WHEN people of India reel under unprecedented violence against women, the working class, Dalits, tribals and minorities, along with price rise, unemployment, corruption, closure of schools, exclusion of marginalised Indians from higher education, and countless paper leaks in the Amrit Kaal of RSS-BJP rule, a well-off section of “Muslim intellectuals” remains detached from this reality.
According to the 2011 Census, approximately 80% of India’s population are Hindus. Yet these intellectuals, who have long been part of the ruling elite, are busy legitimising the extra-constitutional fountainhead of Hindutva rulers — the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh — using Indian Muslims as an alibi.
It was made public by a journalist, Mohammed Wajihuddin, who specialises in Muslim issues under the title ‘Mir Taqi Mir of contemporary India’. According to his celebratory report, several former bureaucrats, scholars and activists attended the inaugural meeting of the newly launched initiative Citizens for Fraternity (CFF)-Bharat in New Delhi on June 3, 2024. He wrote: “At the outset, senior journalist Javed M Ansari, who moderated the show, declared that it was a completely non-political platform and the only purpose of the group was to promote peace, harmony, and fraternity through dialogue.” The report quoted the following words of ‘the initiative’s moving force, Najeeb Jung, retired IAS, former VC of Jamia Millia Islamia and former Lt-Governor of Delhi’:
“Despite opposition from within the community, we are going ahead. None of us intends to join any political party and fight elections. We are in pain at the way the two communities are increasingly seeing each other with suspicion”.
According to this narrative, retired IAS and former Chief Election Commissioner SY Qureshi informed the gathering that units of CFF would be opened first in all the state capitals and then in districts across the country. Both Jung and Qureshi mentioned their meeting with RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat a couple of years ago. According to Qureshi, “We were attacked by our community members for meeting Bhagwat Ji. But we believe only dialogue can lead us to find a solution…We asked Bhagwat Ji how would Muslims be treated in Hindu Rashtra. He said India cannot be imagined without its Muslim population”.
Wajihuddin also recollected that “when five prominent Muslims, including Jung, Qureshi, Nai Duniya editor Shahid Siddiqui, Lt-General (rtd) Zameer Uddin Shah and businessman Saeed Sherwani met Bhagwat on August 22, 2022 in New Delhi to discuss communal harmony and ease interfaith tensions, they were slammed by a section of the community…They accused us of having made a deal with the RSS chief. Regardless of the criticism, we continue to believe in dialogue”.
Sharing other details, Wajihuddin wrote that before IGNCA president and senior journalist-scholar Dr Ram Bahadur Rai (a renowned Bhumihaar face of RSS who has been given charge of IGNCA as a sinecure in his old age for services done to the Hindutva cause as a media person) made his presidential remarks, former bureaucrat Inderjit Khanna, former diplomat Ashok Sharma, former VC of South Asian University Dr Kavita A Sharma and senior RSS functionary Ram Lal too spoke and reiterated the need to end the toxicity created in our environment. Ram Lal who eloquently advocated establishing contacts, removing misunderstanding and creating bonds among community leaders, was asked many questions. Lal quipped: “The main organiser is Jung Sahab, but most questions are being directed at me.”
Wajihuddin also joined the deliberation when he stated: “As is my wont, I too fired a salvo… I quoted an anecdote. Directing my question to Lal, I said that Indian Muslims have become “Mir Taqi Mir” of contemporary times. And thereby hangs a tale. I said that legend has it that in his deathbed, Mir Mutaqqi, a practising Sufi, summoned his two sons, Mir Taqi Mir (1723-1810), who would become a famous poet later and his stepbrother Hassan, and told them that he wanted them to divide among themselves the two things he was leaving behind: some debts to pay back and a collection of 300 books. However, Mir’s stepbrother did not listen to their dying father’s directive and grabbed the books, making Mir to pay back the debts alone.
“Indians Muslims are in the situation of Mir Taqi Mir today. They are being asked to pay for the debts of the past. They are being blamed for partition, for destroying temples, for starting riots…Lal heard me patiently and replied that the situation will improve”.
Mohammed Wajihuddin rightly stated that a delegation of five ‘Muslim intellectuals’ namely former chief election commissioner SY Quraishi, former senior bureaucrat Najeeb Jung, former AMU vice-chancellor and Lt-Gen (retd) Zameer U Shah, politician-cum-journalist Shahid Siddiqui (then in RLD) and businessman Saeed Shervani [then in Samajvadi Party] met RSS supremo, Mohan Bhagwat at the palatial RSS headquarters in Delhi. The meeting was kept secret for reasons known to the participants which took place on August 22, 2022.
According to these ‘Muslim intellectuals,’ the meeting held in “a very cordial” atmosphere continued for 75 minutes whereas the time allotted was 30 minutes! In a post-meeting justification of the parleys, Quraishi stated that their main concern was “the insecurity being increasingly felt by the Muslim community in the wake of recurring incidents of lynching of innocents, calls by Hindutva hotheads for genocide and the marginalisation of the community in almost every sphere”. [The Indian Express, September 26]
This delegation, consisting of high-ranking former Indian government administrators, a top-most military commander and two members of Parliament are expected to be familiar with the protocols of a democratic constitutional polity that the above-mentioned issues fall in the realm of governance. They should have met the Indian PM or the Home Minister to demand corrective measures. If not satisfied they should have approached the President of India and judiciary. However, they decided to approach RSS top brass which has no legal sanctity.
They may rightly argue that since RSS controls BJP [RSS does not hide the fact that BJP is its political appendage (RSS Hindi publication Parm Vaibhav ke Path Per, 1997) and BJP rulers from PM to most of his cabinet members, BJP CMs and Governors of States publicly declare to be RSS members) why not approach the source of power itself! Did these ‘‘Muslim intellectuals’’ believe that they were living during extra-constitutional times?
Surprisingly, the moderator, Javed M Ansari remained blind to this reality and declared that “it was a completely non-political platform”!
This model, opted by ‘Muslim intellectuals’, presents a horrendous option for the largest minority of India and other smaller minorities in India. When being persecuted, do not rely on institutions of democratic-secular Indian polity but go and beg for life and safety from the perpetrator rapists, killers and marauders. Their suggestion to the persecuted minorities in Pakistan, Hindus, Christians, Shias and Ahmadiyas shall be do not expect protection from the State but enter into ‘peace pacts’ with the blood-thirsty Islamist gangs.
Another troubling issue is how these ‘Muslim intellectuals’ concluded that RSS represents all Hindus of India. Have they lost faith in the common Hindus who do not support RSS and remain faithful to the democratic-secular polity of India? Did it not strike to them that in the recently concluded West Bengal assembly elections, despite RSS-BJP turning it into Hindu versus Muslims and disenfranchisement of millions of voters, courtesy a spineless Election Commission and higher judiciary, they could secure only 46.4% of the polled votes?
And, by the way, under what authority do this bunch of ‘Muslim intellectuals’ present themselves as representative of Indian Muslims!
‘Muslim intellectuals’ wishing to open a Hot Line with the de facto ruler of India, RSS, should have done homework on cow-slaughter before the meeting. It was MS Golwalkar, the most important ideologue of RSS, claiming that in 1966 (RSS publication ‘Spotlight’), cow-slaughter began with the arrival of Muslims who wanted to “stamp out every vestige of self-respect in Hindus”. It is not corroborated even by Swami Vivekananda, who stated (February 2, 1900): “You will be astonished if I tell you that, according to old ceremonials, he is not a good Hindu who does not eat beef.” The beef-slaughter as a Muslim crime is the creation of RSS hate propaganda. A large number of Dalits and Christians also consume beef. The ‘Muslim intellectuals’ should have informed Mohan Bhagwat that RSS-BJP-run governments in Goa and all north-eastern states allow cow-slaughter. Then why punish Muslims and Dalits only? Did this group do it?
RSS organisations have been in the forefront of spreading the bogey that in a few decades, Muslims would outnumber Hindus in India. The ‘Muslim intellectuals’ should have shared with Mohan Bhagwat that despite 1,000 years of repressive Muslim rule (as claimed by RSS) the first census in India held in 1871-72 recorded: “140½ millions of Hindus and Sikhs, or 73½ per cent., 40¾ millions of Muslims, or 21½ per cent.” Now Muslims constitute only 14% of the population. He also should have been told that in the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK population of Hindus has increased by almost 100% in last one decade or so. Should it be a matter of alarm for Christians of these countries? Only racists bother about increase/decrease in population of any section in their respective countries.
‘Muslim intellectuals’ looking for salvation at the altar of RSS must not forget that Muslims/Islam or other minorities in India can survive only when the Indian democratic-secular-egalitarian polity framed under the guidance of Dr BR Ambedkar survives. It may have many infirmities, but is the only guarantee against majoritarianism or Hindutva bigotry.
In this regard RSS is not only antithetical to Muslims but Indian democratic-secular Constitution. The Indian Constituent Assembly approved the Constitution on November 26, 1949. RSS instantly rejected it through an editorial in its English organ Organiser (November 29), demanding promulgation of the Manusmriti. Earlier, RSS icon VD Savarkar had declared it as the most worshippable scripture after the Vedas. It is to be noted that Manusmriti decrees sub-human status for Hindu women and Sudras. It was burnt on December 25, 1927, in the presence of Dr Ambedkar during the Mahad agitation, who also called upon to commemorate this day every year as ‘Manusmriti Dahan Divas’.
RSS hated every symbol of democratic-secular Indian polity. On the eve of Independence, Organiser (August 14, 1947) denigrated the National Flag by declaring that it will “never be respected and owned by Hindus. The word three is in itself an evil, and a flag having three colours…is injurious to a country.” In the same issue, in an editorial (‘Whither’) RSS rejected the whole concept of a secular state by arguing: “in Hindusthan only the Hindus form the nation and the national structure must be built on that safe and sound foundation…the nation itself must be built up of Hindus, on Hindu traditions, culture, ideas and aspirations.”
Quraishi gleefully informs us that Mohan Bhagwat emphasised three things: “Hindutva is an inclusive concept in which all communities have equal room…the Indian Constitution is sacrosanct, and the entire country has to abide by it. He sought to dispel the fear that RSS is seeking to abandon the Constitution at the first opportunity. And, that Muslims will be disenfranchised.” If ‘Muslim intellectuals’ were familiar with Savarkar’s Hindutva (1923) and Golwalkar’s We or Our Nationhood Defined (1939) and Bunch of Thoughts [1966] these claims would not have gone unchallenged. The first two “holy books” for RSS demand cleansing of Muslims (and Christians) from India as Jews were cleansed by Hitler in Germany. The last one has a chapter (XVI) titled ‘Internal Threats’ which declares Muslims and Christians as enemy number one and two and describes the Indian Constitution as worthless and anti-Hindu. Mohan Bhagwat has never disowned these works.
Interestingly, RSS has not issued any statement corroborating the ‘Muslim intellectuals’ version. In fact, according to press reports, RSS prachar pramukh (national publicity chief) Sunil Ambekar declined to comment.
Not only Muslims but all Indians want to know who shall finance the creation and running of CFF units in all the 28 state capitals of India and all its 802 districts. Even national parties in India have not been able to have a presence on such a gigantic level. ‘Muslim intellectuals’ seem to be flush with money. Whose money will these be? It seems RSS has roped in Adanis and Ambanis, who have been bank-rolling Hindutva project, in this project too. It has another dimension: Najeeb, Qureshi, Javed, Sherwani, Shah and Siddiqui taking charge of the Muslim outreach programme of RSS, will it be the end of the Muslim Rashtriya Manch which has so far been grooming stooges for RSS among Muslims?
It is sad that a group of ‘Muslim intellectuals’ on behalf of “the middle class and educated Muslim” as confessed by Shahid Siddiqui after the August 2022 meeting, is legitimising an organisation which is waiting for an opportune time to finally demolish the largest democracy in the world. They did not bother to confront RSS chief with the facts of pauperisation of common Indians, mounting unemployment, hunger and violence against women. These issues should have been the main concern as Muslims standing at the lowest pedestal socially, financially and politically are naturally the worst sufferers.
Sadly, they did not touch the widespread use of terror laws by the government run by the RSS cadres under which large number of Muslim activists and non-Muslim activists are being kept perpetually in detention. These are critical times for the Indian democracy; if it is demolished, there is no possibility of surviving of minorities, including Muslims. India needs intellectuals who stand in defence of democracy and not surrender before an extra-constitutional gang.
Link for my response to August 22, 2022 hobnobbing of ‘Muslim intellectuals’ with RSS:
‘Muslim intellectuals’ outreach to RSS: Why it is misguided’, The Indian Express, September 27, 2022
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Shamsul Islam is a retired Delhi University professor. The views expressed here are personal and Clarion India does not necessarily share or subscribe to them.
