Saudi Gazette JEDDAH — Hindutva forces like Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad are out to inflame anti-Muslim passions across India in order to ensure victory for the Bharatiya Janata Party-led ruling National Democratic Alliance in the coming polls in five states. Victory in these states could be an indication of the party's winning chances in the crucial elections in the largest north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh next year, Waseem Ahmad, a senior Congress leader and former member of the party's working committee, has said. Talking to a select group of journalists here recently, "friend of all", as noted Indian journalist Shekhar Gupta called him in a recent article, Ahmad said that Muslims have to caste their votes very judiciously keeping in mind all calculations and political permutations so as to give a befitting reply to the forces that are out to stoke rabid anti-Muslim sentiments and thereby tarnish the secular fabric of the country always upheld and nurtured by the country's farsighted leaders irrespective of their party affiliations. Ahmad, a former member of Rajya Sabha (upper house of parliament), has friends in almost all political parties in India, except perhaps the BJP and its ideological cohorts. He maintains intimate relations with all top leaders of Congress including Sonia Gandhi, Digvijay Singh, Kapil Sibbal et al., Bihar strongmen Nitish Kumar and Laloo Yadav, diehard communists Sitaram Yechury and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the top brass of Mamata Banarjee's Trinamool Congress and Maharashtra stalwart Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party. Talking about the dilemma facing Muslims in India, Ahmad lamented the lack of an effective, viable and prudent Muslim leadership that would read the pulse of the nation from time to time and appropriately guide the majority among the minorities. "Gone are the days when we had leaders like Maulana Hifzur Rahman, Mufti Atiqurrahaman Usmani, Sheikh Abdullah, Abdul Jaleel Fareedi, Yusuf Siddiqui, Muhammad Muslim, Ibrahim Suleiman Sait, G.M. Banatwala and Syed Ameenul Hasan Rizvi etc. who were selfless and altruistic in their efforts to ameliorate the socio-political and socio-economic conditions of the Muslim community. What we have now is a bunch of self-centered and inconsiderate politicians who are more interested in pursuing their own vested interests," he said. It is now time, he said, for Muslims not to antagonize the majority community by either their actions or inactions. "Take for instance the issue of beef. To me, the issue is just trivial. It is for Muslims to show some sagacity and declare that they too are against the killing of cows in adherence to the religious sensibilities of Hindus. It is not the time to irritate the majority community by issuing confrontationist statements. Those who are doing it are doing a disservice to the community," he said. "Irritating Hindus will lead us nowhere. As of now we are in a rut, in an abyss. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. Given this situation it would be impetuous and foolhardy for the so-called champions of the Muslim community to dish out bellicose and belligerent statements day in and day out. They must see reason and ensure that sectarianism and chauvinism are not given a new meaning in these turbulent times." By saying this, he said, he does not mean that one should succumb meekly to the fringe elements in the Hindu society. "Rather it would be prudent to appeal the sensibilities of educated, wise and sagacious sections of the society by extending a hand of amity and friendliness toward them," he said. "You see extremists are present everywhere, in every party. But one does not need to pander to their wishes. These elements have to be tackled with reason and logic and not by further alienating them," he said. Muslims, Ahmad noted, exercised their right of franchise judiciously and strategically in the recent elections to the Bihar Assembly. "It is only because of this and the fact that lower caste voters en bloc opted for anti-BJP forces that the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance was forced to bite the dust," he said. Ahmad began his political career as a student leader in Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). After years of hobnobbing with several anti-Congress groupings, Ahmad, as opposed to most of the Aligarians of his time, landed in Congress seeing it as the only party that could check the Hindutva bandwagon of the BJP. During his pre-Congress days, Ahmad was close to former prime ministers V.P. Singh, Chandra Shekhar, I.K. Gujral and Deve Gowda. Talking about his alma mater, Ahmad, who is also an appointed court member of the university, said the premier institution of learning is now at a crossroads; it is faced with sinister BJP efforts to deprive it of its minority character as well as with rampant administrative corruption and nepotism. "Recently I apprised President Pranab Mukherjee (visitor of the university) about all the negatives in the university and urged him to take corrective measures," Ahmad said. Ahmad also plans to launch a "save AMU movement" on the lines of the campaign he started in 1990 when first attempts were made to attack the university's minority character. The movement also called for an end to fraudulence and favoritism in the university's administration. Also on the government's list of universities which should be divested of their minority character is Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi. Ahmad said he has approached top lawyers in the country to plead the case of retaining the minority character of the AMU before the highest court of the land. The next hearing is slated for April.
