PM Modi says Indian Muslims won’t dance to Al Qaeda’s tunes

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, Sep 19, 2014:  Even as a divisive campaign is being pursued by Hindu groups affiliated to the BJP in poll-bound states, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has told an American TV channel that the patriotism of Indian Muslims is unquestionable.

"Indian Muslims will live for India, they will die for India - they will not want anything bad for India," Modi told CNN’s Fared Zakaria in his first international interview since assuming office in May.

"Al Qaeda is delusional to think Indian Muslims will dance to its tunes," Modi told the CNN, referring to a recent video in which the terror group chief Ayman Al-Zawahiri is seen exhorting Indian Muslims to join the global war in the name of Islam.

What is the significance of PM Narendra Modi’s comments on Indian Muslims?

The PM’s statement may signal a review of the BJP’s strategy after it suffered setbacks in bypolls to 33 Assembly seats held last week. The BJP lost 13 of the 23 seats it held, with serious reverses in its strongholds in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat barely four months after its spectacular Lok Sabha victory in what was considered a test of Modi’s popularity.

Political commentators attributed the BJP’s loss to the sustained posturing by Hindu groups against issues like love jihad, a term for what they consider an Islamist strategy to convert Hindu women, or madrasas allegedly promoting terror.

Even though the BJP dropped love jihad from its resolution at a meeting last month, its leaders like Yogi Adityanath, who was the face of the UP campaign in the UP bypolls, continued to make controversial statements. Adityanath, a four-time MP from Gorakhpur, was recorded on camera asking his supporters to convert 100 Muslim women through marriage every time a Muslim man marries a Hindu.

The BJP’s ideological mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, in a first, put ’love jihad’ on the covers of Panchjanya and Organiser, its Hindi and English mouthpieces respectively.

However, the bypoll debacle forced BJP leaders like Sushil Kumar Modi to distance themselves from their colleagues like Adityanath.  "If Adityanath had spoken in Bihar like he did in UP, we would have contradicted him," the Bihar BJP leader said.

How have the Indian Muslims reacted to the communal rhetoric?

Earlier this week, the All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat, an umbrella body of the Indian Muslim organisations, condemned the continuous hate-mongering indulged in by BJP leaders and their affiliates. "After the disgraceful flop of their fake Love Jihad plank, BJP leaders are now raking up their old false claims about madrasas teaching terrorism and that meat export income is being used to finance terror," the AIMMM statement said.

"The Sangh’s communal elements are feeling emboldened again to raise this issue only to divide Indians on religious lines and to polarize society for their narrow political gains," the AIMMM statement added.

"Why are there different codes for madrasas and schools? Madrasas should also teach the same things rather than teach terrorism," BJP MP from Unnao in UP, Sakshi Mahraj, had asked earlier this week, sparking a row. Maharaj’s comments came soon after another senior BJP leader, Maneka Gandhi, said the money from the meat industry in India is used to promote terror.


Courtesy: Indiatoday