By Haider Abbas
The buzz has started to grow in UP as to what would be the ‘stance’ of Muslims in the coming UP elections, who ironically are visible as Muslims but invisible as a citizens, and more particularly so, when a rabid anti-Muslim and anti-Islam party is at the helm! The worst part is that Muslims have become so redundant, due to decades of communalistic and anti-minority (read Muslims) politics of BJP, inherited by Congress, that today a lot-many-Muslims have aligned with BJP itself.
The first to leave the Muslim fraternity had been the Shiite Muslims, who owing to their ideological and racial parenthesis, had been since long surreptitiously supporting BJP (between 1986-2004) in hush-hush numbers! I had been a witness as to how Shiite Muslim intellectuals and Ulemas had provided ‘notes’ to the Hindu side in the Babri Masjid case as it went through the Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court. So shameless had been the becoming that Shiite counsels even sat alongside the Hindu side as the case proceeded. The curse has always befallen on Shiites of Lucknow, who had showed-up with their affiliations with Bhartiya Jana Sangh in 1967, as posters of Ulema-e-Jana Sangh, had thronged Lucknow and Lalu Sharma of BJS won the elections from the once, pre-dominantly Shiite constituency of Lucknow West. BJS is the parent of BJP. Shiite elite were the regular sticker-boys with BJP CM Kalyan Singh (1997-99), a convict of contempt-of-court in Babri Masjid demolition case.
Today, there is hardly a Shiite individual, who smacks of any importance, even by the standard of his or her gully (alley) and not sporting a BJP badge. This Shiite ‘house of cards’ had started to openly crumble when Kalbe Jawad, the Shiite Imam-e-Juma of historical Asifi Masjid, had sworn over the manliness of PM Narendra Modi in 2014. Remember him saying ‘Unke naam mein Nar hai, Narendra Modi’ (Nar is a male in Urdu). Shiites have openly supporting the Ram Temple movement. There is a whole list of Shiite ‘high-profiles’ who have donated to the Ram Temple construction. The phenomenon is UP-wide and beyond.
Kalbe Jawad with PM Narendra Modi. Courtesy: Internet
There is a mad race inside the Shiite community to earn the ‘more loyal than the king’ sobriquet from BJP leadership. Shiite political and religious leadership has all proved rudderless as political leadership harp on ‘their’ Brahmin origins (the case of BJP MLC Bukkal Nawab), visit temples with their children (the case of BJP Minister Mohsin Raza) , and religious speakers announce Lord Rama and Modi Ji as ‘their ideal’- the case of Habib Haider, as associate of Kalbe Jawad. He has now got a place in BJP national minority morcha.
Bukkal Nawab BJP MLC at a temple. Courtesy: Internet
There are hundreds of Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp groups of Shiites putting pride in pictures of Indresh Kumar-the once bomb blast accused of Ajmer Sharif Dargah, Dinesh Sharma UP Deputy CM, Rajnath Singh-MP from Lucknow, Brijesh Pathak-BJP Minister and RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat. A protégé of Kalbe Jawad, Mehrukh Mirza, the once Vice Chancellor of Khwaja Moin-ud-Din Chishti University brought further ignominy as he awarded an honorary PhD to Indresh Kumar from the podium of an institution named after Khawja Ajmeri! As after all Indresh Kumar had already been given a clean-chit in the Ajmer blasts case.
Mohsin Raza BJP Minister at a temple. Courtesy: Internet
The stench is too deep rooted. It was Kalbe Sadiq, the highest Shiite cleric and Ex. Vice President of All India Muslim Personal Law Board, who resigned from the committee which oversaw the Babri Masjid case but Board President Rabey Hasani prevailed and the resignation was withdrawn in 2003. Sadiq always openly likened that Muslims surrender Babri Masjid . In 2014, before the polls, he artfully welcomed BJP.
Kalbe Jawad at PhD ceremony of Indresh Kumar. Courtesy: Internet
His nephew Jawad, suggested in an interview to Rediff.com on May 2, 2014 that the imperative to pardon Narendra Modi , for his role in Gujarat riots of 2002, lie only with Muslims of Gujarat! The message was clear: Jawad was with Modi.
How in the light of last eight years, the institutions of democracy i.e. judiciary, executive, freedom of speech and protest, media etc has been blown to smithereens and a permanent onslaught on Muslims- a national phenomenon, Kalbe Sadiq progenies accepted the posthumous Padma Bhushan award bestowed by Rajnath Singh in January 2021. This ‘rubbing of salt to injury’ had come and grabbed-so -greedily, from the government, which had killed 18 Muslims in a matter of four days, in December 2019 in UP, over anti-CAA/NRC protests. Any community-leadership, with the least self-esteem could have politely rubbished such an honour, but on the contrary the likes of other Shiite clerics i.e. Agha Roohi, Hameedul Hasan, Yasoob Abbas etc have been left salivating in their domains. Agha Roohi and Hameed-ul-Hasan (the age old Shiite Ulemas ) had been the foot soldiers of BJP since the time when Muslims considered it a general-pariah. Another long time BJP stooge Waheed-ud-Din Khan was accorded Padma Vibhushan-2021.
Agha Roohi with Lucknow MP Rajnath Singh. Courtesy: Internet
Kalbe Jawad is the cog around whom politics move. He was a star and a non-status-quoist, proclaimed undivided Shiite-Sunnite command from 1997 until 2004, but gave the first shocker when he attended to a Eid-Milan party organized by PM AB Vajpayee, on the eve of general elections in 2003. . He was vehemently against BSP CM Mayawati who threw him in jail in 1997, and symbolized with Mulayam Singh Yadav led government (2003-07) but abandoned him and campaigned for BSP MP candidate Akhilesh Das Gupta in 2009. He mended his fences with Mayawati and BSP Minister Naseem-ud-Din Siddiqui was a regular-feature at his place. In 2012, he started to bay for the blood of Muhammed Azam Khan, the high-profile minister in SP government of 2012-17, owing to his extremely myopic and self-centric Waqf Board politics. By 2014 he has openly hobnobbed with BJP MP from Lucknow Rajnath Singh. He is now a permanent seat with Union Home Minister Amit Shah who commanded him to delve into the troubled-waters of Kashmir to ‘play-the-Shiite-card’. Lucknow is now to ring a bell in Srinagar. Rajnath Singh in 2014-19 was the Union Home Minister and is now Defense Minister of India.
Hameedul Hasan at Muslim Rashtriya Manch. Courtesy: The Hindu
Kalbe Jawad is no more even a shadow of himself. The sabeels ( water/milk distribution supplements) organized outside his house during Muharram, once dawned the life-size posters of Hasan Nasrullah of Lebanon and Ayatullah Khamenai of Iran, have all gone missing and instead Dinesh Sharma is the one who calls the shots. In 2017 he astutely diverted Shiite vote towards BSP to damage Muslims voting en bloc for SP, and since 2017 sits comfortably inside the BJP ranks. The latest to augment into this whole muck-and-mire of Shiite politics, is the advisory issued by UP DGP, in which a language to clearly delve further wedge between Shiites and Sunnites cay be smelled, but there is not even a whimper from the entire Shiite leadership against the BJP government of CM Ajay Singh Bisht. What else could the spineless and squeamish leadership be expected against? There is also a news that a 30-years ban on Muharram processions in Kashmir has also got withdrawn, something which has left the Shiite leadership of Kashmir in a quandary, as to what makes for this unexpected benevolence (sic)?
Muslims make around 20% of UP which qualifies a figure of more than 40 million and Shiites make for around 10% of it. The general Shiite populace does not ascribe to Kalbe Jawad and his ilk ‘lay-offs’ towards BJP and have routinely voted to oust BJP as a pattern, but it is high time to call for Kalbe Jawad hoax and see BJP gets a drubbing, particularly more so, when it failed to even provide oxygen to its exasperated population during the COVID-19 second wave which saw more than an estimated 4 million deaths!
The writer is a former UP State Information Commissioner and a political analyst.
On one hand, you call late Waheed us deen Khan a renowned scholar 👉👉 https://muslimmirror.com/eng/eight-muslims-selected-for-padma-awards-this-year/ 👈👈, on the other, you call him a long time BJP stooge. 😑😑😑
Well, what makes you think both designations is not possible?
Wrong as usual, Do you actually have a life besides being a retarded BJP IT cell bhangi troll?
No doubt, Mr Haider Abbas article is very bold and deserves the appreciation and praise of every individual that believes in secularism and Ganga- Jamuni Tahzeeb, but I wish Mr Abbas, along with exposing the leaning of shine religious leaders leaning towards Hindutva, would have dealt at dealt with those shite ulemas, intellectuals and social activists who consistently remained anti- RSS, anti- Jan Sangh, and anti-BJP.
Let Mr Haider Abbas come forward and work for the Shia – Sunni Unity.
No comment, mr Haider Abbas you are all gaining benefit of opportunity on their time,who make you up information commissioner,yes it is mr Azam khan who make you,up information commissioner in time of s.p government, you are all doing flattering .
Haider abbas is a hypocrite and a wahabi agent of Azam Khan and Taliban , how during his tenure he got a poor’s man shop abolished because his car could not be able to turn in his narrow street. He is defaming Shia community unnecessarily to please his criminal wahabi master Azam Khan.