By RINA,
Deoband: Reacting over Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khursheed’s statement that there is no impediment in singing national song (Vaande Matram), Mohtamim of Darul Uloom Wakf Deoband Maulana Mohammad Salim Qasmi said, “The minister is misinforming because of his own ignorance.”
National president of All India Al-Qur’an Foundation Maulana Nadeemul Wajidi said, “Mr. Salman Khursheed is not a religious leader to be believed in this issue. He is one of political leaders who follow the direction of the wind. He has nothing to do with religion.”
Expressing similar opinion, Na’ib Mohatamim of Darul Uloom Wakf Deoband, Maulana Mohammad Sufyan Qasimi said, “Mr. Khursheed ought to know that national song would have become national anthem had it been flawless.”
Former general secretary of Farrukhabad Congress Committee, Shahid Mehmood Khan said, “By supporting the song, Mr. Salman Khursheed has only proved that he is a spokesman of Jansanghi lobby present in Congress.” The minister had pleaded that national leaders like Nehru, Azad, and others had sung it, implying that they would have not sung if the song were anti-Islamic.
Challenging Mr. Salman Khursheed, Shahid Mehmood Khan questioned, “He should clarify which parts of the song were deleted by Pandit Nehru and Maulana Azad?” In fact, objectionable portion was deleted in Congress session in 1937. He further said, “Indian Muslims follow the Constitution and respect it. Nowhere in the Constitution is written that inhabitants of India shall have to sing this song.”
But Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray has his own logic, “If you are to live in India, you have to say Vande Matram (!), else the same will be repeated that has been happening.” In his editorial in Samna, Shiv Sena mouthpiece, Bal Thackeray proscribed, “If Indian Muslims believe in accordance with the Shari’ah that they cannot bow to anyone other than Allah, not even to the motherland, then, such diction is same as that of sedition.”
In Moradabad, the founder of Loktantra Bachao Morcha, Haji Iqbal said, “whenever Muslim leadership did something good for the country, Hindu terrorists targeted places of Muslims’ worship. Deoband is once again on their target and Congress Party has always been sheltering them.” He warned that if Hindu terrorists are not restrained, serious problems will pop up before the country.
A fake confrontation is being nurtured here on purely unconstitutional grounds. But Maulana Qari Mohammad Usman seems hitting the middle ground when he reminds, “Supreme Court has delivered the verdict on this issue that singing national song is not compulsory.”