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OPEN LETTER TO PM MODI SIR, YOU RESPECT DIVERSITY BUT RSS MOURNS IT, WHOM DO WE BELIEVE? My Dear Prime Minister Modi ji, Namaskar. It is heartening to note that you as PM of our democratic-secular state have underlined the great diversities in the Indian nation which needed to be celebrated. While addressing a conference on 'Islamic Heritage: Promoting Understanding and Moderation' in the presence of the King of Jordan, Abdullah II in Delhi on March 1, 2018 you were kind enough to declare that India's democracy was "a celebration of our age-old plurality" recalling that "religions and beliefs from all over the world" flourished in the country. It was great to hear you to commit that "We Indians are proud of our diversity." While specially addressing the Muslim youth of India you were kind enough to advise them to hold Quran in one hand and computer in the other for an all-inclusive progress and welfare. However, I would beg to say that this call for Quran or any other scripture in one hand is a risky proposition. The US taught Afghan youth Quran in one hand and AK47 in other hand and what price Afghan Muslims paid for it is well known. Read the whole letter....
2020 •
The Contemporary India is witnessing an unprecedented situation. The organized and state sponsored attack on minorities particularly Muslims is rampant in India today. The Muslims are passing through an extremely tough situation. They are in terrible agony. The enemies are openly terrifying them and desperately trying to drive them out of their land. The task that lies ahead of Muslims in India is challenging, one that entails them to strive hard. Today’s Muslim leaders and scholars must rise to the challenges and accept their duties with truthfulness and honesty, and use all the means at their disposal to face the challenges facing Indian Muslims.
2013 •
Narendra Modi who is chief minister of a state in India functioning as a constitutional authority under a democratic-secular constitution of India. However, he declares himself to be a 'Hindu Nationalist' trained by RSS and a practitioner of Hindutva politics. This is bizarre. In this open letter he is being reminded that it was a group of 'Hindu Nationalists' which assassinated MK Gandhi, regarded by many as Father of the Indian Nation. The RSS/Hindutva documents are quoted in this letter showing that they do not believe in a democratic-secular set-up. This group decries Indian National Flag, sympathises with Nazis/Fascists and wants India to be ruled by one ideology and one leader.They want to impose Code of Manu and make women and Dalits slaves. It is hoped that Modi will respond to the issues raised in this letter. July 17, 2013.
In an interview to CNN’s Freed Zakaria ahead of his US visit, Prime Minister Modi said that Indian Muslims would live and die for India and would not want to do anything bad for India. (Express News Service, 2014). PM Modi while addressing a gathering at the Nazerbayev University in Astana, the capital of Kazakastan on 8th July 2015, underlined the common Islamic heritage of both Indian and Central Asia which, according to him, would always reject the forces of extremism. According to the Indian PM, the Islamic heritage of both India and Central Asia, founded on the principle of love and devotion, was defined by the highest ideals of Islam, viz. knowledge, piety, compassion and welfare. “The dargahs of Delhi resonate with Sufi music that draws people from all faiths”, he said (PTI, 2015a), (PTI, 2015). The PM made similar statement earlier in Nay Pyi Taw delinking religion and terror (Sasi, 2014). Minister of Home Affairs Rajnath Singh too claimed that Indian Muslims were patriots and that Islamic State (IS) had failed to attract them (Bohra, 2015).
'RSS is not just antithetical to Muslims, but to a democratic-secular India as well.' Professor JS Bandukwala wrote a piece titled 'Muslims and RSS cannot afford to go on hating' in The Indian Express (May 27, 2016). His take was that RSS and Muslims should patch up. [Link: http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/narendra-modi-assam-elections-indian-muslims-rss-modi-govt-2820928/] I responded through the following rejoinder arguing that RSS is not anti-Muslim only but anti-secular-democratic India. Can there be a patch up? We should not forget that as the largest minority in India Muslims are generally poor and their survival with other demarginalized sections of Indians depends on the continuation of a democratic-secular polity.[Link: http://indianexpress.com/article/blogs/rss-is-not-just-antithetical-to-muslims-but-to-a-democratic-secular-india-as-well-2845298/]
"UNDOING DEMOCRATIC-SECULAR INDIA: THE HINDUTVA WAY Shamsul Islam (notoinjustice@gmail.com) The most prominent flag-bearer of Hindutva politics; the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh1 (RSS), since its birth in 1925, has been steadfastly working for turning India into a theocratic state. It enjoyed the support of a section of high-caste Hindu society but with the formation of the National Democratic Alliance governments[1 998-2004], RSS greatly accelerated its old favourite pastime of turning India into a Hindu Rashtra and minority-bashing as part of Hindutva project. The then Sarsanghchalak or the Supremo of the RSS, KS Sudershan while addressing a rally on the eve of the 75th founding day of the RSS in Nagpur, called upon the Muslims and Christians of the country to prove their patriotism. Later, the RSS at the end of its Bangalore session on March 7, 2002, came out with another warning to the Muslims: “Let the Muslims understand that their real safety lies in the good-will of the majority”. This statement came in the aftermath of the carnage of the Muslims allegedly organized by the cadres of the RSS in Gujarat. How the Muslims and other minorities could earn RSS ‘good-will’ was clear by the following words of an editorial in The Hindustan Times: Daughters were gang-raped in front of their fathers and then had their heads bashed in. Their fathers were doused with petrol and set on fire. Their property was looted. Their businesses were destroyed. And the police stood by and did nothing.2 It is really atrocious that an organization, which had been banned at least twice for anti-national activities by the Government of India after Independence should pose as the controlling authority of patriotism in the country. Should we once again refresh the memory of the RSS brass that their rabid communal organization was banned in 1948 for collaborating in the murder of Father of the Nation M. K. Gandhi,3 and in 1992 it was again banned for demolishing the Babri mosque at Ayodhya? Do we also need to tell the RSS that misadventures like the demolition of the Babri mosque, the large scale pogrom of the Muslims in Gujarat, violence against Christians and Dalits by its outfits only served the strategic goals of the enemies of India like the ISI of Pakistan who wanted to see an India fractured, and at war with itself? The RSS and its leadership historically have been great worshippers of Hitler and Mussolini and their ideas. Nazism and Fascism have greatly moulded the ideological as well as organizational frameworks of the RSS. They do not hide this love. The RSS does not hate minorities only, it publicly wants to build up an India of Manu’s dehumanizing ideas and establish a theocracy in which the Dalits/Untouchables, lower castes, downtrodden and women amongst the Hindus will have no humane or respectable existence. It is to be noted that anti-minority rhetoric is only a strategy to camouflage its anti-national designs. It is high time that the people of this country scrutinize the record of patriotism and loyalty to the Nation of the RSS itself. Unfortunately, the RSS, which is fond of demanding unwavering and unflinching loyalty to the nation from the minorities, is loyal neither to the Constitution of India nor to the National Flag. The RSS is an organization which openly decries the existence of a democratic, federal and secular India; and these characteristics are the ‘Basic’ features of the Constitution of India. It is an organization which not only openly decried the Freedom Movement against the British rule but also made fun of the heroic and patriotic revolutionary tradition of great martyrs like Bhagat Singh and his companions who laid down their lives for the liberation of the Motherland. In order to know the truth we will simply have to make access to the literature and publications of the RSS and its different outfits, specially the writings of M.S. Golwalkar who, as an ideologue is religiously followed by the bosses and cadres of the RSS. Here it is attempted to present the original and official viewpoints of the RSS on different aspects of Indian Nation, so that there is no room to allege that they have been misrepresented. It must be stressed here that it is the need of the hour that we know about the RSS and its game plan. It is no more a fringe organization now, as the present BJP leaders have declared their open allegiance to the RSS. They have even told the Nation that the RSS to them is what Gandhi was to Nehru! Interestingly, the RSS, despite these claims and declarations, denies any political role for itself! It claims to be just a cultural organization of the Hindus. It is hoped that with all these facts available (from horse’s mouth itself) our nation and the world will get familiarized with the real face and intentions of the RSS, otherwise it may be too late to save our dear Motherland.
Mutual coexistence, cooperation and genuine understanding among different religious nations is a need for global peace and harmonious livings. And more so it is an urgent call today in India. We are facing communal polarization at its peak both on religious as well as caste basis. Our citizens are being killed, lynched and inhumanly treated by both religious terrorists and communal goons! Is it the India that the father of this Nation Mahatma Gandhi had dreamt about? Today on his 148th birth university and in this International Day of Nonviolence we the Indians need to ask ourselves as what might have gone wrong with us? Why our country is gradually reducing into a boiling volcano? Coexistence is a two-way effect. The parties sharing same interest should come ahead to understand each other. Need of the time is to utilize modern recourses while bridging gapes and making stronger relationship than ever before among all major religions being practiced in India like Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism and Christianity. Our strength is unity and our idea is ‘unity in diversity’. The more we enjoy this idea of India the more respectable and stronger we will be at home as well as in abroad. The modern fathers of this nation – Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. BR Ambedkar, Maulana AK Azad and their likes have chosen it to be – a cosmo, a nation with innumerable differences but one and a proud India. We need to abolish hatred from the roots – from school level. It is the political history of India which is seeding enmity. It is our political rhetoric which is problematic. Let us diagnose the actual problems sooner than later and fix them there only. No religion or religious text preaches hatred, it is we the upholder of religions who make it our way to befit our interests.
2007 •
Hindu Muslim relations are in a rout. Fear and prejudice have been weaponized. To discuss this, I'm joined by A. Faizur Rahman, a prominent Indian Muslim thinker and Secretary General of the Islamic Forum for the Promotion of Moderate Thought.
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