India journeying towards majoritarianism since beginning: Asad

 Hyderabad: AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi, speaking at Addison in Illinois of USA, said that India’s journey as a country has been towards a majoritarian one since Day one.

He said, “We have a Constitution and our founding fathers had hoped that we will have a participatory form of democracy instead of a majoritarian one. Whenever the matter of reservations for Muslims was talked about by Muslim intellectuals, Sardar Patel would tell them they do not want to bring Muslims into the mainstream. In the constituent assembly, it was conveyed that we should leave all such things. UP’s first CM Govind Vallabh Pant had said we should either remain together or leave.”

He said that the BJP currently has 306 MPs without a single Muslim MP or minister in the government. “Twenty MPs of us (Muslims) come from areas which have more than 30 per cent of population. This exposes the secularism of our secular parties. Muslims are being made invisible. Their names are anyway higher in jails. Around 24 per cent of under-trials are Muslims and those convicted are 8 or 9 per cent, pointing to false cases,” he said.

On the issue of economic well-being of communities, he said, “The income of all communities has risen except (that of) Muslims. The dropout rate of Muslims is higher. Scholarships given in the name of Maulana Azad has fallen. Recently, posters were stuck on Muslims houses in Uttarakhand asking them to leave. The first to leave was BJP’s minority leader from the area.”

“What will we tell youth if we remove history and agitations are happening in the name of Aurangazeb? There is competitive communalism between parties and people thus opt for the most vituperative among them, that is Modi. The voting percentage of Modi has only increased,” Owaisi said.  

“When Parliament was opened, all Hindu religious practices were followed. Congress in Madhya Pradesh said it will celebrate Hindu festivals and in Telangana they are saying they will build a bigger temple. Where is the ideological battle with BJP?” Owaisi asked.

“We have a demographic dividend now in the country. We can use this properly. After 2040, the dividend will reverse. Muslims are accused of having more wives but data said there was not much difference in having second wives and then they talk of uniform civil code,” he said.  

“Our PM claims we had stem cell research and plastic surgery hundreds of years ago, but all we have are corpses in the river bed,” the AIMIM leader said.