“Islam and modernity are two poles that can never meet. But leaders like Ansari never make them understand this,” the article by an RSS-affiliated journalist stated. “Islam and modernity are two poles that can never meet. But leaders like Ansari never make them understand this,” the article by an RSS-affiliated journalist stated.

Days after Vice-President Hamid Ansari endorsed affirmative action for Muslims, an article in the latest issue of RSS mouthpiece Panchjanya has criticised him for speaking as a “communal Muslim leader”. “Islam and modernity are two poles that can never meet. But leaders like Ansari never make them understand this,” the article stated.

At the golden jubilee session of the All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat earlier this month, Ansari had talked about the poor condition of Muslims and said that the state must take steps to tackle the “deprivation, exclusion and discrimination” faced by the community.

In the Panchjanya piece, RSS-affiliated journalist Satish Pednekar stated that Muslims receive several benefits from the government, such as the right to run minority educational institutions and Haj subsidy.

“Independent India has paid a very heavy price for the communal identity of Muslims,” he wrote. “It is inconceivable to comprehend that the Muslim identity is in danger despite receiving so many special privileges.” “These actually endanger the Hindu community… but despite being a vice-president candidate of so-called secular parties, Hamid Ansari could not rise above his religion to say this,” Pednekar wrote.

“Did he (Ansari) want to convey that Muslims face a threat from the majority community? He perhaps hinted about riots. But they are mostly started by the minority community. When the majority community reacts to it, it is made the issue of Muslim safety,” the article said.

He further wrote that Hindus were forced to leave Kashmir due to Muslims, but there is no instance of Muslims being expelled from a Hindu-dominated state.

“It seems strange that a person like the vice-president talks about the security of only one community,” the article read.

The article also said the government cannot be held accountable if Muslims don’t take an interest in education.

“It is the period of knowledge and science, but the condition of Muslims countries in terms of education and literacy is very poor,” it said.

Stating that the Sachar Committee should have analysed the causes for the backwardness of Muslims, the article said, “Are not their religious thinking, dogmas, rigid rituals, grip of Mullas and Maulvis behind this backwardness?”

Slamming Ansari for his remarks that Muslims were adversely affected by Partition, the article said, “Ansari forgets that Muslims are not the victims of Partition, but its cause.”

“Despite its progressive mask, the speech of Hamid Ansari seems like a demand paper of Muslims organisations that has no desire of introspection,” it said.

“How can a religion be modern if it wants to implement its 1400-year-old scriptures as it is today?”

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