IIt is surprising to see that the January meeting between the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh did not go down well with other Muslim groups. Any dialogue, which is conducive to democracy, enables various stakeholders to come on a common platform and iron out their differences. So why are Muslim leaders and political parties not welcoming the ‘dialogue’ between the JIH and the RSS, considered to be at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum?
CPI (M) leader and former Kerala education minister KT Jaleel accused The Jamaat is banned from meeting RSS leaders for personal gain due to a pending case in the Supreme Court on Media One, a TV channel run by the Jamaat. He also called JIH a “paper organisation” which has no support in the Muslim community.
But the reality is that no single Muslim group can claim to represent the majority of Indian Muslims in today’s India. They do so only in some capacity and their participation in any dialogue on Hindu-Muslim issues should be seen as a positive step. Companion groups such as the Kerala Muslim Jamaat and the Indian Union Muslim League Condemnation The JIH-RSS meeting appears to be coming from their own self-interest, not from a place of genuine concern for India’s 200 million Muslim community.
Also, an important aspect that no one has acknowledged is that most of the stakeholders who claim to speak on behalf of the minority are Ashrafs, with no representation of the Pasmandas who form the majority of Indian Muslims. Such dialogues can never succeed if Pasmandas are kept out as the faultlines between the two communities affect them the most.
Building on RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat meeting With five Muslim leaders in August 2022, prominent RSS leaders on January 14 met Representatives of several Muslim groups at the residence of Najeeb Jung, former lieutenant-governor of Delhi. The meeting was attended by Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind, Darul Uloom Deoband, Haji Syed Salman Chishti of Ajmer Sharif Dargah, Naiduniya Editor Shahid Siddiqui and former Chief Election Commissioner SY Qureshi. A few days before the meeting, Bhagwat had commented that “Muslims have nothing to fear in India, but they should give up their rhetoric of supremacy”.
Fellow Muslim organizations are criticizing the meeting as they were not invited and there will be no possibility for similar deliberations in future. They fear that by not being part of any dialogue, they will miss out on any power or authority over the community. This leads us to the main argument that personal interest appears to be the main concern of these organizations.
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politics on conversation
Certainly, some of the criticism may come from a genuine place where, in their worldview, they see the RSS as anti-Muslim and therefore do not want Muslim organizations to engage in any kind of dialogue with it. According to muslim communityRSS has been the enemy of India and Indian secular values and any dialogue with such an organization would be tantamount to embracing the enemy. However, even if such organizations are genuine in their criticism and find dialogue with the RSS problematic, it only shows their lack of political astuteness. In a country where Muslims are a minority, dialogue with any representative of the majority community, especially the RSS, should be welcomed as Hindu-Muslim relations affect the whole of India.
The CPI(M) has been vocal in its criticism of the Jamaat-RSS meeting. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan questioned the authority of the JIH to initiate talks and said that the stand exposed the organization’s “hypocrisy”. The Jamaat-e-Islami’s argument that the RSS is an organization that can be reformed and changed through dialogue is tantamount to thinking that a leopard’s spots can be removed with a bath, Vijayan said. Said in a Facebook post.
But the CPI(M) itself has organized Talks With the RSS, allegedly to bring “peace” to Kannur town, a big center The spate of political violence and killings in Kerala begs the question, why can’t the Jamaat do the same?
Political parties often think in terms of their vote bank politics and may see the RSS’s outreach to Muslims as a threat to their own political narrative. It is age old politics to see Muslims as a mere vote bank and to project oneself as the ‘Messiah’ of the community. That’s why they don’t like any step in the direction of removing communal conflicts.
Ideally, anyone opposing such a conversation should only be concerned about what impact it might have on the ground and whether it might lead to similar engagement in communities in the future.
Well-functioning democracies require the participation of social/ideological groups where the traditional, executive-led approach fails or remains ineffective.
Amana Begum Ansari is a columnist and TV news panelist. She runs a weekly YouTube show called ‘India This Week by Amaana & Khalid’. She tweets @Amana_Ansari. Thoughts are personal.
(Edited by Prashant)