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Nandini Oza
VADODARA, July 28: This is irony at its worst. For more than a month now, the minorities in Gujarat are being intimidated, even persecuted, by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. The National Minorities Commission has sat up. The Opposition is fretting. The BJP's State Minorities Morcha, however, says all's well.
VADODARA, July 28: This is irony at its worst. For more than a month now, the minorities in Gujarat are being intimidated, even persecuted, by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. The National Minorities Commission has sat up. The Opposition is fretting. The BJP's State Minorities Morcha, however, says all's well.
``Abhi halat itni kharab nahi hai ki tharav pasar karna pade (The situation isn't bad enough to require a resolution on the issue)'' was what State BJP Minority Morcha president and chairman of the Gujarat Minorities Board Abdulgani Qureshi had to say while fielding a question as to why a resolution condemning the VHP actions had not been adopted at the Morcha's state convention in Vadodara recently.
``Yeh party ka internal mamla hai. Itni hava dene ki zaroorat nahi (This is the party's internal matter, it should not be played up)'', he says.
Strangely enough, Qureshi adds that he has told the chief minister to ``forgive the minorities for the small mistakes they may have committed.'' Parrying a poser on the mistakes the minorities needed to be forgiven, he adds, ``Keshubhai Patel himself telephoned the police and asked them to do justice.''
Asked about the violence in Bardoli and then in Panchmahals, which sparked a Muslim exodus, Qureshi says it was not the VHP that fomented the trouble, but some anti-social elements posing as VHP-RSS activists.
The State unit of the BJP's Minority Morcha, which claims to have 42,000 of the nearly 45 lakh Muslim population and one per cent of the Christian population of Gujarat as its members, self-confessedly has done little beyond ``bringing the incidents to the party leaders' notice''.
The common Muslim in the party, however, is angry about the party's muted responses to Bardoli and Randhikpur incidents. But, as Express Newsline discovered during interviews with several lower rung Muslim functionaries and elected members, they can do little but grumble.
``Something needs to be done'', admits Yasmin Patel, an active member of the Minority Morcha from Bharuch, adding, ``I will plead with our leaders to give the issue its due''.
She isn't the only one in the State to hold the view. But when it was pointed out they hadn't even adopted a resolution, leave alone make any concerted protest, they were silent, as they had been, they say, since the Babri Masjid demolition.
Asked why should they were with the BJP in that case, Safimohammed Mirza of Kaalol, Panchmahals, says, ``We are with the BJP in the hope it will pity us.'' Further prodding indicates the Muslims in the BJP wanted more even-handed treatment for the minorities even though they know they were hoping against hope.
And they mince no words. ``The VHP and the RSS do not want Muslims to grow'', Mustufa Ridiwala of Ahmedabad says. ``The BJP and the VHP-RSS have a nexus,'' says Mirza. ``The BJP still concentrates on the majority votebanks,'' bewails Patel.
Their president, Qureshi, justifies this stance: ``Any political party will think the about majority.'' He also agrees that a lot of effort was necessary change the attitude. ``Earlier, the BJP was the party of the white-collared, but now it had Harijans as well'', he says.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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