Justice Markandey Katju on Salman Khurshid's Muharram Greeting: A Case of 'Much Ado About Nothing'?
Muharram Greetings Row: Justice Markandey Katju Calls the Controversy 'Baat Ka Batangarh'
Justice Markandey Katju reflects on the controversy over Salman Khurshid's Muharram New Year greeting, arguing that the dispute became an unnecessary controversy.
Baat ka batangarh
By Justice Markandey Katju
The first day of Moharram, which has commenced, is also the first day of the Islamic calendar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muharram
My friend Salman Khursheed, former Union Minister for External Affairs and senior advocate, Supreme Court of India, whom I have known for about 50 years, put up a Facebook post wishing 'Mubarak' to Muslims for the New Year.
This evoked huge protests on the social media by Indian Shias, who said that we are in mourning (over the martyrdom of Imam Husain, the grandson of the Prophet, and many of his 72 followers and relatives at Karbala in 680 AD), but you are wishing 'mubarak', which shows your insensitivity and callousness to our feelings.
On receiving these protests, Salman, who is a Sunni, deleted his fb post.
Today I spoke on WhatsApp both with Salman and many of my Shia friends.
Salman, who is a thorough gentleman, said to me that he only wished 'mubarak' for the Islamic New Year, and had no intention to hurt anyone's feelings. Also, he had subsequently deleted the post when he learnt that some people were objecting to it.
I then contacted on WhatsApp some Shia friends who had objected to Salman's fb post, and told them bluntly that in my opinion they were only doing 'baat ka batangarh' ( making a mountain out of a molehill ). Salman had not said anything about the tragedy of Karbala, but had only conveyed his New Year greetings. Shias should not be so touchy, hypersensitive, grouchy, tetchy and snappish as to raise a hue and cry over everything.
One of my Shia friends said that Sunnis always like to tease Shias in the way Salman did. I told him that was a dumb thing to say. I have known Salman for half a century. He is a thorough gentleman, and the last thing in his mind when he put up the post would have been to hurt the feelings of Shias.
So it is really a kerfuffle, fuss and feathers, pother, and hoo ha over nothing, and, as Shakespeare would say, 'Much ado about nothing'.
(Justice Katju is a retired judge of the Supreme Court of India and a former Chairman of the Press Council of India. These are his personal views.)
