“I am a Musalman and am proud of that fact. Islam’s splendid traditions of thirteen hundred years are my inheritance. I am unwilling to lose even the smallest part of this inheritance. The teaching and history of Islam, its arts and letters and civilization are my wealth and my fortune. It is my duty to protect them.
As a Musalman I have a special interest in Islamic religion and culture and I cannot tolerate any interference with them. But in addition to these sentiments, I have others also which the realities and conditions of my life have forced upon me. The spirit of Islam does not come in the way of these sentiments; it guides and helps me forward.
I am proud of being an Indian. I am a part of the indivisible unity that is Indian nationality. I am indispensable to this noble edifice and without me this splendid structure of India is incomplete.
I am an essential element which has gone to build India. I can never surrender this claim.
Moulana Abul Kalam Azad made this speech in 1940 at Ramgarh.
This is the tradition that every Indian Muslim is proud of. But, from Savarkar to Mohan Bhagvat, the ideologues of sangh parivar never recognised Muslims as the equal citizens of this country. “Mecca, Median, Hassan and Hussain, Sohrab and Ruston and Bulbu may be very significant in their own ways but they do not from a part of Indian national life and stream of Indian culture. How can those who are emotionally associated with thse and look upon Rama and Krishna tradition as alien be described as nationals. We see that the moment anybody embraces Islam, an effort is made to cut him off from the entire tradition of this country and connect him to the alien tradition,” wrote Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, another Hindutva ideologue.
It was based on this absurd premise that the Modi government enacted Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) on December 11, 2019. Hitler restricted the citizenship only to those who had been granted citizenship paper by the Third Reich (The German Nazi government). The Myanmar government did the same to Rohingya Muslims before starting their mass ethnic cleansing.
It’s the duty of every peace-loving Indian to stand up resist every effort of Hindutva forces to make this country another Nazi Germany or a Rakhine killing field.
