On June 12, a lone shooter attacked a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing 50 people and wounding 53 others.
Along with other world leaders, PM Narendra Modi tweeted out his support for the victims and his condolences to the families affected.
Shocked at the shootout in Orlando, USA. My thoughts & prayers are with the bereaved families and the injured.
Activist and artist Rachita Taneja replied to Modi's statement with a series of tweets arguing that he has no right to provide "thoughts and support" to Orlando, given his government's stance on members of the LGBT community in India.
@narendramodi there's no point of giving "thoughts & prayers" to the families of the LGBTQ community in Orlando if you don't walk the talk 1
@narendramodi you have the power to ensure LGBTQ people in your own country don't get harassed, hurt, and criminalised by the state 2
@narendramodi you're quick to show solidarity with the victims of Orlando without acknowledging that your govt is responsible for 3
@narendramodi continuing hate speech against LGBTQ people. Where are you when your party members use hate speehes against the community? 4
@narendramodi stop with this "thoughts & prayers" -- you are in a position to decriminalise millions of LGBTQ Indians and till the time 5
@narendramodi you do that, you don't have a right to show solidarity with the community in Orlando. #scrap377
Although her individual tweets didn't go viral, Rachita took a screenshot of her entire tweet storm, and that was retweeted hundreds of times.
Several Twitter users rallied around her tweets, and felt the same way.
Taneja told BuzzFeed:
"The tweet put out by PM Modi felt like hypocrisy and I wanted to call him out on that, as did many others.
While I didn't expect it to blow up to this extent, this kind of reaction is obvious as so many people care about it and are directly impacted by it. I'm happy that journalists are covering the backlash and talking about it but it's important for Indian media to also be covering the kind of systematic persecution against members of the LGBTQ community that goes unreported - stories of custodial torture and rape, suicide, sexual harassment and hate crimes etc."