New Delhi: Muslims should break their Ramzan fasts with cow milk, and pledge to not eat cow meat, senior RSS functionary Indresh Kumar mentioned Friday, whilst he asserted that Hindus and Muslims have the identical ancestry.
Kumar was talking at an occasion organised by the Muslim Rashtriya Manch, an RSS-affiliated organisation, of which he has been a patron for over 20 years. The occasion was organised for the launch of a brand new guide by the organisation known as Bharatiya Mussalman: Ekta ka Aadhar (Indian Muslim: the premise of unity).
Echoing the assertion made by RSS sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat in 2021 about Hindus and Muslims having the identical DNA, Indresh Kumar said that Hindus and Muslims have the identical ancestry. “We can change our religion, a Shyam may become Shahabuddin, but his ancestors remain the same — we have the same ancestors,” he mentioned.
In 2021, Bhagwat had mentioned that it has been “proven that we’re the descendants of the same ancestors from the last 40,000 years; people of India have the same DNA.”
Whereas the assertion is understood to have created a stir inside RSS ranks itself, Kumar reasserted it unequivocally Friday. “We all dream in Bharatiya languages — none of us dreams in Farsi or Turki or Roman. We all have the same faces, which come from the Aryas, we don’t have Arabi or Roman faces,” Kumar mentioned, addressing a largely Muslim viewers.
“The language of our dreams and our faces are Bharatiya,” he added.
He requested the viewers to repeat slogans in a number of languages declaring one’s love for his or her motherland — Madar-e-Watan in Persian, Bharat Mata ki Jai in Hindi, Vande Mataram in Sanskrit, Ek Hind, Jai Hind in Hindustani, and Love and Salute to Mom India in English.
“Now, whose din (religion) came under threat by saying this slogan in Hindi and Sanskrit?” he requested, amid laughs from the viewers.
Nationality have to be the one foundation of unity within the nation, and all of us are finally identified to the world by means of our nationality, not faith, he asserted, asking the viewers to repeat after him: “Hum kaun? Hindustani, Hindustani.”
Obliquely making a political pitch, Kumar mentioned that “secular parties” have by no means seen Muslims as human beings and even Muslims. “They have only seen you as votes,” he mentioned, including that votes “can be bought and sold, human beings cannot”.
Not directly addressing the notion that Muslims normally solid a detrimental vote — i.e., they vote for whoever is greatest positioned to defeat the BJP as an alternative of voting for a candidate or occasion they’d really help — Kumar mentioned, “In life, never fight to make someone lose, fight to make yourself win.”
“This time, start a new trend,” he instructed the viewers.
The occasion additionally noticed the presence of Ram Lal, the Akhil Bharatiya Sampark Pramukh of the RSS, Imam Umer Ilyasi, the All India Imam Group’s chief, who not too long ago made headlines for his go to to the Ram temple for the consecration ceremony in January, and Hazrat Syed Zainul Abedin, the diwan of the Ajmer Sharif Dargah.
Each RSS functionaries said that society have to be violence-free, with Kumar making a pitch for a “danga-mukt Bharat” (riot-free India). In the meantime, Ram Lal mentioned that struggle can’t be an answer to an issue, as struggle is an issue itself.
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‘No confusion about who is a Bharatiya Muslim’
The guide, which carries a brief message from RSS Sarsangchalak Mohan Bhagwat proper at first, has a sequence of essays by Muslim intellectuals. It additionally carries congratulatory notes by Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar, Kerala Governor Arif Mohammad Khan, Ilyasi, former Aligarh Muslim College vice-chancellor and BJP chief Tariq Mansoor, former NALSAR Vice-Chancellor Faizan Mustafa, amongst others.
The guide will create a nationalistic consciousness amongst Muslims, Bhagwat’s message learn. It added that the guide will give a sort of “respite” to Muslims, who had been manipulated to maintain combating with Hindus all through the twentieth Century, and can enable them to hitch the nationwide mainstream.
RSS pracharak Ram Lal, who served as a normal secretary of the BJP for 13 years, additionally despatched out unequivocal messages of unity. Stating that there is no such thing as a “confusion” about who a “Bharatiya Muslim” is, he mentioned, “There could have been some confusion about who a Bharatiya Muslim was before 1947, but after 1947 there is no scope for confusion. Those who did not think of Bharat as their motherland left, those who thought they cannot live harmoniously, left.”
He mentioned whereas there are some Muslims who’ve sought to create “confusion” about Muslim identification in India, one is free to decide on which Muslims they wish to see once they speak about Indian Muslims. There’s a Muslim-majority village known as Dhanuri in Rajasthan, through which each household has a member serving within the Military, he mentioned.
“Eighteen people have been martyred from that village — so why don’t we see them as examples of Bharatiya Muslims?” he requested.
“At the time of the Kargil war, some of the first people who informed (Army) about the intrusions (by Pakistan) were Muslims. If not for them, they (Pakistan) could have come much deeper into the territory… Why don’t we see them as examples of Bharatiya Muslims?”
Ram Lal additionally went on to remind the viewers of a bhajan known as ‘man tarpat hai hari ke darshan ko’ which was sung by Mohammad Rafi, written by Shakeel Badayuni, and composed by Naushad.
Slogans like “Jai Hind” and “Simon, go back!” had been additionally coined by Muslims — Abid Hasan Safrani, an in depth aide of Subhas Chandra Bose, and a significant in his Azad Hind Fauj and Yusuf Meherally, respectively, Ram Lal mentioned.
“We have the same soul,” he said, as he spoke of a “colonised mindset” that Indians have inherited as a consequence of an English training.
“We fought together until 1857, but the British realised they would have to pack up and leave within a few years if this unity stayed, so they divided us as Hindus and Muslims, along caste lines, and as North and South,” he mentioned.
“They used modern education to colonise our minds,” he added.
Echoing related views, Ilyasi mentioned that whereas he bought immense flak from just a few individuals for visiting the Ram Temple, he knew the “majority” was with him.
Stating that it’s one’s nationwide identification which is the prime identification of an individual, Ilyasi mentioned, “Even when we go out of India for Haj, the immigration officer asks which country are you from, not which religion,” he mentioned.
“We don’t have to be Hindu or Muslim, we are Bharatiya,” he added.
Stating that there was a shift within the notion of the RSS amongst Muslims, Ilyasi mentioned that Muslims had been warned of staying away from the group’s shadow again within the day.
“We all know who did this propaganda, and what were their vested interests,” he mentioned, with out specifying any additional.
It was, in actual fact, his father, Jameel Ilyasi who together with then RSS sarsangchalak Ok.C. Sudarshan determined to kind the Muslim Rashtriya Manch in 2002, he added.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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