The pledges he has made are going to bring a welcome change in the general political atmosphere of the country if he really means it

Shaheen Nazar

PRIME Minister Narendra Modi’s speech at the Aligarh Muslim University’s (AMU) centenary celebrations on Tuesday is a bit different. His friendly reach-out to Muslims and statesman-like utterances have left the community pleasantly surprised.

It’s contrary to his attitude towards the biggest minority of India. The pledges he has made are going to bring a welcome change in the general political atmosphere of the country if he really means it.

AMU Vice Chancellor Dr Tariq Mansoor was criticised for inviting Modi whose party and administration are viewed by Muslims with suspicion. A senior member of the AMU fraternity, Mohammad Adeeb, even released a video message denouncing the Vice Chancellor and his team. Even some voices for boycotting the event were raised from certain quarters.

But Modi proved to be a different man. “I assure that nobody will be left out and not discriminated against on religious lines. Everyone will move forward by enjoying the fundamental rights given in the Constitution,” he said and hailed the university as “mini-India” which is “promoting diversity”.

He lauded the contribution of its alumni who “represent the rich heritage and culture of India”. The Prime Minister also acknowledged AMU’s role in strengthening India’s relations with Muslim countries.

AMU is among India’s premier institutions founded by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan as Anglo-Oriental College in 1875. It became a university in 1920 and came to be known as the Aligarh Muslim University.

Muslims are sentimentally attached with the institution which has played an important role in the uplift of the community in India. It has produced leaders, academicians, scientists, scholars and authors of great eminence since its inception.

Modi’s address to the university is reminiscent of his speech of May 2019 when, after winning the second term, he asked MPs of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and alliance parties to work without any discrimination on the basis of faith and caste.

“We stand for those who trusted us and for those whose trust we have to win over… There is no ‘other’. Everybody is ours… I will try to win hearts,” he said then. The Modi also made an addition of “Sabka vishawas” (everybody’s trust) to his party’s 2014 poll campaign slogan of Sabka saath, sabka vikas.

The community took his pledge on the face value and welcomed it with an open arm. It had come after five years of relentless anti-Muslim campaign that included a wave of lynching. But his pledges proved to be yet another piece of oratory he is known for. A second wave of lynching incidents started in his second term. Muslims expected him to speak out. But he maintained his previous policy of looking the other way while Muslims continued to suffer.

In August 2019, Article 370 was revoked and Jammu and Kashmir, the only Muslim-majority state, was degraded to a Union territory. Then his close confidant, Amit Shah, the home minister, declared that the National Register of Citizens (NRC), which had already unsettled people of Assam, will be implemented for whole of India. Muslims saw in it a threat of persecution in the name verification of documents.

In November of the same year, the Supreme Court decided the title suit of Babri Masjid in favour of Hindus, and entrusted the job of constructing a grand temple on its ruins to the very same people it said were guilty of demolishing the mosque. As if to rub salt into Muslims’ wounds Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi was nominated to the Rajya Sabha within months of his controversial ruling on Babri Masjid.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Act passed in December was yet another move that upset Muslims. The legislation guaranteed citizenship to non-Muslim immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Students of Jamia Millia Islamia and AMU who opposed the Act were brutally beaten up by the police who were sent into the two campuses. Muslim women of Shaheen Bagh who sat on dharna (sit-in) were continuously ignored by the Prime Minister. Instead, he gave a communal colour to the protest by saying that the protesters “can be identified by the clothes they are wearing”.

Moreover, his ministers and party leaders made all sorts of derogatory statements about the agitating women. BJP dragged Shaheen Bagh into the Delhi Assembly elections and did everything to communally polarise the campaign.

UP’s BJP-led government of Yogi Aditynath launched a statewide crackdown against the anti-CAA protesters. According to government’s own admission, at least 23 people were killed, 83 injured and hundreds were detained.

Also in Modi’s first year of second term, the national capital witnessed a communal riot which many people have described as ‘anti-Muslim pogrom’. It claimed 53 lives, mostly Muslims, injured hundreds and displaced several thousand people.

Currently, UP and BJP-ruled states have passed laws against ‘love jihad’, a fictitious claim that Muslim men entice Hindu women and convert them to Islam. UP is witnessing harassment of Muslim youths in the name of implementing the law.

In this background came the news that Prime Minister Modi has been invited to address the AMU event. It divided the community. While some people welcomed it as an opportunity to bridge the gulf between him and the community, others saw in it as Modi’s attempt to woo the community. Whatever be the truth, his gesture is going to be a talking point for one and all.