New Delhi, Sep 7: Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, a prominent Muslim socio-religious organization in India, has expressed serious concern at the silence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the hate campaigns of saffron outfits and some leaders of his Hindu right Bharatiya Janata Party targeting minorities particularly Muslims and Christians in the country.
“Jamaat is seriously concerned at the rise in hate campaign against minorities, particularly Muslims, since BJP came to power at the centre. There has since been a spate of communal incidents also (Saharanpur, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Kanpur etc.). At regular interval, leaders of BJP and Sangh Parivar have raked up contentious issues like Article 370 and Uniform Civil Code. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, in violation of the ethos of the Constitution, said that India is a Hindu Rashtra and all citizens of this country are Hindus,” said Jamaat at its monthly press conference here today.
Addressing the press meet at the headquarters of Jamaat in the National Capital, Mr. Nusrat Ali, Secretary General of Jamaat, criticized Prime Minister Modi for maintaining silence on hate campaign in the name of unproved Love Jihad' and forced conversions.
“A period of 100 days is very short to judge a government elected by people for five years. However, the initial trends are not good. It seems the government is working on two fronts – while PM Modi is talking about development, some leaders of his party and Sangh Parivar have opened aggressive hate campaign against Muslims and Modi is silent. It seems there is a silent understanding among them,” said Mr. Ali.
When asked if the Jamaat tried to meet the PM Modi over the issue, he said: “The government has just completed 100 days. We have no reservation in meeting with Modi as he is Prime Minister of the entire country. If he did not listen to us then we can meet President of India also,” he said while making it clear that Jamaat did not want to make any haste in such meeting. During the 10 years period of Manmohan Singh, Jamaat leaders met Mr. Singh just three or four times, he informed.
Taking questions from press persons, Mohammad Salim Engineer, Secretary of the Jamaat, said that by not mentioning Muslim' or minorities' in his speeches, Prime Minister Modi wants to indicate as if minorities do not exist at all in the country. “In the garb of slogans like Sab Ka Saath Sab Ka Vikas, the PM wants to ignore the existence of the minority communities,” said Mr. Salim. He also said that PM Modi seems to be presenting himself as a Hindu on international platform, rather than as the Prime Minister of a plural country and this should be taken very seriously.
Jamaat also disliked the way the BJP government and Prime Minister Modi used Teachers' Day to impose his personality on the young minds of the country. “We are against the government for having made it compulsory for schools and children to listen to PM's speech as we think such tendency does not match with democratic values of the constitution,” said Mr. Ali.
Jamaat leaders categorically said Al Qaeda or groups like it are doing disservice to Islam and Muslims. Most of their messages and acts do not match with Islam, they said adding that there is strong apprehension that such groups are being used by anti-Islam forces, said Jamaat leaders.
On the announcement of the banned terror group to open its branch in India, Jamaat leaders expressed apprehensions that this may be used by country's intelligence agencies to witch hunt minority youths as has been the trend for past 10 years.
However, Jamaat leaders also appreciated Modi for a few good announcements during his first 100 days as PM.
“PM Modi's austerity moves like asking ministers not to buy new cars and curtail foreign tours and his announcement for toilets at every home and school, and bank account for every citizen are indeed good. In an apparent move to provide a clean and corruption free government, he asked ministers not to hire relative as personal secretaries. His visit to Japan was also successful in terms of attracting investment,” said the Jamaat.
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