India: Muslim Groups Form a New Political Party

NEW DELHI, 10 March 2003 — Prominent Muslim leaders yesterday announced the formation of a new political party before a mammoth gathering of some 75,000 people in the capital.

Criticizing political parties and successive governments since India’s independence in 1947, Muslim leaders like Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the head priest of the historic Jama Masjid, said they had come together to forge unity as the Muslim community needed a party of its own.

The coming together is significant as leaders like Bukhari and Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind President Maulana Asad Madani come from different schools of thought and have often adopted divergent stands on various issues in the past.

The formation of the political party, which is yet to be named, has its origins in a move initiated by Bukhari some years ago.

Among the leaders present at yesterday’s meeting were Jamaat-e-Islami vice president Shafi Monis, Mirwaiz Omar Farooq of Jammu and Kashmir’s All Parties Hurriyat Conference and former ministers Arif Mohammed Khan, Ram Vilas Paswan and Arjun Singh of the Congress. Dalit leader Udit Raj also attended the function.

Bukhari said: “Muslims have been fooled by all political parties. The Congress ruled the country for nearly 50 years but what have they done to empower Muslims? The country witnessed some of the worst sectarian strife during their regime.

“Other secular and regional parties come to power with the help of Muslims but they use us only to gain power. Now we cannot accept their leadership.”

“Muslims need their own political party for political empowerment,” said Bukhari amid loud cheers from the audience comprising people who had come from Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana and Rajasthan.

The leaders were speaking at the 27th general session of a group of Islamic scholars or ‘Ulama’ called Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind at the Ramlila grounds here near the New Delhi railway station.

Formed in 1919, the Jamiat played an important role during the freedom struggle and opposed the formation of Pakistan.

Presenting a resolution drawn up by some Ulama, Madani said: “After a lot of thinking we have come to the conclusion that we need to launch a political party of our own. The character and name of the party will be finalized in three months.”

Madani said Islamic scholars from different schools of thought decided to launch the party that will contest elections and also support other parties to prevent right-wing groups from coming to power.

“The party will have representation of Dalits and minorities and all oppressed classes. It will be totally secular in character,” said Madani. All roads leading to the Ramlila grounds were blocked as people spilled out of the venue of the meeting. They carried white flags with black stripes and raised slogans of Muslim unity.

In their speeches, the leaders demanded a ban on some radical Hindu groups like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Vishwa Hindu Parishad, accusing them of creating sectarian tension.

The leaders also accused the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies of launching a propaganda movement against ‘madrassas’ or Islamic seminaries by branding them as hubs of terrorist activities.

A majority of the gathering were students and teachers of madrassas.

Some leaders noted that the Congress, which claims to be a secular party, had not done much in the states it is ruling to contain sectarian violence or to give compensation to victims of such violence.

Asad Madani, who teaches in Madrassa Darul-Oloom, Deoband, said: “There have been some 23,000 big and small incidents of sectarian violence in the country in the last 55 years.

“But all the government reports are gathering dust. Neither their recommendations have been implemented nor the victims have recived compensation.”

“We urge the government to provide compensation to the victims,” he said reading out the resolutions adopted by the meeting.

Reading out a message from Congress party President Sonia Gandhi, Arjun Singh said: “People have become emotional because the situation of the country is like that. But we should not be swayed by some incidents that happened recently.” He was referring to the sectarian violence in Gujarat last year.

“India will always remain a secular country.”