Rahul Gandhi, who is now a former member of parliament after he was sentenced by a court of law, is in the USA on a 10-day tour. On the 1st of June, he spoke at the National Press Club in Washington, answering questions posed to him by the interviewer. During the interaction, Rahul Gandhi made a bizarre assertion that the Muslim League, a Muslim political party in India which played a vital role in the partition of India on religious lines, was “completely secular”.
The interviewer asked him, “You talked about secularism and democracy while opposing the Hindu party BJP, however, the Congress in Kerala has been in alliance with the Muslim party, the Muslim League in Kerala, the state from which you were an MP”.
To this, Rahul Gandhi said, “Muslim League is a completely secular party, there is nothing non-secular about the Muslim League. I think the person has not studied the Muslim League”.
Here is the video of the portion of his talk where he answered the question about the Muslim League:
Rahul Gandhi is known to make contentious and ill-informed statements, however, this one is particularly sinister, given the history of India.
Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), which claims to be born after Indian Independence in 1948, is actually an off-shoot of Pakistan founder and Islamist Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s All India Muslim League (AIML). The All India Muslim League was succeeded by the Muslim League in Pakistan and the Indian Union Muslim League in India. On its website, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) claims that its motto is secularism and communal harmony but has often openly indulged in carrying out those objectives which are contrary to its own motto.
The Muslim League had strongly advocated for the establishment of a separate Muslim-majority nation-state, Pakistan successfully led to the partition of British India in 1947 by the British Empire. The birth of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) in December 1947 was a part of the intention to keep the spirit of the All-India Muslim League.
Muhammad Ismail, the first President of the Indian Union Muslim League after it split up from Jinnah’s Muslim League, had actively participated in the partition movement of the country and was an ardent supporter of the creation of Pakistan. Interestingly, Muhammad Ismail, who claimed IUML was a secular outfit had, in fact, supported the retaining of Sharia law for Indian Muslims in the Constituent Assembly after India’s independence.
Mohammad Ismail, the founder President of IUML, the first political party of Muslims in the new state of India even bargained with Congress to “recognise the League as the sole representative of Muslims”, similar to the policies of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who had always asserted he and his party AIML was the sole representative of the Muslims in undivided India.
Jawaharlal Nehru, the so-called ‘epitome’ of India’s pluralism, whose Congress had once rejected the proposal of Jinnah in 1937 for a coalition government with the Muslim League, joined hands with the IUML in Kerala post-independence. The opportunistic design of Congress further encouraged political Islamists like IUML to resort to more communal politics in the name of protecting the interests of Muslims in the country.
The Indian Union Muslim League has been notoriously known for flaring up communal incidents in the state of Kerala. The party was found involved in the planning as well as the execution of the brutal Marad massacre in Kerala in 2003 as per the report of Justice Thomas P Joseph Commission which was set up to investigate the incident. The report had declared the massacre as “a clear communal conspiracy, with Muslim fundamentalist and terrorist organisations involved”.
Further, in 2017, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered a fresh First Information Report (FIR) in connection with the probe and had named Indian Union Muslim League leaders P.P. Moideen Koya and Moyeen Haji as accused of funding, conspiring and executing the riots.
Interestingly, Rahul Gandhi called the Muslim League ‘secular’ in response to a question that said he criticises BJP for being a “Hindu party” and divisive. BJP, on its part, has espoused the notions of “Sabka Saath, Sabha Vishwas”, which means it believes in the motto that every citizen of the nation should progress together. However, BJP has been a pro-Hindu party, in the sense, that it has not actively appeased the Muslim community to the point of demonising The Hindu community. For example, Congress, when in power, wanted to introduce a bill called the Communal Violence Bill which essentially declared every Hindu the perpetrator of violence and every Muslim the victim, regardless of the facts of the case, in the event of communal violence. Congress has also pandered to terrorist organisations often in order to appease its Muslim vote bank. BJP, on the other hand, banned terror outfit PFI which was involved in the murder of several Hindus, had planned communal violence multiple times, was planning to turn India into a Sharia state by 2047 and a Hindu genocide was a part of that plan.
While Rahul Gandhi called the Muslim League ‘secular’, with its history of communal violence against Hindus and unspeakable massacres, Rahul Gandhi berated the BJP, which was termed the “Hindu BJP” by the interviewer, calling it divisive. He claimed that BJP generates hatred in society, while providing no proof for it.
Clearly, for Rahul Gandhi, any party that is not actively hostile to Hindus is “divisive and non-secular” while a party that tore into on religious lines in favour of an Islamic nation, has planned communal violence and riots and has advocated for Sharia is a “secular” party worth allying with.
