Friday, July 16, 2010
LETTER TO THE EDITOR:
One ‘Muslim’ minister’s lonely fight against entire 200 million strong Indian Muslim community
The man is not a visionary. He is just a government minister. But he thinks he knows best. The giant size confidence that Salman Khurshid nurses, comes from being very near to power center for long long years and thus being far and very far from the Muslim community itself; which he is now being entrusted to represent. It is reported that such an important bill, which has Muslim community’s stakes worth millions of Crores, is being claimed by the minister to be not even read by him. If the report is correct, such a minister should be sacked immediately. The bureaucrat, who was specially transferred to advise and help him in this grossly anti-Muslim enterprise, was known to have his own ideas of how Awqaf should be handled and woe to Indian democracy, that the community whose votes make the real difference between victory or defeat in Indian elections, has nary a say in such a monumental issue. But all is not lost. Muslims have been awaked at the eleventh hour. Salman Khurshid has been hobnobbing with individuals across the country, lobbying with promises, to help him see the bill through. And come Sunday, he has planned a grand meeting of a cross section of Muslim opinion makers with a view to get a consensus. One hope that Sunday meet does not end as the circus of the absurd. The real test of power, will be not be this Sunday, but the next assembly election in the by-lanes of the poverty ridden Uttar Pradesh. Congress writ does not run in that state which elects maximum number of Lok Sabha seats and this Awqaf bill will not make the situation any better; unless all the recommendations of the Muslim community are incorporated to their entire satisfaction without any overt or covert treachery.
Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
