india

Updated: Sep 12, 2019 01:18 IST

A senior functionary of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological mentor of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on Wednesday said the perception that Muslims in India were not secure emanated from a divisive mindset and needs a wider discussion.

Krishan Gopal, joint general secretary of the RSS, said minority communities that are much smaller such as the Jains and the Buddhists do not echo the view expressed by the Muslims whose numbers range from “16 to17 crore” of the total population.

“People talk of unity in diversity, we believe unity is fundamental; oneness is fundamental,” he said at a symposium, “Dara Shikoh: A hero of the Indian syncretistic traditions”, organised by Academics for Nation, an RSS-backed group of academicians.

Gopal said seeds of divisiveness were sown in India during Aurangzeb’s reign and unlike him, his brother Dara Shikoh was a “good Muslim, who kept trying to be a good Indian”.

“Sikh and Jat rebellions happened because of Aurangzeb. The whole country rejected him. Unlike him, Dara Shikhoh wanted coordination (between communities) in the country,” Krishna Gopal said.

Union minister for minority affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, who also spoke on the occasion, said that had the ideology of Dara Shikho been propagated properly, terrorist organisations such as Al-Qaeda and Jamat-ud-Dawa would not have existed in this world.

He said the violence and oppression committed by an “anarchist, violent and cruel ruler like Aurangzeb” was “glorified by group of fanatics, leftist and so-called secular historians”.

“Dara Shikoh, during his lifetime, was victim of brutality of fanatics influenced by Aurangzeb’s thinking and later was a victim of intolerance of so-called secular historians,” the minister said.

Commenting on the statements, SS Jodhka, professor of sociology at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, said the RSS preferred to speak in a language that addresses communities culturally rather than on the basis of citizenship.

He said there was a tendency to want to subsume minority identities in the larger Hindu identity without recognising their need to be seen as different.