top of page

By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 8:56:24 pm

‘Save Sharia’ campaign feeds Hindutva politics

Mumbai: Prominent Muslims and others have slammed the All India Muslim Personal Law Board’s ‘Save India, Save Sharia’ nationwide campaign, alleging that it could deepen polarization while willy-nilly supporting the very forces the AIMPLB claims to oppose. Launched on Sep. 17 – coinciding with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 76th birthday – the AIMPLB’s 3-month-long campaign is aimed at mobilizing public opinion around protecting the Constitutional rights, preserving the Muslim Personal Law...

‘Save Sharia’ campaign feeds Hindutva politics

Mumbai: Prominent Muslims and others have slammed the All India Muslim Personal Law Board’s ‘Save India, Save Sharia’ nationwide campaign, alleging that it could deepen polarization while willy-nilly supporting the very forces the AIMPLB claims to oppose. Launched on Sep. 17 – coinciding with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 76th birthday – the AIMPLB’s 3-month-long campaign is aimed at mobilizing public opinion around protecting the Constitutional rights, preserving the Muslim Personal Law within the framework of safeguarding India’s pluralistic and democratic character. The AIMPLB leaders said they are soliciting support of people, intellectuals, activists, social and religious organisations who value justice, democracy, peace and the Constitution, to strengthen constitutional supremacy, the rule of law, justice and equality, religious freedom, social harmony and national unity. Around 100 progressive Muslim and non-Muslim intellectuals, activists, organisations and supporters have warned that what the AIMPLB presents as a defence of constitutional rights, religious freedom and Muslim identity "could deepen divisions, and may provide political ammunition to right-wing forces". The progressive have accused AIMPLB of selectively invoking Art. 25-30 of the Constitution related to Religious Freedom, while ignoring that these rights are explicitly subject to public order, morality, and health. Moreover, they conveniently bypass Articles 14 and 15, which guarantee equality before the law and prohibit sex or religion-based discrimination. “Following the 2024 Lok Sabha elections where civil society and opposition parties rallied under 'Save the Constitution', the AIMPLB's campaign inadvertently gave the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Sangh Parivar a platform to posture as defenders of constitutional norms. Ahead of crucial state assembly elections, this campaign reinforces false narratives and fuels propaganda that Indian Muslims reject the law of the land,” said the intellectuals. They pointed out how the so-called ‘God-given Shariat Law’ in India is nothing but man-made personal laws and ‘male interpreted patriarchal interpretations’, defended by the AIMPLB. In its September 2016 Supreme Court affidavit in the Triple Talaq case (Sayara Bano v/s. Union of India), the AIMPLB’s affidavit claimed divorce rights belong primarily to husbands because men allegedly possess ‘greater power of decision-making’ and ‘control emotions’. It even argued that without a quick separation option, a husband ‘may resort to illegal, criminal ways of murdering or burning her alive’ - a disturbing rationalization of domestic violence. Claiming these laws are divine, the AIMPLB admitted that “India is a patriarchal society, and therefore personal laws of all communities are aligned with the patriarchal notion...” The progressives countered that Muslim-majority nations globally including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Tunisia and Morocco have codified and reformed personal laws to protect women's rights. “Millions of Muslims live in secular democratic nations with uniform family codes without putting ‘Islam in danger’. The Muslim community’s current legal predicament in India is the direct result of the AIMPLB and conservative leaders failing to proactively reform and codify Muslim Personal Law,” said the progressives sharply. They said that genuine family law reform must guarantee Muslim women equal rights regarding minimum marriage age, abolition of polygamy, mutual divorce, equal inheritance, child custody, adoption, and a ban on female genital mutilation and halala. While secular political parties rarely support the rights of Muslim women, the BJP and the Hindu Right wing do so with an obvious motive: ‘communal polarization’, said the progressives. “The sangh parivar sheds crocodile tears for Muslim women while ignoring relentless hate speech (Love Jihad, Land Jihad…) and hate crimes like mob lynching, bulldozing homes, demolishing mosques or economic boycotts, with chants of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ to intimidate and strike fear. This accompanies state actions targeting Muslims: Waqf Amendment Act, draconian anti-conversion laws, and a weaponised SIR (Special Intensive Revision of Electoral Rolls) to disenfranchise vast sections of the electorate,” they averred. The progressives have sought the active involvement of all enlightened forces, civil society organisations and secular political parties to ensure that the demand for a gender-just, religion-neutral Uniform Civil Code is rooted in equality and human rights, rather than weaponized for communal division. Among the signatories to the appeal are: Naseeruddin Shah, Amol Palekar, Zeenat Shaukat Ali, Anand Patwardhan, Sultan Shaheen, Teesta Setalvad, Ram Puniyani, Tushar Gandhi, Mallika Sarabhai, Ratna Pathak, Feroze Mithiborwala, Anita Cheria, Zakia Soman, Jyothi Yedulla, Noorjehan S. Niaz, Madhu Bhaduri, et al.

Burnt Rubber, Burnished Reputations

Correspondent
Dec 30, 2024
3 min read

Updated: Jan 2, 2025


Telangana’s Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS)
Telangana

Telangana’s Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), led by its scion KT Rama Rao, has found itself at the nexus of a simmering storm following the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) summons to the BRS leader over alleged financial irregularities tied to the state’s hosting of a Formula E race in 2023. Once a marquee event showcasing Telangana’s development, the race has now devolved into a political and legal quagmire, threatening to engulf KTR, the BRS’ working president and heir apparent to K Chandrashekhar Rao’s regional political dynasty.


The ED has alleged that the payment of Rs. 55 crores (some in foreign currencies) was made to organizers without proper approvals, an accusation rooted in the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). This case, bolstered by a parallel investigation by the Telangana Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), has spotlighted KTR. While the ED’s charge sheet seems to be a familiar tale of money trails and foreign exchange violations, it is clear that the ongoing battle is about the future of Telangana’s polity.


Predictably, the BRS leadership has swiftly countered the allegations, painting the investigation as political vendetta orchestrated by a curious confluence of Congress and BJP, with certain BRS leaders accusing the national foes of allegedly uniting in the shared goal of dethroning a regional party.


The ACB’s newfound zeal following Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy’s meetings with central BJP leaders has added grist to this narrative. Meanwhile, KTR has fervently maintained his innocence, branding the payments to Formula E Operations (FEO) as “straightforward transactions” from government accounts for urban development, well within the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority’s (HMDA) remit. BRS leaders have dismissed the allegations against KTR as baseless, vowing a legal challenge against the ED.


The central government’s role, KTR asserts, mirrors his own, having championed Toll Operate Transfer (TOT) models and public-private partnerships elsewhere. The Congress, meanwhile, under its newly minted chief minister, has taken a no-holds-barred approach. Revanth Reddy has accused KTR’s administration of graft to the tune of Rs. 500 crore.


Meanwhile, the uproar in Telangana’s Assembly over this issue - replete with water bottle missiles and accusations of caste bias – is testing the endurance of democracy in the state to the limit. BRS legislator Kalvakuntla Kavitha has pointedly accused the Congress of “distracting from governance failures” through orchestrated controversies. Her claim, that investigations against KTR unfurled suspiciously after Revanth Reddy’s Delhi trip, seeks to cast this legal battle as a proxy war for regional hegemony.


While the ED’s remit centers on foreign exchange violations, the ACB has taken a wider approach, emboldened by Governor Jishnu Dev Varma’s recent green light for case registration. The ED’s probe into HMDA accounts and transactions, further complicated by Telangana High Court’s interim protections barring arrests, has created fresh tremors within the BRS ranks. Both agencies are poised to accelerate their inquiries, making this winter particularly unseasonal for the party.


In a broader context, the stakes extend far beyond alleged graft. Telangana’s Formula E affair is shaping up as a litmus test for the enduring political resilience of regional parties vis-à-vis the twin towers of Indian politics, BJP and Congress. As investigations gather momentum, the BRS leadership faces a pivotal question: will KTR’s political vehicle skid into a barricade of allegations, or will it emerge unscathed, reasserting its claim as a voice for Telangana pride?


The KTR scam allegations come at a time when the BRS political fortunes are on the wane. It just goes to show that in the heat of the Indian political theater, there is no spectacle quite as electrifying as a race - one fuelled not by electric cars but by allegations of impropriety and high-stakes posturing.

Comments

bottom of page