Cong & blood of Muslims'

The remark by Salman Khurshid, a former Union Cabinet minister whose family has been associated with the Congress for three generations, at an Aligarh meeting on  Tuesday that the Congress “too” has the “blood of Muslims on our hands” is likely to deeply embarrass his party just before the crucial Karnataka Assembly elections.

It’s certainly beyond dispute that Congress governments too have failed to stop or adequately deal with a large number of wounding communal episodes since Independence, among them Hindu-Muslim riots and the destruction of the Babri Masjid which were cited by the questioner who quizzed Mr Khurshid at a public forum.

Analytically, is this the same as the Congress having the “blood of Muslims on its hands”? That's a question which is best answered by the Muslim community itself, specially when compared to serious communal episodes when the BJP or other non-Congress parties have been at the Centre. If there's a difference, then what is it?

To take a parallel, blacks were killed in America when Barack Obama, a black man, was President. The movement “Black Lives Matter” sprang up. Does Mr Obama have the blood of blacks on his hands?

Many Muslims, traditional Congress voters, split away from the Congress after the Babri demolition. Some even backed the BJP, seen as an anti-Muslim Hindutva party, for a while, and some chose regional secular parties. That was emotional anger. But by and large Muslims - and indeed the BJP-RSS — see the Congress’ credo as “secular”, meaning suppressing the minorities is not part of its vision. In fact, that's why the BJP opposes the Congress.