Srinagar: A day before Narendra Modi, re-elected with a thumping majority for a second term, is scheduled to take oath at the Rashtrapati Bhavan along with the new council of ministers, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and National Conference (NC) leader Farooq Abdullah on Wednesday cautioned him that the new BJP government will not be able to take the country forward unless it takes its Muslim population along.
“The government cannot think of taking the country forward without taking along the Muslims,” Mr. Abdullah said in Srinagar.
He added, “Now we get to see Muslim men and women being attacked by unruly mobs across the country routinely. The other day we saw how a Muslim boy was thrashed for wearing a skull cap”. He asked, “Is this idea of India that was envisaged by the authors of our Constitution?”
He said that the biggest challenge ahead of the new government at the Centre would be to stop such incidents from recurring.
The NC president asserted that the secular visage of India is reeling under the threat from the surge of communalism in the country and that the need of the hour was to make collective efforts for the protection of religious freedom and rule of law.
He said, “The spur in the targeted attacks on the Muslims at various places across north India is just painful. The rise of the communalism in India has to be countered by all the right-thinking secular parties of the country”. He added, “The fascist syndrome of communal strife if allowed to grow unchecked will eventually munch the very secular fabric of our society, which otherwise has been known for tolerance”.
Reiterating that the strife of communal hatred is one of the biggest challenges for the Indian society Mr. Abdullah said, “It is for the new government to decide if they want to let the mammoth of communalism grow unhindered”. He added, “The idea of development is impossible if 25 crore Muslims are not a part of the story.”
