By Kashif-ul-Huda, TwoCircles.net,
Narendra Modi has been on Twitter since January 2009. In last six years, the first time he mentioned ‘meeting Muslim’ on his twitter timeline was only on Tuesday.
He tweeted about his meeting with “leaders of the Muslim community” along with a photo of the meeting with a link to the press release.
This has been several months in the making. In January of this year, a meeting was called by Mahmood Madani and Kamal Farouqi apparently to find consensus on leaders of top Muslim organizations meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But “difference of opinion” among participating members led to the cancellation, according to a report by Ehtesham Khan.
Had a good meeting with leaders of the Muslim community. http://t.co/ehf7oAL36F pic.twitter.com/z8e8vqGMTJ
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 6, 2015
Another attempt was made by Modi’s trusted aide Zafar Sareshwala to get leaders of All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) to meet Modi in March. That episode ended in Sareshwala, who is not a member of the Board, being forced to leave the AIMPB meeting.
Unknown unknowns:
It is not clear who organized the meeting yesterday but it was clear that having failed to woo the “usual suspects” of Muslim leadership, Modi team had to settle for people that most Indian Muslims have never heard of.
According to the release, following “leaders of the Muslim community” attended the meeting:
Syed Sultan-Ul-Hasan Chishti Misbahi (Sajjada Nashin, Ajmer Sharif): Syed Zainul Abedin has shot off an email to media houses that he is the real sajjada nashin of Ajmer and not the person who met Modi. A TCN reporter confirmed with government-appointed Ajmer Dargah Committee that Syed Zainul Abedin is indeed the official recognized Sajjada Nasheen.
Hazrat Ghulam Yasin Sahib (Shahar Qazi, Varanasi): Same Qazi whom Kejriwal met when he started his Lok Sabha campaign in Varanasi.
Sheikh Wasim Ashrafi (Imam Tanzeem, Mumbai): No information about him or the organization
Er Mohammad Hamid (National president, Imam Tanzeem, Nagpur):there is no organization called Imam Tanzeem but there is an organization Iman Tanzeem based in Maharashtra. Anti-Deobandi with political ambitions.
Allama Tasleem Raaza Sahib (Dargah Barelvi Sharif, UP): Younger brother of current sajjada nasheen Maulana Subhan Raza Khan. He was in the news recently protesting the decision of his brother to appoint his own son as his successor.
Syed Abdul Rashid Ali (Syed Shahid Dargah Shahdol, Madhya Pradesh): No information
Maulana Abu Bakr Basani (Nagori Sharif Dargah, Rajasthan): No information
Syed Ali Akbar (Taajpura Sharif, Chennai): No information
Haji Abdul Hafiz Khan (Imam, Tanzeem Balaghat, MP): No information
As it is clear from the list, most of them are unknown or very marginal players even in the Barelvi movement. And here in comes the surprise: it is no accident that all the leaders invited belong to the Barelvi sect of Muslims. There are no Deobandis, no Shias, no Ahl-e-Hadith, not even women. But even more surprising is that famous Barelvi religious leaders or organisations such as All India Ulama & Mashaikh Board (AIUMB) who have been at the forefront of getting control back from Deobandis (one of the demands raised in the meeting with the PM) were nowhere to be seen.
Was it an oversight? Refusal of prominent Barelvi leaders to be seen with Modi? Or lack of understanding of internal Muslim dynamics by Team Modi?
Issues raised:
During the 10-year UPA rule, it was usually the Muslim group meeting Congress president Sonia Gandhi or the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that would release a photo and a statement after their meeting. It is strange that this time around, it was the Prime Minister Office that issued the statement and photos that was tweeted by Narendra Modi’s personal twitter handle (@narendramodi and not @PMOIndia).
The link to the press release also pointed to Modi’s personal website and not PIB website which carries government press releases
.
According to the press release, these leaders raised following issues:
1. “trend of increased radicalisation and emerging threat of terrorism,”
2. “issues relating to properties of Muslim shrines, Masjids and Madrassas”
3. “better facilities to Muslim youth particularly in the field of education”
A close look at the photos of the meeting released and one will see that none of the Muslim leaders are holding any piece of paper i.e. there is no charter of demands. Muslims in India are facing many problems of economic and educational backwardness but none of the issues raised in the meeting seem to have specific demands.
Let’s start from the bottom – issue #3 mentions education but it’s not clear what is being asked here. Muslim youth presence in higher education is very poor but making more colleges – if that is what is meant by “better facilities” – is not going to solve anything as they drop out in huge numbers during school years whether because of poverty or lack of access to schools in their neighborhood. A better demand would have been to ask government to ensure schools are being opened in Muslim areas.
Issue #2 is also very vague as to what is being asked of the government. Government is one of the biggest encroacher of waqf lands and if Modi asks his government ministries and departments to vacate lands or at least pay rent, then lot of money can be realized for community welfare projects.
Issue #1 is most curious: “While expressing apprehensions about the trend of increased radicalisation and emerging threat of terrorism, the leaders underlined the need for greater unity and collective efforts to meet the challenge.”
At least in the Indian context, this is not an issue as Indian government official continues to repeat at global forum. Modi, when he was in the US in September 2014, himself had told the Council of Foreign Relations in New York that “Indian Muslims will fail Al-Qaida.”
In February of this year, in Countering Violent Extremism Summit in Washington DC, R N Ravi, chief of Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), had said that Muslims are well integrated in India’s “liberal, plural, secular democracy.”
National Security:
The only person in the photo you can see holding papers or making notes is Ajit Doval, the National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister. What was Doval doing in a meeting of the Prime Minister with the “leaders of the community”? The press release makes no mention of Doval’s presence or his role in this meeting.
The last sentence of the press release provides some clues to Doval’s presence: “The Muslim leaders reiterated full support of the community to the Prime Minister in meeting his objectives of ensuring speedy economic growth, promoting communal harmony and peace and strengthening national security.”
This is the second time that “full support” is used in the press release; first time it was used by Modi when he assured the Muslim leaders of his “full support in meeting grievances of all sections of the Muslim society.” But I am digressing from the main story which is the last three words of the press release: “strengthening national security.”
Now your guess is as good as mine on why Doval was there and what was the purpose of this meet – To do publicity that Muslims are warming up to Modi? To provide political patronage to the sectarian divide among Muslims? To rope in some community leaders for some future crackdown on Muslims in the name of countering extremism?
So on the one hand the Prime Minister tells that Indian Muslims will defeat Al-Qaida but on the other hand he is unable to look at Muslims as anything other than from a national security prism.
Only time will tell what Modi intends.
Related:
PM discusses Muslim issue with community leaders