Politics Of India

"As a general rule, you can predict what the secularist position on any issue will be once you know what the militant Islamist position is. From justifying terrorism to misrepresenting the Ayodhya evidence, the two are rarely very different."

"Just as the word deception differs in meaning from its French counterpart déception (= disappointment), the word secularism has a sharply different meaning in Indian English as compared to metropolitan English."

"When I arrived [in India], the Indian papers were full of the controversy over the ban on Salman Rushdie's book The Satanic Verses. To my surprise, many so-called "secularists", such as Khushwant Singh and M.J. Akbar, supported the ban, which had been promulgated by the "secularist" Congress government. The more I learned about this Indian "secularism", the more it became clear to me that it was often the very opposite of what we in the West in genuinely secular states call "secularism"."

"In the run-up to the Pope's visit to Delhi in 1999, the secularists fell over each other trying to be the loudest and shrillest in denying the "vicious Hindutva propaganda" that the Catholic Church has as its stated goal to convert the whole of India (and the world) to its own belief system... In Europe, the Pope is the scapegoat par excellence of militant secularists and atheists, but in India he is counted among the "secular" alliance (along with the most obscurantist Mullahs, self-described “secularists” whose like-minded Arab colleagues abhor secularism), for he is anti-Hindu and that's the only qualification you need to earn the label "secularist". To the RSS, the secularists are accomplices of the anti-national forces, of Pakistan and the terrorists. That is not incorrect, but to me, they are first of all a bunch of clowns."

"Indeed, Muslims outside India openly abhor secularism; those in India only swear by “secularism” because they know that there, the word is used improperly and effectively only means “anti-Hindu”. Not that she drew attention to the fact that “secularism” has a very different meaning to Westerners from what it has come to mean in India. Indian secularists prefer to keep the rest of the world in ignorance about their own dirty little secret, viz. that “secularism” in India often means the very opposite of its normal meaning. When you question an Indian secularist at close quarters, he will try to save his position by explaining that secularism in India happens to mean something different from what it means in the West. But do they tell this to Western audiences?... Westerners’ automatic sympathy for Indian secularism (and against the supposed “theocrats” they hear about) is predicated on the assumption that their own familiar secularism is also present in India, that both are the same. Logic teaches that “a = a”, that a term has the same meaning throughout a reasoning process, so Westerners assume that “secularism” means secularism, and this Indian law professor certainly wasn’t going to pin-prick that illusion."

"It is characteristic of practically all texts lauding India’s “secularism” that this inconvenient truth is omitted, and secularism is attributed to the unquestionable authority of the Constitution and its supposed author, BR Ambedkar. ... “secular” was a product of the Emergency... The word “secular” was not part of India’s political parlance in the days of the Constituent Assembly, and even the Republic (let alone India itself) was not founded as a “secular” state. On the contrary, the Constituent Assembly through its chairman, BR Ambedkar, explicitly rejected the two S words. India became a “secular socialist” republic under the Emergency dictatorship (1975-77) without proper Parliamentary debate. “Secular” is one of the few words in the Constitution that was enacted without democratic basis, and this is only fitting for a “secularism” which has always and unabashedly been despotic and anti-majority. There may be many things wrong with democracy, but it is not anti-majority. Indeed, that is precisely what is wrong with democracy, according to the secularists."

"Being naturally despotic, the Nehruvian secularists used precisely this intermezzo [the Emergency dictatorship (1975-77)] to insert “secular, socialist” into the text of the Constitution. The declaration of India as a “secular” republic, without a proper parliamentary debate, is thus the only part of the Constitution that is historically undemocratic. (Ch 30)"

"The iron fist of the attack (the Zarb-e-Mo’min, “strike of the faithful”, as the Pakistani Army once named one of its exercises) is furnished by Christianity and Islam, who mean to expand worldwide and in the process destroy all heathen religions. They have a positive goal, viz. perpetuating and propagating themselves, and their negative goal of digesting or annihilating Hinduism only follows therefrom. This way, they have a very good conscience in doing their work of destruction: it is only meant to clear the way for the true religion. So, they have inner strength, but they also have outer strength: they are huge and very wealthy, being only the Indian arms of two worldwide movements. It is ridiculous that they are called “minorities” at all, yet they carefully cultivate that status, for in the present-day mentality, any majority is deemed overbearing and oppressive. Their foreign roots not only make them very resourceful, they also give them a head-start in developing a coherent strategy with sustainable long-term goals. But this iron fist is clothed in a velvet glove: secularism. Knaves claim and fools believe that this is the Indian instance of the worldwide phenomenon of secularism (separation of religion and politics) originating in the West, but it is not. Thus, Islamic militants who in Arabia would abhor secularism (meaning separation of religion and politics, e.g. democratic law-making separate from what Islam prescribes), emphatically call themselves “secularists” in India. The reason is that in India, the word has a very different meaning: anything that is anti-Hindu. Islamic militants are anti-Hindu, so they indeed qualify as “secularists”. But what animates them is not this profile of secularism but their heartfelt commitment to Islam; and similarly with Christian missionaries, who can rightly call themselves secularists under the Indian definition, though their real commitment is to Christianity. So when we say “secularists”, we don’t usually mean them, we mean the Hindu-born secularists, who genuinely intend to define their uppermost commitment when they call themselves secularists. (Ch 32)"

"Congress-culture politicians and pseudo-secularists should at least inform the minority whose cause they espouse, but to whom they never dare read a lecture, that secularism and fundamentalism are mutually exclusive, and that in the Indian secular state the Muslims cannot practise their fundamentalism. Furthermore, they can also be told that history can no longer be distorted, that it cannot be made the handmaid of politics, and that therefore they need to feel sorry if not actually repentant about the past misdeeds of Muslims."

"While secularism is a European import into India, I just don't recognize the secularism practiced in India."

"In my country, we think that secularism implies the freedom to learn, teach and practice a religion, and also the freedom to reject, abandon and criticize a religion. But in India, those who call themselves secular, combine a Stalinist propensity to ban religious education in (non-minority) schools, or to ban religious TV serials, with a bigoted propensity to ban books that take a critical look at religions. In both cases, they arrogate the right to decide for others what they can see and read, and what not. We think that secularism means : let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred ideas compete. But in India, the favourite slogan of secularists is : Ban it ! Listen here, friends : banning for secularism is like f...ing for virginity."

"Of course, the Hindutva people are right when they call the secularists pseudo-secularists."

"If secularism means what it really means, as in Europe, then the people who make common cause with Muslim fundamentalists and defend a separate status for a state with a Muslim majority, religion-based personal laws, and religion-based discrimination in education or in temple management, cannot count as secularists. They are pseudo-secularists, and their opponents are genuine secularists."

"Secularism should be defended in its genuine European sense, against the Stalinist perversion of secularism that still has quite a following in India."

"You see, the secularists are like the followers of Big Brother in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. When Big Brother has raised the prices, they hold a demonstration to thank him for lowering the prices. And when a Muslim government organizes pogroms against the Hindus, the secularists thank it for keeping communal harmony."

"In Hindu culture, even in its most unsophisticated popular forms, this focus on individual consciousness is always there. No group prayers, one's religious experience is one's personal affair. Therefore, this concept of leaving religion to the care of the individual, with no authority above him empowered to dictate beliefs or religious practices, which in the West constituted a cultural revolution called secularism, is nothing new to Hindu culture. This is not an idealization but a firm reality : no matter what the "evils of Hindu society" may have been, subjecting the individual's freedom of religion to any public authority is not one of them. No wonder that Voltaire, who strongly opposed the Church's totalitarian grip over men's lives, and may count as one of the ideologues of secularism, mentioned the religions of India and China as a model of how religion could be a free exploration by the individual."

"The official Hindi term for secularism is dharmanirpekshata, i.e. dharma-neutrality. Critics of Nehruvian secularism say the correct translation would be panthanirpekshata or sampradayanirpekshata, i.e. sect- neutrality."

"So, the concepts of "dharma" and "religion" overlap only partly. The term dharmanirpekshata becomes a bit absurd or even sinister when it turns out to say "duty- neutrality" or "righteousness-neutrality" (though it applies accurately to the utter corruption in which Nehru's secular socialism has plunged the Indian state). The absurdity really comes out when we translate it as "value-system-neutrality". You just cannot have a polity without a value-system that sustains the unity and integrity of the whole. Even secularism implies something of a value-system."

"When Sadhvi Ritambhara, a pro-Janmabhoomi campaigner (a cassette of a speech of hers was banned), tells an interviewer: "Politicians appease [the Muslims] at every step, while the Hindus are taken for granted. We can't even teach our children our religion in schools", the interviewer replies : "But this is a secular nation". No, in these circumstances it is not a secular nation. Either secular means anti-religious, and then all religion teaching should be banned from schools, also that of the minorities. Or secular means religiously neutral, and then the state should leave all the religions the same right to impart religious education in schools, including the Hindus. Passing off this communal discrimination as secular, is a very crude lie indeed."

"No matter how much tyranny, how much injustice is heaped on Hindus anywhere in the world, the State of India is not bothered - this is the essence of Secularism in India."

"Likewise, no discussion is opened against the denunciation of the "secular intellectuals" as "alienated pseudo-secularists full of contempt for the true Hindu culture", though the concept "pseudo-secular" is central to the whole controversy, and proves to be entirely valid when you consider that those "secularists" defend all kinds of religious discrimination, e.g. religion-based civil codes, against the genuinely and quintessentially secular system of equality of all citizens before the law regardless of their religion."

"When we consider “secularism” as an intellectual movement rather than as a juridical concept, “secularism” means that religion is treated as a human construct rather than the product of a divine revelation. It implies a frank and critical investigation of the claims of religion. In this respect, the failure and dishonesty of Indian secularism is even more radical. Its discourse on religion is extremely and wilfully superficial. It shields from criticism even the most obscurantist religious beliefs or institutions, provided they are non-Hindu (and even in attacking Hinduism, its criticisms of even legitimate targets tend to be crassly superficial)."

"If however the misuse of this word 'secularism' continues...if every time there is an inter-communal conflict, the majority is blamed regardless of the merits of the questions; if our holy places of pilgrimage like Banaras, Mathura and Rishikesh continue to be converted into industrial slums... the springs of traditional tolerance will dry up."

"How secularism sometimes becomes allergic to Hinduism will be apparent from certain episodes relating to the Somnath temple."

"While our leaders and the Supreme Court keep chanting, ‘All religions are one’; while they keep recalling the Vedic pronouncement, ‘Truth is one, only the sages call it by different names’; while they keep recalling Ashoka’s rock edict, ‘One who reveres one’s own religion and disparages that of another, due to devotion to one’s own religion and to glorify it over all others, does injure one’s own religion certainly’, the ulema proclaim the very opposite set of values, the truly Islamic values to be fair to the ulema."

"On June 26, 1975, prime minister Indira Gandhi announced on the All India Radio that “the president has proclaimed Emergency.” .... The 42nd amendment came soon after. This 20 pages long detailed document gave unprecedented powers to the Parliament. Almost all parts of the Constitution, including the preamble, was changed with this amendment. Thereafter the description of India in the preamble was changed from “sovereign, democratic republic’ to a ‘sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic.”"

"One wonders whether the poet of Islam is being honoured or slandered when he is presented in our own times as the pioneer of Secularism. Or, perhaps, Secularism in India has a meaning deeper than that we find in the dictionaries or dissertations on political science. We may not be much mistaken if, seeing its studied exercise in blackening everything Hindu and whitewashing everything Islamic, we suspect that this Secularism is nothing more than the good old doctrine of Islam in disguise."

"The puzzle gets solved when one contemplates the character of Indian Secularism and finds that is no more than a smokescreen used by the Muslim-Christian-Communist combine in order to keep India's national society and culture at bay. ... They are simply projecting their self-images on to those whom they view as their enemies. .... I have documented elsewhere how Pandit Nehru hounded out or silenced everyone... whom he suspected of having some Hindu feeling or sympathy for some Hindu cause... and how he objected to every Hindu symbol in India's public life. The country had been partitioned by the remnants of Islamic imperialism. But he blamed it on "communalism", a word by which he always meant Hinduism."

"The fourth phase which commenced with the coming of independence proved a boon for Christianity. The Christian right to convert Hindus was incorporated in the Constitution. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru who dominated the scene for 17 long years, promoted every anti-Hindu ideology and movement behind the smokescreen of a counterfeit secularism. The regimes that followed continued to raise the spectre of ‘Hindu communalism’ as the most frightening phenomenon."

"[Nehru's] animus against Hinduism was derived from his love for Communism. He knew next to nothing about Buddhism; the only reason be hailed it as well as its hero, Ashoka, was that in his perception Buddhism was a 'revolt' against 'reactionary' Brahminism. Had he known the truth about Buddhism, he would have dropped it like a hot potato. The same psychology made him fall for Islam. Otherwise he was equally ignorant of, and equally indifferent to all religions. The Secularism which he espoused was not borrowed from the modem West. For him, it was only a smokescreen for Hindu-baiting. The fashion was picked up fast by a servile intelligentsia and became a national cult."

"Even Muslim activists whose counterparts in Turkey or Egypt denounce secularism as a demonic betrayal of Islam, call themselves “secularists”."

"Even Muslim activists whose counterparts in Turkey or Egypt denounce secularism as a demonic betrayal of Islam, call themselves “secularists”. Check the editorials of Syed Shahabuddin's monthly Muslim India, or the Jamaat-i-Islami weekly Radiance: they brandish “secularism” in every issue."

"This is just another case of secularist justice: Hindu are damned if they do, damned if they don’t."

"India’s secularist academics and journalists form a society of mutual praise, and the cheapest way of getting applause in elite India is to attack the Hindu movement."

"India was declared a “secular, socialist” republic under the Emergency dictatorship without a proper parliamentary debate. In the mid-1990s, the secularists made attempts to persuade the courts to outlaw the BJP, then India’s largest opposition party. As an elitist and intrinsically despotic movement, Indian secularism implies hate not only of Hinduism but also of democracy."

"I don't mind discussing this matter, for there is nothing shameful about the day when I saw through the usual hateful misrepresentation of "Hindu chauvinism", meaning Hindu self-defence against the aggression by so-called "secular" religions and ideologies. There is nothing shameful about my outgrowing silly beliefs such as the still-widespread belief in India's mock secularism."

"The Jesuits are wiser than the secularists, who are smitten with hubris and drunk on their currently unlimited power. … The secularists’ lies are bound to get exposed one day, and their names will become synonymous with “liar”, but the Jesuits have famously perfected the art of “lying without lying”. Rarely do they get caught in the act of uttering an actual lie, even when their audience comes away with an understanding of matters that is different from the truth. ...The BBC has learned a thing or two from the Jesuits. It is often aggressively partisan but has perfected the art of creating a false semblance of even-handedness. ...Under the present power equation, where the pro-Hindu forces have almost no capable presence in the media and among the influential experts, this kind of libel against a Hindu-minded government is virtually inevitable. It will keep on happening until Hindus get their act together and their message across. On the bright side, though, we should also notice that the Hindu-hating coalition is practically admitting the hollowness of its case if it is reduced to proving “Hindu fascism” with nothing better than the misrepresentation of a provincial school textbook... The uninformed public (which includes quite a few so-called experts) may be fooled by the Hindu-baiters’ bluff, but anyone who scrutinizes the arguments will see through it. The record of BJP governance has utterly disproved the shrill allegations of “Hindu fascism”. (Ch 1)"

"Since ‘Enlightenment Secularism’, with its core principle of separation, founded on the Protestant conception of religion as essentially a private concern with which states had no legitimate business, was never going to work in a country where rulers and religious publics had been interacting from time immemorial, it was better not to use the term at all, than to use it fraudulently."

"Some of them, particularly of Ulema class, sounded a warning that Pakistan might impede the establishment of Dinia by arousing unnecessary resistance among the Hindus; therefore, they stayed away from the Pakistan campaign and some of them even opposed it. They came to be known as “nationalist Muslims.”"

"The foundation of the Muslim League and Minto’s concessions had the effect of dividing the Hindus and Muslims into almost two hostile political camps. A remarkable example of this is afforded by a letter written about 1908 by Mr. Ziauddin Ahmad, later Vice- Chancellor of the Muslim University, Aligarh, to Mr. Abdulla Shuhrawardy, both of whom were then prosecuting their studies in Europe. Abdulla Shuhrawardy shared the national feelings which then characterized Indian students in Europe, and for this he was rebuked by Ziauddin in a letter from which we quote the following extract; “You know that we have a definite political policy at Aligarh, i.e. the policy of Sir Syed. I understand that Mr. Kirshna Varma has founded a society called ‘Indian Home Rule Society’ and: you are also one of its vice-presidents. Do you really believe that the Mohammedans will be profited if Home Rule be granted to India de lene. There is no doubt that this Home Rule is decidedly against the Aligarh policy...What I call the Aligarh policy is really the policy of all the Mohammedans generally—of the Mohammedans of Upper India particularly.” Mr. Asaf Ali wrote to Pandit Shyamji in September, 1909: “I am staying with some Muslim friends who do not like me to associate with nationalists; and, to save many unpleasant consequences, I do not want to irritate them unnecessarily.” Thus the Muslim antagonism to the Freedom Movement of India dates back to its beginning itself. (151ff)"

"The Moslems in general and Indian Moslems in particular have not as yet grown out of the historical stage, of intense religiosity and the theological concept of state. Their theology and theocratical [sic] politics divide the human world into two groups only—The Moslem land and the enemy land. All lands which are either entirely inhabited by the Moslems or are ruled over by the Moslems are Moslem lands. All lands, which are mostly inhabited by non-Moslem power are enemy lands and no faithful Moslem is allowed to bear any loyalty to them and is called upon to do everything in his power by policy or force or fraud to convert the non-Moslem there to Moslem faith, to bring about its political conquest by a Moslem power. It is no good quoting sentences here or there from Moslem theological books to prove the contrary. Read the whole book to know its trend. And again it is not with books that we are concerned here but with the followers of the book and how they translate them in practice. You will then see that the whole Moslem history and their daily actions are framed on the design I have outlined above. Consequently, a territorial patriotism is a word unknown to the Moslem—nay is tabooed, unless in connection with a Moslem territory. Afghans can be patriots for Afghanisthan is a Moslem territory today. But an Indian Moslem if he is a real Moslem—and they are intensely religious as a people—cannot faithfully bear loyalty to India as a country, as a nation, as a State, because it is today ‘an Enemy Land’ and doubly lost; for non-Moslems are in a majority here and to boot it is not ruled by any Moslem power, Moslem sovereign. Add to this that of all non-Moslems the Hindus are looked upon as the most damned by Moslem theologians. For Christians and Jews are after all ‘Kitabis’, having the holy books partially in common. But the Hindus are totally ‘Kafirs’ as a consequence their land ‘Hindusthan’ is pre-eminently an ‘enemy’ and as long as it is not ruled by Moslems or all Hindus do not embrace Islam . . . What wonder then that the Muslim League should openly declare its intention to join hands with non-Indian alien Moslem countries rather than with Indian Hindus in forming a Moslem Federation? They could not be accused from their point of view of being traitors to Hindusthan. Their conscience was clear. They never looked upon our today’s ‘Hindusthan’ as their country, nation. It is to them already an alien land, and enemy land—‘a Dar-ul-Harb’ and not a ‘Dar-ul-Islam!!’"

"Why do the secularists never comment on such material? Where do the fatwas leave the ecumenical homilies of our Sarva dharma samabhava school? The fatwas of the ‘nationalist’ ulema were surprising enough: they urged joint action with kafirs on strictly pragmatic grounds, on the ground in particular that such joint action was the best, indeed the only available way to maintain separateness. But here we have fatwas which proclaim even that pragmatism to be kufr. Notice that the person in question, the one whose leadership occasioned the fatwas was Mahatma Gandhi—a more saintly person is not likely to be available in our public life for decades and decades. And yet these were the fatwas. The cause too was as noble as a cause can be—the country’s Independence. Often—as during the Khilafat movement—the cause was of direct concern to the Muslims. And yet these were the fatwas. Notice too that while, for urging even that minimal cooperation with the kafir Hindus, an alim even of the eminence of Mufti Kifayatullah had to confine himself to pragmatic reasoning, Maulana Ahmad Riza Khan was able to justify his fatwas by citing chapter and verse from the Quran and Hadis. For the Quran and Hadis ordain the position elaborated by Ahmad Riza Khan, and not the one the ‘nationalist’ ulema strained to justify. That is the fact which our intelligentsia does not want to face."

"These fatwas ... are the fatwas of the leading light of what would today be called the nationalist ulema: they reflect the premises, the axioms, the objectives of the ulema who supported joint action with the Congress, who endorsed participation in the Khilafat movement, in the Non-Cooperation movement, they reflect the position of the ulema who opposed the demand for Pakistan. The first thing which becomes apparent upon reading the fatwas of these ulema is that they were always on the defensive, that they had to labour endlessly to justify their position. This was so in part because, as I.H. Qureshi stresses in his Ulema in Politics, they were a minority among the ulema, but even more so because the course which they were proposing ran counter to what the Quran and Hadis so manifestly prescribe at so many places. For the latter reason, as will be evident from reading the fatwas, Kifayatullah and others could seek to justify their positions on pragmatic grounds alone. Moreover, they too affirmed that a Muslim is first and foremost a Muslim. They too held that his overriding objective, his ‘supreme’ objective is, and must be the advancement of the interests of Islam and of Muslims. They too saw the interests of Muslims to be distinct and separate from the interests of Indians—or to use the expression they used, of Hindustanis—in general. In their reckoning too, far from a non-Muslim actually furthering and protecting these separate interests, a non-Muslim could not even be acknowledged to be the one doing so. Indeed, even a non-orthodox Muslim, one who was not adhering to the requirements of the shariah could not be acknowledged to be the defender and protector of these distinct and separate interests. Their point was merely that the circumstances in which Muslims were placed at that time necessitated that they work jointly with one set of kafirs— the Hindus—to weaken and oust the other set of kafirs—the British. This necessity, they explained, arose from the conjunction of two factors: both the Hindus and the Ahl-i-Kitab are the enemies of Islam, they declared, but as at that time as the Ahl-i-Kitab, specifically the Christian British, were the more powerful, they constituted the greater danger to the interests of Islam and of Muslims; third, at that time Muslims could not rid the place of the British on their own—a trinity of aims which in today’s circumstance would entail the opposite course. That apart, even while urging joint action with kafirs they incessantly stressed separateness. Indeed on their reckoning joint action was justified precisely because it was the best available way, because in the given circumstances it was the only way for safeguarding that separateness. They repeatedly declared, as we have seen, that had it been possible for Muslims to safeguard their interests by their own efforts, it would indeed have been wrong to associate with kafirs even in joint action against the British. And their opposition to the demand for Pakistan was not that Hindustan is one and should therefore remain one. They opposed the demand on the grounds that Pakistan was not going to be realized, that if attained it would confine the sway and glory of Islam to a corner of the country alone, that Muslims in the rest of India would be weakened, and that, in any case, the aim of the Muslim League was not to create a truly Islamic state. [...]"

"The Qaid-e-Azam had two sets of teeth in his mouth like that of a rogue elephant — one set was for show of beauty, and the other was for the real purpose of mastication. His first declaration from the throne of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan as its President was that the ‘The Hindus would cease to be Hindus and the Muslims would cease to be Muslims in matters of administration henceforth and thus form into a Pakistan Nation.’ ... This was the set of his outer teeth for show of beauty but the real teeth for mastication lay covered elsewhere within the mouth — nobody could see that; only the victims could feel and appreciate the monstrosity of them. The great leader Mr. Jinnah had the real teeth for mastication in his policy of internal administration which stood for chauvinistic aggressive Muslim nationalism."

"What was the difference between Jinnah and the nationalist Muslims? While Jinnah wanted a separate state, the nationalist Muslims wanted the whole of India... The nationalist Muslims ... were generally no less hostile to the Hindus, or at least to Hinduism, than the Pakistan party."

"Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav slammed the Uttar Pradesh government in the state, saying the children’s lives could have been save if the police had done their job. “They (BJP government) can't hide their shortcomings. This encounter is not going to hide their failure, " he said referring to the encounter during which Sajid was shot dead"

"SP leader Shivpal Singh Yadav who is also the party's nominee for the upcoming Lok Sabha poll in Budaun, slammed the government, saying law and order has totally failed in the state. "The incident in Budaun is very saddening," he told reporters. On the encounter, he said, "I congratulate the district and police administration for the action but the truth behind the incident must also come out.""

""BJP wants to win elections by creating riots and communal tension in UP and that is why it is itself carrying out such incidents and creating communal tension in the districts, the result of which is today's incident in Badaun," Samajwadi Party said in a post on X. "When BJP has lost on the real issues of the people, then religious dispute, religious fight is the last weapon left for BJP. At the behest of BJP, many goons and miscreants are roaming freely and are committing such incidents due to which fights are increasing in the society," it added."

"Shahid Siddiqui, the editor of Urdu daily, Nai Duniya, faced severe attack and abuse for simply doing an interview with Modi in which Modi defends himself against various charges leveled against his government. Siddiqui had asked him all the stereotypical questions hurled by anti-Modi groups and was in no way soft towards Modi. Yet, he was vilified for simply allowing Modi newspaper space to state his version, so much so that he was expelled from Samajwadi Party. It is not surprising that Siddiqui fell in line within no time and began mouthing anti-Modi rhetoric. What kind of journalism do the self-appointed defenders of minority rights want to promote in India that does not give a journalist the right to interview a thrice-elected chief minister simply because the Congress and the Left parties feel threatened by him?"

"I had joined the party in presence of all major Samajwadi Party leaders, including Mulayam Singh Yadav. So this joke is really sad."