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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

Educated Muslims being hounded: Owaisi

Mumbai: AIMIM President Asaduddin Owaisi has flayed what he termed as a ‘media trial’ in the alleged TCS Nashik conversion case and claimed that educated Muslims youth are being deliberately targeted as part of planned ‘hate campaign’, here on Saturday. Reiterating full faith in the judicial process, Owaisi said that justice cannot be handed out through media narratives or television debates and the law must be allowed to take its own course. “We are seeing a very dangerous trend… Now,...

Educated Muslims being hounded: Owaisi

Mumbai: AIMIM President Asaduddin Owaisi has flayed what he termed as a ‘media trial’ in the alleged TCS Nashik conversion case and claimed that educated Muslims youth are being deliberately targeted as part of planned ‘hate campaign’, here on Saturday. Reiterating full faith in the judicial process, Owaisi said that justice cannot be handed out through media narratives or television debates and the law must be allowed to take its own course. “We are seeing a very dangerous trend… Now, educated Muslims are being picked out for orchestrated allegations and media campaigns. This doesn’t augur well for society and justice itself with the media playing the role of the judge and jury,” said Owaisi sharply. Flanked by the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen state President Imtiaz Jaleel, Owaisi also emphatically said that it was wrong to link his party with the TCS case prime accused Nida Khan, “who will be ultimately proven innocent in the courts”. He expressed concerns over the slur campaign driven by malice and political motives against his party as well as Nida Khan in some sections of the media even before the investigations were completed or a judicial scrutiny. “Merely because some allegations have been hurled at a young woman professional, attempts are being made to paint her ‘guilty’ through media trials, even before judicial scrutiny. But, we have complete faith in the judiciary and are confident that the court will eventually exonerate her,” asserted Owaisi. Public Discourse Raising questions on the probe and accompanying public discourse with stress on the alleged recovery of certain ‘evidence’ from Nida Khan’s home, he sharply questioned: “Since when have a burqa, a niqab or religious literature become objectionable… Is wearing a hijab now regarded as evidence of a crime?” He said that these details along with baseless allegations are sensationalism in the media to create further prejudice against the minority community and reflected a deep-rooted hostility aimed at harassing educated Muslim men and women. Owaisi pointed out that a complaint in the TCS Nashik case was filed by a leader linked with the ruling party, and as per the software giant’s statement, Nida Khan was not with its HR Department and transferred even before the controversy erupted, contradicting several media reports. Of the nine cases lodged in the matter till date, in one case, she was accused of hurting religious sentiments, but nobody can comment on it before the court pronounces its verdict, he pointed out. Court Fight Dismissing attempts to drag and link the AIMIM into the row, he referred to a party Municipal Corporator Matin Patel who was booked merely on the basis of certain allegations and vowed to contest the matter in the court. Here Owaisi cited multiple examples of educated Muslims being scrutinised – including in Delhi when some educated youths were arrested for possessing a book by the legendary Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib and they were later released. There was another one from Allahabad where some Muslim boys were targeted for writing an Urdu ‘sher’ (couplet) prompting judicial intervention, and predicted that even in the Nashik TCS case, the truth will ultimately prevail as no criminal charges against Nida Khan may stand. AIMIM to set up voter help-desks AIMIM President and Hyderabad MP, Asaduddin Owaisi said his party is developing a digital application containing electoral records of all 288 Assembly constituencies in Maharashtra for 2002-2024, to help voters in the SIR process. For this, the AIMIM will set up help desk centers in its strongholds to facilitate the process and ensure proper utilisation of voter data. Alleging discrepancies in electoral records, he said such errors create huge problems for the voters, especially the poor or illiterates. Owaisi mentioned how of the nearly 27 lakh names placed in the adjudication list in West Bengal, “90 pc were poor Muslims.” These centers would be open for all Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Dalits, Adivasis and the general public needing assistance with the electoral records.

Before You Scale the Business, Fix the People Story

Most businesses don’t stall because of strategy or capital. They stall because the people story quietly breaks before the growth story begins.

Every Indian SME founder knows this moment. Orders are coming in. Customers want more. The market feels ready. And yet, something inside the organization feels… off. Meetings take longer. Decisions get reworked quietly. Good people seem tired, not lazy. Managers appear busy, but outcomes feel thinner. Nothing is technically broken. But momentum feels fragile.


Over the few quarters, while working closely with growing Indian businesses, founders, second-generation owners, leadership teams, one pattern has shown up again and again: Growth doesn’t derail because leaders make bad decisions. It derails because people dynamics change faster than leaders notice. Before scaling begins, there is always a people story unfolding underneath.


Like Families

Most Indian SMEs start as families … literally or emotionally. Early employees grow with the founder. Roles are fluid. Trust is personal. Everyone “figures it out together.” But growth changes the social contract.


Suddenly, the salesperson becomes a manager. A peer becomes a boss. The founder steps back or tries to and the team doesn’t quite know how to relate anymore. People don’t resist change. They resist unclear change. When roles evolve faster than capability, confidence quietly erodes. Managers hesitate. Team members second-guess authority. What once felt like closeness now feels awkward. This is not failure. It’s a transition most businesses underestimate.


The Gap

Founders speak in vision. Teams hear consequences. A town hall about “new direction” feels energising to leadership — but unsettling to employees who are trying to decode what it means for deadlines, targets, and job security. People nod. They clap. And then they return to their desks with five interpretations of the same message.


Soon, employees spend more energy interpreting leadership than executing work. This is where alignment quietly dies … not in conflict, but in confusion.


Like Favouritism

Ask most founders if they reward merit, and they will say yes … honestly. Ask teams the same question, and you’ll often hear a pause. Who gets access easily? Whose mistakes get forgiven? Whose opinions carry weight without explanation? When criteria remain invisible, teams stop competing on performance and start competing on proximity. This doesn’t create rebellion. It creates silence.


People play safe. High performers disengage quietly. Politics replaces ownership. Favouritism is rarely intentional but perception does the damage anyway.


The Pace

Many founders succeed because they move fast. Decisions are quick. Energy is high. Urgency is default. But what feels natural to a founder often feels overwhelming to a team. When everything is urgent, nothing is thoughtful. When speed becomes identity, reflection disappears. Over time, teams stop thinking ahead and start reacting.


Creativity becomes shallow. Initiative becomes risky. The business becomes good at firefighting and bad at building. Ironically, the very pace that enabled early growth begins to limit the next phase.


Kindness Control

Modern micromanagement doesn’t look harsh. It looks caring. “Just loop me in.” “I’ll quickly review.” “Stay reachable.” But when every decision feels provisional, autonomy evaporates. People don’t relax on leave. Managers don’t fully own outcomes. Teams stay mentally “on” … even when they’re off. The cost isn’t workload. It’s psychological fatigue. And tired teams don’t scale.


Invisible Power

Every growing business has two structures. The org chart — and the real influence map. Long-time loyalists. Trusted insiders. External advisors. Family voices. Star performers. When unofficial influence overrides formal roles, clarity collapses. People don’t know who to listen to. Managers lose authority. Decisions feel unstable. Systems don’t break loudly. They bend quietly.


Growth Begins

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Most growth derailers are not operational. They are emotional and behavioural. Before you add headcount, ask: Are roles clear and respected? Is trust visible or assumed? Does speed allow thinking? Are boundaries stable? Is authority aligned with accountability? Growth doesn’t demand perfection. It demands awareness.


Forward Look

Fixing the people story doesn’t require dramatic interventions. It starts with slowing down to observe. With naming what feels off. With building clarity before adding complexity. The strongest businesses I’ve seen didn’t scale because they pushed harder. They scaled because they repaired trust, reset roles, and redesigned leadership behaviour before growth forced the issue.


Before you scale the business fix the people story. Everything else follows.


(The writer is Co-founder at PPS Consulting. He helps growth-stage leaders design systems where people and performance evolve together. Views personal.)

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