Neo Mir Jafars: An Opinion on RSS Outreach and the Role of Muslim Intellectuals in India
- Neo Mir Jafars: Shamsul Islam's Critique of RSS-Muslim Intellectual Dialogue
- RSS Outreach to Muslim Intellectuals: Shamsul Islam's Political Analysis
Neo Mir Jafars: Democracy, RSS, and Muslim Intellectuals in Contemporary India
In this opinion essay, Shamsul Islam critiques RSS outreach to Muslim intellectuals, examining constitutional democracy, minority politics, and India's evolving political landscape.
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| Professor Shamsul Islam |
Neo Mir
Jafars
When
people of India of whom, according to 2011 Census, approximately 80% are Hindus
reel under unprecedented violence against women, working class, Dalits, Tribals
and minorities, price rise, unemployment, corruption, closure of schools,
ouster of marginalized Indians from the ambit of higher education and countless
paper leaks in the Amrit Kaal (Sanskrit term for era of elixir/golden
period) of RSS-BJP rule, a well-off section of ‘‘Muslim intellectuals’’ who
have been part of the ruling elite unconcerned with this horrendous reality are
busy in legitimizing the extra-constitutional fountain-head of the Hindutva
rulers, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh using Indian Muslims as an alibi.
It was
made public by a journalist, Mohammed Wajihuddin who specializes in Muslim issues under
the title ‘Mir Taqi Mir of contemporary India’. According to his celebratory
report several former bureaucrats, scholars and activists attended the
inaugural meeting the newly launched initiative Citizens for Fraternity
(CFF)-Bharat at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi on
June 3, 2024. He wrote: “At the outset, senior journalist Javed M Ansari who
moderated the show declared that it was a completely non-political platform and
the only purpose of the group was to promote peace, harmony, and fraternity
through dialogue.” The report quoted the following words of ‘the
initiative's moving force Najeeb Jung, retired IAS, former VC of Jamia Millia
Islamia and former Lt governor of Delhi’:
"Despite
opposition from within the community, we are going ahead. None of us intends to
join any political party and fight elections. We are in pain at the way the two
communities are increasingly seeing each other with suspicion".
According to
this narrative retired IAS and former Chief Election Commissioner S Y Qureshi
informed the gathering that units of CFF would be opened first in all the state
capitals and then in districts across the country. Both Jung and Qureshi
mentioned their meeting with RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat a couple of years ago.
According to Qureshi, ‘We were attacked by our community members for meeting
Bhagwat ji. But we believe only dialogue can lead us to find a solution…We
asked Bhagwatji how would Muslims be treated in Hindu Rashtra. He said India
cannot be imagined without its Muslim population”.
Wajihuddin
also recollected that “when five prominent Muslims, including Jung, Qureshi,
Nai Duniya editor Shahid Siddiqui, Lt General (rtd) Zameer Uddin Shah and
businessman Saeed Sherwani met Bhagwat on August 22, 2022 in New Delhi to
discuss communal harmony and ease interfaith tensions, they were slammed by a
section of the community…They accused us of having made a deal with the RSS
chief. Regardless of the criticism, we continue to believe in dialogue".
Sharing
other details Wajihuddin wrote that before IGNCA president and senior
journalist-scholar Dr Ram Bahadur Rai (a renowned Bhumihaar face of RSS who has
been given charge of IGNCA as a sinecure in his old age for services done to
the Hindutva cause as a media person) made his presidential remarks, former
bureaucrat Inderjit Khanna, former diplomat Ashok Sharma, former VC of South
Asian University Dr Kavita A Sharma and senior RSS functionary Ram Lal too
spoke and reiterated the need to end the toxicity created in our environment.
Ram Lal who eloquently advocated establishing contacts, removing
misunderstanding and creating bonds among community leaders was asked many
questions. Lal quipped: “The main organizer is Jung Sahab, but most questions
are being directed at me.”
Wajihuddin
also joined the deliberation when he stated: “As is my won't, I too fired a
salvo... I quoted an anecdote. Directing my question to Lal, I said that Indian
Muslims have become "Mir Taqi Mir" of the contemporary times. And
thereby hangs a tale. I said that legend has it that in his deathbed, Mir
Mutaqqi, a practising Sufi, summoned his two sons Mir Taqi Mir (1723-1810) who
would become a famous poet later and his stepbrother Hassan, and told them that
he wanted them to divide among themselves the two things he was leaving behind:
some debts to pay back and a collection of 300 books. However, Mir's stepbrother
did not listen to their dying father's directive and grabbed the books, making
Mir to pay back the debts alone.
"Indians
Muslims are in the situation of Mir Taqi Mir today. They are being asked to pay
for the debts of the past. They are being blamed for partition, for destroying
temples, for starting riots…Lal heard me patiently and replied that the
situation will improve”.
Mohammed
Wajihuddin rightly stated that a delegation of 5 ‘Muslim intellectuals’ namely
former chief election commissioner S Y Quraishi, former senior bureaucrat
Najeeb Jung, former AMU vice-chancellor and Lt Gen (retd) Zameer U Shah, politician-cum-journalist Shahid Siddiqui
(then in RLD) and businessman Saeed Shervani [then in Samajvadi Party] met RSS
Supremo, Mohan Bhagwat at RSS palatial Delhi headquarters. The meeting was kept
secret for reasons known to the participants which took place on August 22,
2022.
According to
these ‘‘‘Muslim intellectuals’’’ the meeting held in “a very cordial”
atmosphere continued for 75 minutes, whereas time allotted was 30 minutes! In a
post-meeting justification of the parleys Quraishi stated that their main
concern was “the insecurity being increasingly felt by the Muslim community
in the wake of recurring incidents of lynching of innocents, calls by Hindutva
hotheads for genocide and the marginalisation of the community in almost every
sphere”. [The Indian Express, September 26]
This
delegation, consisting high-ranking former Indian government administrators, a
top-most military commander and two members of Parliament, are expected to be
familiar with the protocols of a democratic constitutional polity that the
above-mentioned issues fall in the realm of governance. They should have met the Indian PM or the Home Minister to demand corrective measures. If not satisfied, they
should have approached the President of India and the judiciary. However, they
decided to approach RSS top brass which has no legal sanctity.
They may
rightly argue that since RSS controls BJP [RSS does not hide the fact that BJP
is its political appendage (RSS Hindi publication Parm Vaibhav ke Path Per,
1997) and BJP rulers from PM to most of his cabinet members, BJP CMs and
Governors of States publically declare to be RSS members) why not approach the
source of power itself! Did these ‘‘Muslim intellectuals’’ believe that they
were living during extra-constitutional times?
Surprisingly,
the moderator, Javed M Ansari, remained blind to this reality and declared that
“it was a completely non-political platform”!
This model
opted by ‘Muslim intellectuals’ presents a horrendous option for the largest
minority of India and other smaller minorities in India. When being persecuted,
do not rely on institutions of democratic-secular Indian polity but go and beg
for life and safety from the perpetrator rapists, killers and marauders. Their
suggestion to the persecuted minorities in Pakistan, Hindus, Christians, Shias
and Ahmadiyas shall be do not expect protection from the State but enter into
‘peace pacts’ with the blood-thirsty Islamist gangs.
Another
troubling issue is how these ‘Muslim intellectuals’ came to the conclusion that
RSS represents all Hindus of India. Have they lost faith in common Hindus of
India who do not support RSS and remain faithful to the democratic-secular
polity of India? Did it not strike to them that in the recent concluded West
Bengal assembly elections, despite RSS-BJP turning it into a Hindu versus Muslims
and disenfranchisement of millions of voters, courtesy a spineless Election
Commission and higher judiciary, they could secure only 46.4% of the polled
votes?
And, by the
way, under what authority this bunch of ‘Muslim intellectuals’ present them as
representative of Indian Muslims!
‘Muslim
intellectuals’ wishing to open Hot Line with the de facto ruler of India, RSS
should have done home work on cow-slaughter before the meeting. It was the most
important ideologue of RSS, MS Golwalkar claimed in 1966 (RSS publication
‘Spotlight’) that cow-slaughter began with the arrival of Muslims who wanted to
“stamp out every vestige of self-respect in Hindus”. It is not corroborated
even by Swami Vivekananda who stated (February 2, 1900): “You will be
astonished if I tell you that, according to old ceremonials, he is not a good
Hindu who does not eat beef.” The beef slaughter as a Muslim crime is the
creation of RSS hate propaganda. A large number of Dalits and Christians too
consume beef. The ‘Muslim intellectuals’ should have informed Mohan Bhagwat
that RSS-BJP run governments in Goa, Karnataka and all North-eastern States
allow cow-slaughter. Then why punish Muslims and Dalits only? Did this group do
it?
RSS
organizations have been in the forefront of spreading the bogey that Muslims in
few decades would outnumber Hindus in India. The ‘Muslim intellectuals’ should
have shared with Mohan Bhagwat that despite 1000 years of repressive Muslim
rule (as claimed by RSS) the first census in India held in 1871-72 recorded:
“140½ millions of Hindus and Sikhs, or 73½ per cent., 40¾ millions of Muslims,
or 21½ per cent.” Now Muslims constitute only 14% of the population. He also
should have been told that in USA, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and UK population
of Hindus has increased by almost 100% in last one decade or so. Should it be a
matter of alarm for Christians of these countries? Only Racists bother about
increase/decrease in the population of any section in their respective countries.
‘Muslim
intellectuals’ looking for salvation at the altar of RSS must not forget that
Muslims/Islam or other minorities in India can survive only when Indian
democratic-secular-egalitarian polity framed under the guidance of Dr. BR
Ambedkar survives. It may have many infirmities but is the only guarantee
against majoritarianism or Hindutva bigotry.
In this
regard, RSS is not only antithetical to Muslims but Indian democratic-secular
Constitution. The Indian Constituent Assembly approved the Constitution on
November 26, 1949. RSS instantly rejected it through an editorial in its
English organ Organiser (November 29), demanding the promulgation of Manusmriti.
Earlier RSS icon VD Savarkar had declared it as the most worshippable scripture
after Vedas. It is to be noted that Manusmriti decrees sub-human status
for Hindu women and Sudras. It was burnt on December 25, 1927 in the presence
of Dr. Ambedkar during Mahad agitation who also called upon to commemorate
every this day as ‘Manusmriti Dahan Divas’.
RSS hated
every symbol of the democratic-secular Indian polity. On the eve of Independence
Organiser (August 14, 1947) denigrated the National Flag by declaring that it
will “never be respected and owned by Hindus. The word three is in itself an
evil, and a flag having three colours…is injurious to a country.” In the
same issue, in an editorial (‘Whither’) RSS rejected the whole concept of
secular state by arguing: “in Hindusthan only the Hindus form the nation and
the national structure must be built on that safe and sound foundation…the
nation itself must be built up of Hindus, on Hindu traditions, culture, ideas
and aspirations.”
Quraishi
gleefully informs us that Mohan Bhagwat emphasised on 3 things: “Hindutva is an
inclusive concept in which all communities have equal room...the Indian
Constitution is sacrosanct, and the entire country has to abide by it. He
sought to dispel the fear that RSS is seeking to abandon the Constitution at
the first opportunity. And, that Muslims will be disenfranchised.” If ‘Muslim
intellectuals’ were familiar with Savarkar’s Hindutva (1923) and
Golwalkar’s We or Our Nationhood Defined (1939) and Bunch of Thoughts
[1966], these claims would not have gone unchallenged. The first two Holy Books
for RSS demand cleansing of Muslims (and Christians) from as Jews were cleansed
by Hitler in Germany. The last one has a chapter (XVI) titled ‘Internal
Threats’ which declares Muslims and Christians as enemy number one and two and
describes the Indian Constitution as worthless and anti-Hindu. Mohan Bhagwat has
never disowned these works.
Interestingly,
RSS has not issued any statement corroborating the ‘Muslim intellectuals’’
version. In fact, according to press reports RSS prachar pramukh (national
publicity chief) Sunil Ambekar declined to comment.
Not only Muslims but all Indians want to know
who shall finance the creation and running of CFF units in all State capitals
of India (28) and all districts (802), the total comes to 830. Even national
parties in India have not been able to have a presence on such a gigantic level.
‘Muslim intellectuals’ seem to be flushed with money. Whose money will these
be? It seems RSS has roped in Adanis and Ambanis, who have been bank-rolling
Hindutva project, in this project too. It has another dimension: Najeeb, Qureshi,
Javed, Sherwani, Shah and Siddiqui taking charge of Muslim outreach programme
of RSS, will it be quits for the Muslim Rashtriya Manch, which has been so far
grooming stooges for RSS among Muslims?
It is sad that a group of ‘Muslim intellectuals’ on behalf of “the middle class and educated Muslim” as confessed by Shahid Siddiqui after the August 2022 meeting, is legitimizing an organization which is waiting for an opportune time to finally demolish the largest democracy in the world. They did not bother to confront RSS chief with the facts of pauperization of common Indians, mounting unemployment, hunger and violence against women. These issues should have been the main concern as Muslims, standing at the lowest pedestal socially, financially and politically, are naturally the worst sufferers.
Sadly, they
did not touch the wide use of terror laws by the government run by the RSS
cadres, under which a large number of Muslim activists and non-Muslim activists
are being kept perpetually in detention. These are critical times for the
Indian democracy; if it is demolished, there is no possibility of the survival of
minorities, including Muslims. India needs intellectuals who stand in defence of
the Indian democracy and not surrender before an extra-constitutional gang, which is known as the most lethal terrorist organization in the world today, for
personal gains.
Link for my response to August 22, 2022 hobnobbing of ‘Muslim intellectuals’ with RSS:
‘Muslimintellectuals’ outreach to RSS: Why it is misguided’, The Indian Express,September 27, 2022
Shamsul Islam
June 11, 2026
