Author: Editorial
Publication: Organiser
Date: April 29, 2007
URL: http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=181&page=7
So the Muslims, who constitute the largest
religious community in the country after Hindus are totally under the mercy
of the Sonia Congress. At least that is what the party wants the Muslims in
the country to believe.
A booklet published by the All India Congress
Committee (AICC) addressed to Muslim voters staked claim to all the achievements
of prominent Muslim individuals ranging from Wipro chief Azim Premji to film
actor Shahrukh Khan and cricket star Irfan Pathan. Produced by Imran Kidwai,
Congress minorities department chairman, the booklet apportions credit to
the party for the achievements and privileges enjoyed by the Muslims in independent
India. It is the Congress that allowed and sheltered talents from the Muslim
community to bloom, it claimed. The Party did not feel constrained about using
the names of former presidents of India like Dr Zakir Hussain and Fakruddin
Ali Ahmed to tom-tom its generosity towards Muslims. This is perhaps for the
first time that any political party in the country has dragged the names of
Presidents of India for cheap political stunts. The nervous Congress cannot
distinguish between hysteria and fact.
"Azim Premji, who is India's richest
man, is not alone, from film star Dilip Kumar to Shahrukh Khan, all Muslims
have been at the top", the booklet claimed, because of the Congress.
It then went on to name music maestros Zakir Hussain and Bismillah Khan and
cricket players such as Nawab of Pataudi, Sayed Kirmani, Azharuddin, Zaheer
Khan, Mohammad Kaif, Munaf Patel and Wasim Jaffar. It further claimed credit
for sports personalities such as tennis icon Sania Mirza and hockey greats
such as Aslam Sher Khan, Zafar Iqbal and Mohammad Shahid. It then postulated
that these individuals, on account of being from the Muslim community, would
probably have not been known and enjoyed the kind of success but for the Congress.
Ridiculous, to say the least. The Congress
has been wary of creating and acknowledging national heroes other than those
it parades from the Nehru-Gandhi parivar. For an average Indian it was not
a matter of consideration, if these achievers belonged to any particular religion.
By making him conscious of these heroes' religious tag, the Congress has committed
an unpardonable crime, reduced their national standing and the party owes
an unqualified apology to the nation. It is another matter that the Election
Commission has to take cognizance of this base communal appeal. Thankfully,
the Congress did not claim that it created two sovereign countries for Muslims,
partitioning India.
The Congress while pretending to be secular
has always thrived on communal appeal. Few years ago under Rajiv Gandhi the
party promised the creation of the land of the Bible in the state assembly
election in Mizoram. In the recent Punjab election, the Congress propaganda
was that the Sikhs should support the Congress en bloc because the party had
given a Sikh Prime Minister, Sikh Army Chief and a Sikh Dy. Chairman of the
Planning Commission. But the ploy did not work in Punjab.
The point is, the Congress has the unfathomable
capacity to stoop to any depth even brazenly undermining, if not mortgaging,
national security, to play vote bank politics.
The Congress campaign in UP is viciously communal.
It is intent on securing the Muslim vote at any cost. With this idea Rahul
Gandhi prayed and pleaded for Muslim support visiting all the infamous seats
of Islamic fundamentalism. Possibly there was a method in the mad pronouncements
he made from these mullah backyards. He was cleverly trying to shift the focus
away from the poor, unpopular record of the UPA under Dr Manmohan Singh at
the Centre. It is intriguing that neither Rahul Gandhi nor Sonia Gandhi made
any appeal to voters in the name of the UPA regime's achievements in the last
three years. By consciously making controversial and untenable statements,
which attracted a lot of media attention, the Gandhi scion tried to draw public
attention away from price rise, terrorist attacks and soft-pedalling on national
security issues.
The Congress, along with other Muslim-obsessed
parties, has made a big hue and cry demanding derecognition of the BJP on
a CD, which the party had disowned. The accusation was that the BJP was making
communally sensitive appeal. Is not the Congress booklet on alleged Muslim
emancipation a violation of the Representation of People Act and model code
of conduct? Will the Election Commission charge the party with inciting communal
passion?
There is no dearth of saviours for the Muslims
in the country, only that the Uttar Pradesh assembly poll campaign has brought
the most grotesque, if not objectionable side of Congress communalism in action.
The other day, Sonia Gandhi, trying yet another
trick to attract Muslim voters in UP, sent personal letters in Urdu to thousands
of Muslim leaders all over the state. Why only to Muslim religious heads?
Is it not a blatant form of communal pandering, when she specifically pleaded
to Muslim clergy to "help me generously to fight against caste and communalism
(read Hindu) so that I can build a society of your dreams?" When she
talks of building a society of "your dreams" and sending it only
to prominent Muslims it sounds ominous. Is it a way of promising a state and
social order conditioned by Islamic laws and world vision? And if this is
secularism, how does one define communalism?
The Congress under Sonia Gandhi is consciously
following a divisive agenda. The party on its own will not apply any brake
till it meets its inevitable electoral Waterloo in states after states at
the hands of a resurgent nationalist upheaval.
