Indresh Kumar, invited in the programme, is not the same person. He is a “reputed academician” from Netherlands”, who after retirement “works on social harmony” and is based in Varanasi.
By M Reyaz, TwoCircles.net,
New Delhi: On Saturday evening and Sunday social media went a buzz with the poster of a June 16 valedictory programme of an international conference to be organised at the campus of Banaras Hindu University (BHU). What caught the eyes of the people was that the event being co-organised by the Students’ Islamic Organisation (SIO), the students’ wing of Jamaat e Islami, had invited “social activist” Indresh Kumar to deliver the ‘valedictory remark’.
Indresh Kumar is a senior RSS functionary and convener of the Muslim Rashtriya Manch. His name had cropped up in connection with the Samjhauta blast case as well.
Poster of Valedictory function going viral, with a note pointing to the ‘irony’.
At the programme Kumar is supposed to share dais with the JIH National secretary Moulana Iqbal Mulla and SIO national president Iqbal Hussain. People on social media started questioning SIO’s rationale, some calling it an attempt to “reach out” to the new Hindutva government.
The two days ‘international conference’ on “Communal Harmony and Nation Building” is being organised by the Political Science Department of the BHU, in collaboration with the SIO on June 15-16. It will be inaugurated by HRD Minister of State Prof. Ram Shankar Katheria, and will be attended by leaders of different faiths.
Milli Gazette wrote on Facebook: “Has RSS found a friend in SIO? Students Islamic Organization of India (SIO) is the youth wing of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind. Celebrating their meeting with Zafar Sareshwala was not enough, that they have invited RSS’s Indresh Kumar as a ‘Social Activist’,” adding, “The name of Indresh Kumar is mentioned 60 times in the book “GODSE’S CHILDREN —Hindutva Terror in India” written by Subhash Gatade.”
Sareshwala, who is considered close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had visited the SIO headquarter few weeks back.
Social activist Mahtab Alam mocked that now someone like Kumar will teach “communal harmony” to the members of SIO.
Many, however, came to the defence of the SIO as well saying they are “good organisation” and appreciated their work towards “communal harmony” and “bridging the gap”.
Indresh Kumar, invited in the programme, is not the same person, however. He is a “reputed academician who taught at the Vivekananda Academy, Netherlands”, the organisers told TCN, who after retirement “works on social harmony” and is based in Varanasi.
Speaking to TwoCirlces.net, Dr Koushal Kishore Mishra of the Political Science Department of BHU, termed the controversy unwarranted, adding that they have not invited Indresh Kumar of RSS, but a reputed professor, who works on social harmony.
SIO President Iqbal Hussain told TCN, “How can we invite him? This is a different person, although incidentally they share the name.”
Thouseef Madikeri, national secretary of the SIO, who is behind organising the programme, expressed his rage at the “vitriolic campaign” led by what he termed certain “so called Communists and secularists” without verifying the facts. “They cannot see religious people coming on common platform and are hence leading a needless negative propaganda against us,” he alleged.