Hyderabad: AIMIM chief and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi on Tuesday slammed union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman for comparing the situation of Muslims in India with Muslims in its neighbouring country Pakistan and said that Indian Muslims have flourished “despite the Sangh Parivar’s anti-constitutional ideology and not because of it.”
This comes as a response to the finance minister’s statements on the subject in an interaction with Adam Posen of the Peterson Institute of International Economics in Washington DC, during her ongoing tour of the US.
“For how long are Muslims going to be connected to Pakistan? We are not hostages or mascots against Pakistan. We’re citizens. We want to be treated with dignity & justice. If a section of Hindus demand better living standards, will you tell them to shut up because majority of people in Somalia are doing worse?” he asked.
On Sitharaman’s remark that India is home to the second largest Muslim population in the world, and that the minorities are not only growing exponentially but have also been incentivized and doing their business in the country, the Hyderabad MP said that populations grow or degrow based on demographic factors and not on the benevolence or malevolence of a government.
“…However assume that Govt has a role, then census after census show a decline in growth of Muslim population in India. Would that mean that government is malevolent?” he asked.
Owaisi further slammed the BJP and said that it does not have a single Muslim MP in Lok Sabha. “This is damning. But BJP carries it as a badge of honour,” he remarked.
Owaisi also spoke on the Dharam Sansads held at different places in the country where hate speech and calls for crime against Muslims took place and said that the centre has ignored them.
“…ruling party MPs call for economic boycotts & ask people to keep “weapons”. Just one state of Maharashtra alone had 50 anti-Muslim hate rallies. The state looks away when Muslims face lynchings & violence. Instead, Muslims have to face bulldozers & false imprisonment from the govt,” he said.
The AIMIM MP called the FM’s ‘incentives to minorities’ comment a ‘cruel joke’ when the centre stopped the Maulana Azad Fellowship and restricted pre and post matric scholarships for poor minorities.
“Minority affairs budget has been slashed by 40%! In Karnataka, your party govt has run a campaign opposing hijab, removed poor Muslims’ reservations in education & employment. Muslims’ businesses have been targeted by govt policies AND by mob rule,” he said.
On Sitharaman’s ‘law and order is a state issue’ statement, Owaisi said that the Muslims have faced the ‘worst violence and discrimination’ in the BJP-ruled states. “In non-BJP states, the main culprits of violence are all affiliates of Sangh Parivar,” he added.
“In Assam, Muslims are facing mass displacement in the name “encroachments”, even in the capital city genocidal slogans against Muslims have been raised. From Bihar to Gujarat, Muslims have faced horrible arson and violence. This is not petty ‘law and order”’ issue. You got angry & demanded Modi’s picture on some ration shop in Telangana. Anti-Muslim violence definitely deserves more of your attention than a picture of Modi Anyway, all the best on your US tour!” he remarked.