him out without letting the duo get a hint about it. On the basis of the information gathered from the friends of these people, Naved found out that they are basically two good human beings, influenced by our politicians who always succeed in spreading venom and polluting innocent minds.

Naved said, “The main objective of playing this prank on them was to covey this message to both the Hindu and Muslim gentlemen: ‘Use your brains wisely. Don’t get influenced’. I made them remember that how their lives would have been shattered if they haven’t had people from the other caste helping them in their hard days. It also took them a while to understand that the comments they have posted on Facebook had been liked and shared by a few others. Thus, they have not only spread animosity within, but also to others in their friends list.”

“I am happy that my small effort not only made the duo feel ashamed of their activity, but it has also got such good reviews. People from all over the country have been congratulating me in my effort to spread secularism.  It feels great to see more than 4.5 lakh views on YouTube and a total of more than 3 lakh people sharing this video clip. I would just like to say one thing before I sign off: Stay Happy, Stay Hindustani,” said RJ Naved cheerfully.

When contacted, Prathap Suthan, Chief Creative Officer, Bang in the Middle, said, “It is a fantastic initiative and I have also shared the audio clip on my Facebook page. A campaign like this should be made a national campaign because we Indians are exactly like this, we allow politicians to play on our weakness for their own ulterior motives.”

Sarmistha@BestMediaInfo.com