Shiban Khaibri
Our constitution has provided and guaranteed certain rights to the citizens of India, topping which is Article 14, the Right to equality, in other words, it is one of the “fundamental rights” or a corner stone of the constitution. Inversely, it is related to ages old Indian traditions of tolerance and belief in diversity where on any ground, mainly the faith, none shall be denied the right to equality. All are equal, equality being fundamental to the citizens of India, no wonder this part of the constitution is known as Magna Carta of India. Nearly seven decades of the Republic has run strictly as per the constitution, never has there been any change in it even by any thought or idea , let alone fiddling with it in any manner to bring about any change. Article 21 buttresses the scope of Article 14 further in guaranteeing every citizen full and complete equality before law , in getting justice and in redressing of any discrimination of any nature. This fact is known to almost all citizens of the country, whether literate or illiterate and as a natural corollary, is known to all politicians, not to speak of those who have studied law and have been practicing the same.
It is quite unfortunate for this country that another right, that of freedom to expression and speech under Article 19 can be violated and expression laced with prejudicial and communal overtones resorted to in order to highlight any problem faced by citizens. It has become a way of doing politics in this country by a few political leaders to always play the religious card either to be projected as “victims” or the ones “persecuted”. Another brand of select politicians do it the other way and that is heaping victimhood on a community or sections of society on account of practicing a particular religion in order to gain short term support from such sections just only to get some votes in the elections. If this malady of oscillating between minority card and impure or adulterated secularism with intent to garner votes would have not been there all these 70 years agreeably with varying degrees, most important decisions on economic and social fronts would have been taken by virtue of which, we would have been much better than what we are at the moment. Only the assumed fear of losing votes has kept our politicians away from taking revolutionary reforms and the result is that this country could not take off for a desired turnaround to better the lot of the citizens. Modi seems to be above the gamble of votes on account of taking much needed revolutionary decisions.
How can a responsible educated leader like Assad -ud- din Owasi , the President of the Majlis-e- Ittihadul Muslameen (MIM) and a prominent MP call the country’s Prime Minister as a “Tyrant” only for having taken a bold and daring step to attack black money and clip the wings and twist the limbs of the unscrupulous perpetrators of running of a parallel economy in this country by employing different means, ways and tricks to hide, stash, launder, invest money in Benami properties and bullion etc; and evade huge tax which should have gone into the national coffers to be used for the infrastructural development, roads, hospitals, schools, Railways, defence sector, health housing , power and what not in order to make the country economically and otherwise stronger. Owasi recently using a religious occasion “castigated” the Prime Minister for describing himself as a “Faqeer” , instead called him a “Tyrant”. Owasi, found usually in anger for assumed injustice with or even “discrimination” against Muslims was critical of most of the ATMs in Hyderabad being short of cash. He can be perfectly right in his complaint to the extent of most of the ATMs not dispensing cash because of not getting adequate replenishments regularly and remaining closed. His contentions that since these ATMs are in Muslim dominated areas and hence starved of cash are irresponsible and loaded with communal and narrow pretensions. He knows it fully that those political leaders who have proclaimed themselves as sole “champions” of secularism, shall not oppose him and condemn such a narrow perception, if not openly support him. Again to the extent, he makes personal attacks on and merely not general criticism of the Prime Minister, even calling him a tyrant; he enjoys their whole hearted support. That is a very sad commentary on the level of the decency of the “industry” of politics in our country.
Owasi did not stop at that but depicting his full strutting political habitual style, he said, “Modi’s vessel of sins was now full.” We know that when a vessel is full to the brim, it sinks and that is what he made known in his next word, “Those standing in the ATM lines shall soon stand in voters’ lines.” In other words, he wrote the script of the results of the next elections. He questioned Modi’s “relationship” with Paytm, wondering as to why he was advertising e-wallets. He quoted scriptures and asked Muslims to “Display true Islamic character” by helping one another on account of the inconvenience caused due to demonetization drive by the Modi government (but when there was no money available, he did not specify from where those whom on religious grounds, he appealed to help one another, would get the money).
Owasi had much more in the form of salvos to fire and strongly condemned those Muslims who participated in World Sufi Conference in Delhi last March and appraised the gathering that the centre was up to interfering in Muslim Personal laws. He provoked the gathering, “What happened to your voice, are you so afraid of Modi and BJP, you should have openly warned that interference in Sharia Law would not be tolerated.” There is no need to comment upon the diatribe and unwarranted narrative of Owasi as he is known to have such a narrow and less than dignified way to put his views across as discretion and patience are relegated to background whenever he raises such issues and is always seen championing the cause of Muslims only even though his constituency has people of other faiths too in quite good numbers. One must, however, take note of the fact that even for a short time problem of cash crunch; he must brazenly give it the religious colour.
Owasi is always seen in calculating in ratios and proportions, be it employment, admission in colleges, loans, housing, police force etc in respect of Muslims and projects as if Hindus alone were beneficiaries of all benefits and that there were no problems with them. It looks very cheap to keep on seeing things with the prism of which community and which religion, instead of the people, the Indians, even 70 years after partition of the country. It is disgusting to see measuring and calculating how many of which religion were in prisons, how many in hospitals, how many in Parliament, in Assemblies and so on. A leading TV channel made a sample survey immediately after Owasi’s communal spin to cash crunch to find as to how much of truth was there in his allegation by seeing in Noida 1 ATM “working” out of 60 while in a prominent area of Owasi’s constituency 2 out of 40 ATMs working and by that comparison of where there was more inconvenience to people, it was Noida and not the one Owasi was referring to. He unfortunately has many friends to attempt to weaken the national fabric with their foot in the mouth remarks like recent one by Dr. Farooq Abdullah and occasionally by Azam Khan and when they are criticized; they cry victimhood at the hands of “Hindu communalism”.
There can be questions regarding “a good idea versus implementation” but never “Muslims versus Hindus”. Those Muslim political leaders must shun this obscurantist approach to national problems who cannot do politics without it as such fissiparous approach had potential to weaken our national fabric which can no longer be afforded. Bogged in this type of communal spins, such leaders are doing disservice to their own communities and the nation. They must preach unity and one nation, one law, one voice, one national agenda as there was no scope, absolutely not, for separatist tendencies either by thought or by conviction. Prosperity and difficulties have to be shared by all with national pride, as the nation comes first.
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