On Friday, Former Vice President Hamid Ansari, who often displays his love for radical Islamists, displayed his hypocrisy yet again with his latest rants against Hindus and their ‘aggressive nationalism’.
Speaking at the virtual event of senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor’s book launch ‘The Battle of Belonging’, Former Vice President Hamid Ansari, as usual, went on to make rhetorical claims saying that in a short space of four years, India made the long journey from the vision of ‘civic nationalism’ to new political imagery of ‘cultural nationalism’.
Ansari claimed that even before the pandemic, society had become a victim of two other pandemics, to which he referred to as ‘religiosity’ and ‘strident nationalism’.
Promoting Tharoor’s book, Ansari said that “there is a passionate plea for an ideal of India (in the book), an India that was taken for granted by our generation”, which according to him was endangered by “overt and covert ideas and ideologies that seek to segment it on imagined criteria of us and them”.
“Hitherto, our core values were summed up as an existential reality of a plural society, a democratic polity and a secular state structure. These were accepted in the freedom movement, they were incorporated in the Constitution and encapsulated in the preamble of the Constitution,” claimed Ansari saying that the plurality of Indian society is evident from the sociological evidence of 4,635 communities.
Ansari resorts to fearmongering, says nationalism and religion are danger than pandemic
The Former Vice President, who has a habit of fear-mongering by making false political narratives to target Hindu community in the country, continued to say that the pandemic was bad enough but before it came the society was already a victim of two other pandemics – religiosity and strident nationalism.
“Religiosity is defined as extreme religious ardour, denoting exaggerated embodiment, involvement or zeal for certain aspects of religious activity enforced through social and even governmental pressure,” he said.
By the looks of Ansari’s rhetorics, one can categorically say that the radical Islamic groups, which enjoys a close relationship with the likes of Hamid Ansari, were not Ansari’s target instead it was directed at the Hindu society. Essentially, the remarks of Ansari was pointed at Hindus and nationalist groups in the country which are time-and-again exerting their influence to demand fair treatment and equal rights for themselves, which is often brushed aside by ‘liberals-seculars’ as a manifestation of ‘cultural nationalism’.
Continuing his anti-Hindu rhetoric, Ansari said that the records across the world showed that at times it takes the form of hatred as a tonic that inspires vengeance as a mass ideology. Some of it can be witnessed in our own land, he claimed while making absurd observations saying Hindutva is a political doctrine and not a religious one.
The Islamists like Hamid Ansari, who seems to lack the intellect to understand Hindus and Hindutva, have always turned a blind eye towards the increasing radicalism in their own backyard and instead have shown their eagerness to preach Hindus and nationalists about the ‘secular’ values of the country.
Hamid Ansari and his love for radical Islamists
However, in reality, Ansari has no moral right to speak on issues such as nationalism or religious polarisation. Ansari’s whole career, from his days of being a diplomat to his ten-year tenure as country’s Vice President, has been marked with his contempt towards Hindus, nationalism and national interest.
During his hay days as a diplomat, Ansari was known for his duplicitous conduct in the Middle East, where he has served most of his tenure as an IFS officer. Former RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) officer NK Sood had made explosive revelations against the former Vice President Hamid Ansari who served as Indian Ambassador to Iran between 1990-92, alleging that he endangered the lives of RAW officers in Tehran and even ended up exposing the RAW set-up in Tehran.
Not just that, the Former Vice President has often exhibited his Islamist tendencies and had gone to an extent of favouring Islamic Sharia courts. He had backed the idea of setting up of the Shariat courts in every district of the country, saying that each community has the right to practice its own personal law.
Ansari had also displayed no shame in attending an event organised by radical Islamist organisation Popular Front of India (PFI). In 2010, PFI goons had chopped off the hands of a professor in Kerala for allegedly insulting Islamic Prophet Mohammed. NIA has accused PFI of indulging in ‘love-jihad’ in Kerala.
Time-and-again, Ansari has also displayed his distorted sense of history when he claimed that Sardar Patel was equally responsible for India’s partition as was Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Ansari had said that not just Pakistanis or Britishers but Indians were equally responsible for the partition of the country.
Despite having a horrendous past, Hamid Ansari continues to display his audacity of preaching morals to Hindus and nationalists by peddling the dead political narrative of the country being affected by the so-called false notions of ‘religiosity’ and ‘cultural nationalism’.
