NEW DELHI: Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind president Maulana Arshad Madani, in a remark directed at Congress, said that the party adopting a “flexible policy” is what led to the party getting ousted from power. It accused Congress of not having a strict stand against communalism 77 years ago.In a lengthy post on X, he further went on to say that Congress’s stance against communalism would have prevented the “destruction” of the country. “If the Congress had taken the same strict stand against communalism 77 years ago that it claims to be taking now, it would not have been ousted from power, and the country would not have reached the brink of destruction,” Madani wrote.Madani, who heads one of the two factions of the prominent Muslim organisation, mentioned the constant demands made by the organisation for Congress to stand firmly against communalism. He added that the senior leaders of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind had acquired a written assurance from the party to ensure secularism in the country. However, a significant number of the party members stood against that idea.”Even before independence, the senior leaders of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind had obtained a written assurance from Congress leaders that after independence the country’s Constitution would be secular and would guarantee complete religious freedom to all religious minorities,” he wrote. “However, after independence and the Partition of the country, a significant section of Congress leaders joined those who argued that since a separate country had been created for Muslims in the name of religion, India’s Constitution should no longer be secular,” he added.Madani said, “The flexible policy adopted by the Congress during its rule toward politics of hatred, based on religion, caused severe damage to both the country and the Constitution. Seventy-seven years after independence, the manner in which the Constitution and democratic values are being openly trampled upon is something that even our leaders of the freedom movement could not have imagined.” “If the Constitution had been implemented honestly and fully along the very lines on which the foundations of free India were laid, we would not be witnessing these days today,” he said.Calling it an unfortunate truth, Madani pointed that Congress leaders, perhaps out of some fear, adopted a soft and flexible stance against religiously driven politics of hatred from the very beginning. “Communal forces were treated with leniency, and strict legal action against them, as required by the Constitution and law, was avoided. As a result, communal forces were given ample opportunity to grow and strengthen,” he alleged.Reinstating his stance, Madani said, “At that moment, the leadership of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind firmly held the Congress leaders accountable and told them that if the country had been divided, it was they, not us, who had signed that document, and therefore they must fulfil their promise.”Consequently, a secular Constitution was framed, but the roots of communalism continued to grow silently and deeply, he claimed. Go to Source
