Kanpur (Uttar Pradesh) : Heena Zaheer, a woman Qazi, on Sunday criticised Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for his ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ statement and said people in such higher positions need to study the Constitution of India.
“It is not at all good. The people holding such higher positions in the government need to study the Constitution of India. They should understand that ‘do’s and don’ts’ are set according to the Constitution,” Zaheer told ANI.
“If it was written in the Constitution that we should chant ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ slogan, we would do that. But that is not the case. Our Constitution is very secular and there is no such policy,” she added.
Joining the ongoing debate on nationalism, which is being linked to chanting of certain slogans in recent times, Fadnavis said that every Indian will have to chant ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’, adding that those who can’t say this shouldn’t live in the country.
The Jamat-e-Islami Hind (JIH) yesterday came out to back the fatwa issued by leading Islamic seminary Darul Uloom in Deoband against chanting of “Bharat Mata ki jai”. The JIH said that the attempts being made to use the slogan as a symbol of patriotism are wrong.
Darul Uloom Deoband on Friday issued a fatwa against chanting of ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’, saying that the slogan goes against the tenets of Islam.
“Bharat Mata, according to some Hindu sects, is a goddess and they worship her. For Muslims participating in worshiping a goddess would be un-Islamic, the fatwa said.
AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi had stirred a hornet’s nest by rejecting RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s suggestion that the young generation be taught patriotic slogans like ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ stating that he won’t chant the slogan “even if a knife is put to his throat”. (ANI)