Muslim

More discussion about the Batla House encounter – the Trinamool Congress raises the question again ..

Ever since the time for elections come up, one can be sure that the Batla House encounter will come up. And you can be sure that Digvijay Singh will be somewhere in the frame, since he is apparently the appointed politician in the Congress who will raise the issues that are supposed to appeal to Muslims – not the issues that related to development and how to increase the economic condition of the community (since even when he was the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, he was never accused of being good on the development angle front), but more about the emotional issues, about showcasing how other parties don’t care for the Muslims, and only the Congress can appeal to the Muslims. So when it comes to issues such as the apparent injustice to Osama Bin Ladenji (his statement) or the Batla House encounter, it is Digvijay Singh who is in the front.
Now, there is a genuine sense of hurt in the community. At the time that the Batla House encounter had taken place, there had been blasts which were created by a group named as Indian Mujahideen, and the Batla House encounter was treated as a breakthrough, which killed some of the members of the group, and also led to the death of a celebrated police official. During this time as well, the police took some short-cuts, arresting some members of the Muslim community (and the media started treating the Uttar Pradesh locality of Azamgarh as a terrorist creating place); both of these actions were not justified. Many of those arrested were not involved, and were released after the courts intervened and the police had no evidence to justify the continued arrest of these.
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The non-visit of Salman Rushdie to the country – a big shame ..

Let me start with a quick point. I have not read the Satanic Verses, so I don’t know whether the book is as insulting to the feelings of Muslims as is made out to be. Let us assume that the book is incredibly insulting and hurts the feelings of Muslims p(with a slight Devil’s Advocate – I can bet most of the people who have been voicing their protest against the author and the book have not read the book, but have heard that the author denigrates the religion and the Prophet). So, ever since the emergence of the book, the author has been in hiding, with a death threat against him by the late Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, however, the administration of Khatami moderated this threat with the statement that the Iranian Government is not seriously expecting this fatwa to be carried out.
All this happened many years ago, so why is this issue coming up again ? Well, the author is of Indian origin, and having a PIO card, the author can come to India any time, without the need of applying for a visa. This made the promised attendance of the author in the Jaipur Literature Festival controversial. And what made it controversial ? This entire discussion is just like pulling a thread and seeing what emerges from the thread …
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The whole drama about reservations for Muslims and its politics – primarily in Uttar Pradesh

For the past few days, in addition to the many caste calculations going on in the UP electoral scene, there is another twist that has been added to the whole discourse. This is related to political parties trying to attract the Muslim vote and what they can do for it. Now, getting support from a community is not a problem, but doing it only for electoral purposes and at the time of elections continues to be a problem, especially when it is so blatant.
A series of reports over the years have concluded that Indian muslims over the years have a level of development which is lower than that of the general population, and nobody can really doubt these conclusions. Further, over the years, a number of trades that had traditionally a higher proportion of Muslims (such as weavers) were affected by economic movements, further reducing the economic growth of the community. These were items that the Governments of the day should have handled, with targeted economic and development measures that laid a lot of emphasis on economic development that would increase the empowerment level of Muslims in the country.
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