Infuriate by the Rajasthan government decision to introduced Surya Namaskar in schools, Muslim clerics are planning to mobilise minority community students to stay away from their classes and school, “if Surya Namaskar programme is not rolled back by the government”.
Around 120 Muslim clerics, who assembled in Ajmer on Tuesday to talk about the issue, decided to take the government head on over the issue.
The clerics are also planning to intensify their objection against the programme through sermons from mosques and other religious assemblies.
“We will educate Muslims through maulanas (clerics) of different mosques in the state that Surya Namaskar is against the religious beliefs of Islam,” said Mohammed Hanif, vice president, Jamiat Ulama-e-Rajasthan.
Hanif, who hailed from Mewat, said, “We will ask the community students to boycott their school if Surya Namaskar is not rolled back by the government.”
“It is more important for us to save our religion than education at this juncture,” he added.
“We have made several requests to the government saying ‘please do not enforce policies or programmes which are against the religious tenets of minority community’, but the requests have fallen on deaf ears,” alleged Abdul Wahid Khatri, general secretary, Jamiat.
CM Vasundhara Raje giving the wrong impression to people by saying that Surya Namaskar has nothing to do with religion. “It is a blatant lie,” Khatri accused.
“We have filed a writ petition in the high court against the issue, which will come up for hearing on April 29,” he said.