In a veiled attack, RSS ideologue Rakesh Sinha on Saturday termed AIMIM President Asaduddin Owaisi “more dangerous than IS”.
“Owaisi is more dangerous than IS. Media have been shying away from asking who Owaisi is or why he observed 'black day' on September 17 (the day Hyderabad was integrated with India),” he said.
He said IS was exploiting internal problems like caste-divide and indigenous discourses by people like Owaisi to radicalise educated youth in south India.
"Owaisi belongs to a party of the Razakars, who fought the Indian Army opposing the merger of Hyderabad with India. Qasim Razvi, who headed Razakars, had been released on the condition that he would return to Pakistan. But he continued to have his link with Hyderabad, which explains the rapid radicalisation in the city," Sinha said.
Sinha was in Bengaluru on Saturday to address a gathering organised by the think-tank organisation Manthan, which debated about “emerging challenges in terrorism and extremism”.
In his speech, he highlighted the security measures adopted by a few countries to deal with radicalisation.
“In Turkey, Caliphate was abolished, but in India, Khilafat movement existed till 1964. Australia proclaimed multiculturalism is a failed ideology, Belgium senate passed resolution against wearing burqa,” he said.
“But, India does not feel threatened by a beard or burqa as we have a long history of cultural assimilation. This is the reason why the proportion of cooperation of Indian Muslims to terrorism is very low. So, India has to tackle terrorism without Islamophobia,” he added.
Sinha, however, suggested that India requires a 'hybrid model' of "Turkey’s hard model and the Indonesia’s soft model of cultural integration”.
“Turkey with its 99 per cent Muslim population controls what is taught in schools or preached by Ulema in their mosques,” Sinha said.
“If any BJP member were to propose such scrutiny or censorship, he would be shouted down by the so-called intellectuals. Dargahs in Kashmir send out messages on pagers. We are clueless about the content,” he added.
Sinha said fear of persecution in the Muslim community was “baseless and it was a ploy to push the country towards anarchy”.
He also said that he was opposed to the idea of appeasement to woo a particular religious community.
“The Hunter commission report (by the British) in the wake of the dreaded Wahabi movement became the basis for the Sachar Committee report. Both smack of appeasement. Prime Minister Narendra Modi boycotting iftar parties were a gesture to tell people that appeasement is not a good thing,” he added.
