Agencies/Deoband, Uttar Pradesh
Muslims had contributed much to the building of modern India and the country could not view Islam as an alien faith, federal Home Minister P Chidambaram said yesterday.
Chidambaram was addressing a gathering of 100,000 people including about 10,000 Muslim clerics at the annual conference of influential Deoband seminary in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh being organised by the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind.
“We cannot view Islam as an alien faith. Our Muslim brethren are honoured citizens of India. This is the land of your forbears, this is the land of your birth, and this is where you will live and work,” Chidambaram said.
India has the world’s third-largest Muslim population, after Indonesia and Pakistan. However, Muslims comprise about 13.4% of its 1.2bn population, while Hindus form a majority of more than 80%.
“A nation can ignore its minorities only at its peril. The golden rule in a democracy is that it is the duty of the majority to protect the minority, be it religious, racial or linguistic,” the home minister said. “Due to the acts of a few, we have allowed diversity to become differences.”
Chidambaram called for tolerance to “strengthen the strands that bind civil society.”
“Communalism is the negation of pluralism. Communalism also opposes modernity, rejects the idea of civil society, and opposes political freedom to the people,” Chidambaram said.
The home minister reminded the gathering, which had only last year issued a fatwa (decree) against terrorism, that civil society was based on a compact and tolerance was at the core of this compact.
“The sharper the differences, the greater must be the degree of tolerance. When this compact is eroded, the foundations of civil society are shaken. It is our duty to spread the message of tolerance and strengthen the strands that bind civil society,” he said.
“In the final analysis, it is the assurance of political freedom, and all the rights associated with such freedom, that will defeat communalism.”
The home minister condemned all manifestations of communalism and said “the worst kind of communalism is unleashing communal violence. Violence and violent means to achieve any objective is the antithesis of a civilised society governed by the rule of law.
Chidambaram condemned the demolition of the mediaeval Babri mosque in Uttar Pradesh’s Ayodhya town in 1992, calling it “a manifestation of religious fanaticism and an act of extreme prejudice.”
The 16th-century mosque was demolished by Hindu mobs, triggering bloody communal riots nationwide which claimed more than 2,000 lives.
Hindu groups believe the mosque was located at a site where their epic hero god Rama was born, and want to construct a temple there.
He praised the clerics for their bold declaration denouncing terrorism, and said: “I regard that decree as a call to duty to not only Muslims but to all right thinking people. I would urge that more voices be raised, loudly and clearly, against terrorism and all forms of violence.”
JUH leader Maulana Mehmood Madni urged Muslim militants and Maoist rebels to lay down arms, and assured them the community would help take up their cause.
“If terrorists and Maoists agree to give up violence, they are welcome to join us and I would like to assure them that we will fight for them,” he said.
The convention also passed a resolution to oppose the creation of a Central Madrassa Board, proposed by Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal.
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