NEW DELHI, 15 September 2004 — The All-India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) yesterday sought to distance itself from the suggestions made by one of its top leaders about promoting family planning within the minority community.
The board said comments by its Vice President Syed Kalbe Sadiq on Monday about the need for the AIMPLB to discuss steps to promote family planning and literacy among Muslims reflected his “personal opinion”.
“Whatever he said are his personal views. He will be presenting his suggestion at the next meeting of the board, which will take a final decision on how to tackle the problems that have been projected in the religion based census data,” M.Q.R Illyas, spokesperson of the AIMPLB, said.
Sadiq on Monday said the board would discuss steps to promote family planning and literacy when it meets next in December. He also dispelled notions that Islam discouraged family planning.
A controversial report based on religion-based census data had said the growth rate of the Muslim population was higher than that of the majority Hindu community. The census authorities later said the data had been wrongly interpreted.
But before the authorities corrected the census report, political parties like the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena as well as Hindu radical groups expressed concern at the minority community’s reported growth rate. The BJP claimed the growth of the Muslim population would harm the integrity of the nation.
Sadiq also said Muslims were willing to work with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the BJP to find solutions to the problems of growing population and illiteracy.
The BJP yesterday welcomed Sadiq’s readiness to deliberate on the issue of population control in the community.
BJP was happy to note that Sadiq had sent a proposal to the board to ponder over the population issue in its next meeting, BJP President M. Venkaih Naidu told a press conference. “We welcome his proposal. I am really happy over his initiative,” he said.
All governments and religious leaders should think of the seriousness of population growth as it directly affected the socio-economic growth of the nation, he said.
Naidu asked the “so called” secular leaders to shun vote bank politics and focus on education, economy and social uplift.
Stressing gender equality in all religions to allow justice to women, Naidu said there has never been any debate over it in the last 50 years. “There should be a constructive debate over it in the interest of the nation,” he said and alleged that the Congress was out to blame and defame BJP on such serious issues.
