This is Prime Minister’s second meeting with Muslim leaders in two months, has more leaders from the community
By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter,
New Delhi: In his second meeting with Muslims in as many months, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday met a delegation of 30 leaders from the Muslim community and asserted that he neither believes in politics, which seeks to divide people on communal lines not will he ever speak communal language.
A delegation from the Muslim community, led by Imam Umer Ahmed Ilyasi calling on the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, in New Delhi on June 02, 2015. (Courtesy : PIB)
The meeting comes about two months after a similar meeting between Modi and lesser known faces from the Muslim community that were perceived as not the proper representation of the community at large.
The timing of the meeting is interesting as just a day before, on Monday, Modi in an interview to news agency UNI had asserted of protecting the minority community. This gave an impression of a preplanned agenda to comfort minority communities.
The delegation was led by Imam Umer Ahmed Ilyasi, chief Imam of All India Imam Organisation, and included faces such as Dr Firoz Bakht, grand-nephew of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, having links with BJP; Dr Parvez Ahmed, son of late Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, former President of India, and world renowned heart specialist; Dr Asgar Ali Khan, advocate, High Court, Delhi; Dr Aslam Parvaiz, principal, Zakir Hussain College, Delhi; and Maulana Lukman Tarapuri, Imam, Jama Masjid, Anand (Gujarat) and also the national president, Global Imam Council, who was recently honoured by the US Ambassador for his contribution towards promoting clean water and sanitation, among others.
Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Minister of State for Minority Affairs, and Ajit Doval, the National Security Advisor, were present with Modi at the meeting. Incidentally, during both meetings, conspicuous by her absence was Najma Heptullah, the Union Minister for Minority Affairs.
A delegation from the Muslim community, led by Imam Umer Ahmed Ilyasi calling on the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, in New Delhi on June 02, 2015. (Courtesy : PIB)
Imam Ilyasi of the All India Imam Organisation, told TwoCircles.net: “We had sought time from the PMO. During the meeting, we told Modi ji, ‘Pradhan Mantri ji aap man ki baat karte hai, hum dil ki baat karne aaye hai’. (You talk of what’s on your mind, we have come here to speak out our hearts).”
Modi said one fundamental thing, Ilyasi said, “that he is the Prime Minister of 125 crore Indians, he is the Prime Minister of each Indian.”
Asked if the delegation raised the topic about the hate speeches by some BJP leaders, including MPs and ministers, Ilyasi said: “I pointed out to Modi ji that when he was in Germany propagating ‘Make in India’, there were some people here who were talking of ‘Destroy India’.”
But Modi did not give any answer to this, Ilyasi claimed.
Firoz Bakht said it was first such meeting representing a cross section of the Muslim society. “It was a sort of an ice breaker. The delegation spoke of ‘Quran in one hand and computer in another’ but we said that we have not come here to ask for one thing or the other. We urge you to fulfill what Muslims deserve as citizens based on the Constitution and the laws of the land,” he said.
“To which, Modi said, of course, Muslims should get what they deserve,” Bakht said, adding, “Naqvi said, ‘we won’t use words of appeasement and give you committees like Sachar. We believe in working at the grass root level and will work for education and empowerment’.”
When asked if the delegation raised the issue about hate speeches, he said, the issue was indeed raised during the meeting, to which the Prime Minister said that he does not approve of it and certainly that was “neither his government’s nor his party’s view.”
“Modi has decided to put his foot down and will see that such nuisances do not take place in future,” he added.
A release from the PMO quoted the Prime Minister saying: “The politics of majority and minority has caused a lot of damage to the country and that the employment and development are the solution to all problems, and he is focused on delivering them.”
The delegation members appreciated Modi’s leadership over the last one year, and said they wanted to forge a partnership for progress and development with the Prime Minister, it said.
They said that the Muslim community had rejected the divisive politics of vote-banks, and was interested in development, it said.
“The leaders also congratulated Modi for his vision of Muslim youth with a Quran in one hand and a computer in the other. They also congratulated him for the country’s success in the adoption of the International Day of Yoga by the United Nations,” the release added.
Ilyasi said, “We congratulated Modi for his achievement (International Day of Yoga) but also said that Yoga cannot be linked with a particular religion but it was India’s heritage.”
Interestingly, while Doval was present during both the meetings, Naqvi was not present during the earlier meeting. After the April’s meeting, Doval was quoted as saying: “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.”
Ilyasi said, “Today’s meeting was just the beginning. We are hopeful of more meetings. We speak of national interest. We told Modi, make India stronger, we are with you.”
When Modi had met Muslims two months ago, it was clear that he had failed to woo the “usual suspects” of Muslim leadership and thus had settled for people that most Muslims had never heard of. While there must be some sort of engagement between the government and Muslim community as a whole, that should be transparent and through proper channels and not via people with dubious credentials who seem to be working only for their own narrow gains.
Related: