What explains the efforts of a well-heeled section of elite ‘Muslim intellectuals’ to legitimise the extra-constitutional Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh? What is curious is that they claim to be doing so on behalf of ‘Indian Muslims’. Even more strangely, the exercise comes at a time when large parts of India under the 'amrit kal' of BJP-RSS rule are reeling from unemployment, inflation, corruption and paper leaks, not to speak of unprecedented violence unleashed against Dalits, tribals and Muslims besides women and the working class.

A celebratory report by Mohammed Wajihuddin under the headline ‘Mir Taqi Mir of Contemporary India’ informed readers that several former bureaucrats, scholars and activists attended the inaugural meeting the newly launched initiative Citizens for Fraternity (CFF)-Bharat at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi on 3 June. It was a non-political platform and the only purpose was to promote peace, harmony and fraternity through dialogue, explained the moderator of the event Javed M. Ansari.

The report quoted ‘the initiative's moving force Najeeb Jung, retired IAS, former VC of Jamia Millia Islamia and former lieutenant-governor of Delhi’ as saying, “Despite opposition from within the community, we are going ahead. None of us intends to join any political party and contest elections. We are in pain at the way the two communities are increasingly seeing each other with suspicion". Former chief election commissioner S.Y. Quraishi informed the gathering that CFF units would be opened in all the state capitals and thereafter in districts across the country.

Both Jung and Quraishi mentioned their meeting with RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat in 2022. "We were attacked by our community members for meeting Bhagwat ji. But we believe only dialogue can lead us to find a solution… We asked Bhagwat ji how would Muslims be treated in a Hindu Rashtra. He said India cannot be imagined without its Muslim population,” recalled Quraishi.

The meeting was kept a secret for reasons best known to the host and the guests. It was later claimed that the meeting scheduled for 30 minutes had actually lasted 75 minutes and was held in a cordial atmosphere. “The insecurity felt by the Muslim community in the wake of recurring incidents of lynching of innocents, calls by Hindutva hotheads for genocide and the marginalisation of the community in almost every sphere” had prompted them to meet the RSS chief, Quraishi had later explained.

If these were indeed their concerns, shouldn’t the delegation have met the prime minister or home minister and demanded corrective steps? If the response was not to their........

© National Herald