Images from the ‘closed door Jirga’ leave sufficient room for doubts

By Muslim Mirror Special Correspondent

New Delhi : Further to the furore erupted over the Muslim Mirror’s report on the closed door meeting, held at IIC on March 4 in national capital, a brief profiling of some participants will make things even more clear.

Precisely, the image of some ulema in the deliberation has justifiably raised doubts, given their past records. Take for example the mega Deen Bachao, Desh Bachao” (save religion, save nation) the output of which is nowhere to be seen except that one of his close aides managed to get MLC seat in Bihar. The fiery maulana found to be cool on the citizenship regime, rarely raised voiced against the contentious decision of the Narendra Modi government.

However, the credentials of many others who took part in the Jirga stand questionable among the community. The another tall (int terms of height) cleric from Lucknow is another example whose hobnobbing with BJP leaders and ministers are only an open secret. He was many times seen rubbing shoulders with tall BJP leader Rajnath Singh.

Lucknow: BJP Chief Rajnath Singh meets Muslim religious leader Maulana Syed Kalbe Jawad pic.twitter.com/MciNMVJvZ1

— ANI (@ANI) April 14, 2014

This Maulana has been hobnobbing openly with Rajnath Singh since 2014 when the latter had visited his place. He had shortly, before the NDA government was sworn-in, given an interview to Rediff.Com in which he exonerated Narendra Modi of the riots on Gujarat 2002.  In 2017 UP Assembly elections this Maulana campaigned for BSP to cut into the Muslim votes from SP and since the government of BJP in UP from 2017 onwards he has been very actively supporting BJP on all fronts. It may be referred here that in 2005 he was the prime player to break the coalition of Muslim parties in UP and went on to  abandon the Muslim political front to put his stakes with UP CM Mulayam Singh Yadav who gave him a symbolic holiday of Rajab 13, which is the birthday of the fourth-Caliph of Islam.

He got AMU VC appointed,  through his links with Rajnath Singh and also got his cousin become Director of Interfaith Understanding at  AMU for three years.  There is hardly a day when SUVs with ‘BJP flag fluttering’  are not around his house as now he is openly playing to the cards of Home Minister for articulating New Delhi policies in Kashmir by playing the Shiite-trope in Kashmir towards which he has been a subject of ridicule from the Shiites in Kashmir.

Met Maulana Kalbe Jawad ji, eminent Shia Muslim cleric from Lucknow. pic.twitter.com/FiB0FbWVx0

— Amit Shah (@AmitShah) November 17, 2020

The same Maulana has got all his cousins get plum contracts in Lucknow and he is also desperately trying to convene the next constitution of UP Shia Central Waqf Board by fixing it with his candidates as he has been at loggerheads with the outgoing Chairman of UPSCWB.

No wonder the SCWB chairman changed his loyalties towards BJP after 2017 and gave an affidavit that Babri Masjid site be given to Hindus and in exchange a mosque may be given to Muslims, something which  Maulana Salman Nadvi advocated very vociferously after his meeting with Shri Shri Ravi Shankar. UPSCWB Chairman too had been hobnobbing with Shri Shri.

Those who had forsaken Babri Masjid and tried to sell it were however recently found sharing a seat next to the newly appointed Bihar BJP minister Shahnawaz Husain in the February 27-28, Sufi conference held in Bhagalpur, Bihar. The meeting had found Salman Nadvi along with Ex. Information Commissioner Hafiz Usman who earned ignominy for his Jai Shri Ram remark and is considered close to Salman Nadvi. Nadvi has lost all his credibility after his Babri Masjid fiasco.

The Muslims are a beleaguered lot but the presence of open-ended BJP spooks like the Maulana from Lucknow never gives an encouraging impetus to Muslim fortunes which have been in the doldrums from practically all sides.  It may be here re-emphasized that after this Maulana’s drift towards BJP a vast majority of  nearly every person who enjoyed any social or a political status with a Shiite-denomination has been enjoying the power-blues with BJP in UP.

There is now an ever growing list of ulema, academicians and politicians who are donating lavishly towards the construction of Ram Temple. The Maulana’s cousin was the first to announce donation of Rs 15 lakh in 2010 for Ram Mandir.