Maulana Azad, Nahru-Gandhi compatriot, "remains" neglected, no major leader cares to visit mausoleum

By Our Representative
A commemorative event organized by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), New Delhi, on the occasion of the 58th death anniversary of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (February 22), speakers made it an occasion to remind the Government of India the great patriot, who stood by Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru during the freedom struggle, remains “neglected”.
Organized at the mausoleum, situated in Jama Masjid complex in Delhi, the speakers particularly sought the intervention of Najma Heptulla, Minority Affairs Minister, Modi government, present on the occasion, to ensure that his legacy remains alive and flourishes.
Speaking on the occasion, Heptulla stated that Azad “visualized a new world of free nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America without economic exploitation that sucked out their lifeblood.”
Firoz Bakht Ahmed, Azad’s grandnephew and social activist, said it was a matter of concern that people like Maulana Azad, among many other patriots, remain “completely forgotten and sidelined”.
Insisting that India needs politicians of the stature of Azad whose knowledge in philosophy, Islamic ideology and Indian culture was encyclopedic”, he lamented that top people from the government refuse to visit the mausoleum on remember Azad, because it remains “a picture of neglect”.

He added, the mausoleum is surrounded by “filth and dirt all over, besides illegal encroachment by the tehbazaari (squatters)”, and the government has paid “no attention to this.”
Following my PIL in the Delhi High Court in 2005 to open the lock of the mazar and prevent illegal squatters from encroaching its walls, the mausoleum was opened. However, even today it remains neglected to visitors at the Jama Masjid complex.
On a black marble a part of Maulana’s historic address of 1940 has been inscribed: “I am proud of being an Indian. I am part of the invisible unity that is Indian nationality. I am indispensable to this noble edifice and without me this splendid structure of India is incomplete. I am essential element which has gone to build India. I can never surrender this claim.”
Bahar Barqui, a senior lawyer, pointed towards what he called a “serious void of devoted Muslim leadership”, regretting, there is none who emulates Maulana Azad in order to “truly represent Indian Muslims.”
He added, “Though born in a predominantly Hindu environment, Azad was bold enough to propagate nationalism to Muslims at variance with the prevalent political consciousness based on communalized politics.”

Social activist Maulana Aleemuddin Asadi said Maulana Azad’s writings must be “made popular”, adding, “The only solution to the communal virus today is to follow the Azad formula.”
He insisted, “Maulana’s watchword was assimilation at all levels. Muslims of India must understand that their existence is linked to that of the Hindus and that the Hindus must cooperate with the Muslims for if the Muslims of India remain backward, India can’t progress.”
Well-known journalist, Shahid Siddiqui, editor of “Nai Duniya”, said that the Muslim community in India unfortunately gets “carried on by issues like the Shah Bano Case, the Talaq issue or the Babri Masjid imbroglio, and it must make it a point to follow Maulana Azad for its educational uplift.”
Floral tribute to Maulana Azad was paid by ICCR director-general C Rajashekhar, recalled, Maulana Azad’s wanted to “preserve India’s unity as an undivided nation”, even though failed because he got little support from his compatriots”, adding, he would overhaul the CCCR library to convey the vision of Maulana Azad to the youth.
ICCR is an autonomous organisation of the Government of India, involved in India’s external cultural relations through cultural exchange with other countries and their peoples. It was founded on 9 April 9, 1950 by Maulana Azad, who was also Independent India’s first Education Minister. Heptulla was associated with ICCR in the past as its head.

Comments

Congress 'promises' cancellation of Adani power project: Jharkhand elections

Counterview Desk
Pointing out that people's issues take a backseat in Jharkhand's 2019 assembly elections, the state's civil rights organization, the Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha, a coalition of activists and people’s organisations, has said that political parties have largely ignored in their electoral manifestos the need to implement the fifth schedule of the Constitution in a predominantly tribal district.

Hindutva founders 'borrowed' Nazi, fascist idea of one flag, one leader, one ideology

By Shamsul Islam*
With the unleashing of the reign of terror by the RSS/BJP rulers against working-class, peasant organizations, women organizations, student movements, intellectuals, writers, poets and progressive social/political activists, India also witnessed a series of resistance programmes organized by the pro-people cultural organizations in different parts of the country. My address in some of these programmes is reproduced here...
*** Before sharing my views on the tasks of artists-writers-intellectuals in the times of fascism, let me briefly define fascism and how it is different from totalitarianism. Totalitarianism is political concept, a dictatorship of an individual, family or group which prohibits opposition in any form, and exercises an extremely high degree of control over public and private life. It is also described as authoritarianism.
Whereas fascism, while retaining all these repressive characteristics, also believes in god-ordained superiority of race, cultur…

Gujarat refusal to observe Maulana Azad's birthday as Education Day 'discriminatory'

By Our Representative
The Gujarat government decision not to celebrate the National Education Day on !monday has gone controversial. Civil society organizations have particularly wondered whether the state government is shying away from the occasion, especially against the backdrop of "deteriorating" level of education in Gujarat.

Girl child education: 20 major states 'score' better than Gujarat, says GoI report

By Rajiv Shah
A Government of India report, released last month, has suggested that “model” Gujarat has failed to make any progress vis-à-vis other states in ensuring that girls continue to remain enrolled after they leave primary schools. The report finds that, in the age group 14-17, Gujarat’s 71% girls are enrolled at the secondary and higher secondary level, which is worse than 20 out of 22 major states for which data have been made available.

Ex-World Bank chief economist doubts spurt in India's ease of doing business rank

By Rajiv Shah
This is in continuation of my previous blog where I had quoted from a commentary which top economist Prof Kaushik Basu had written in the New York Times (NYT) a little less than a month ago, on November 6, to be exact. He recalled this article through a tweet on November 29, soon after it was made known that India's growth rate had slumped (officially!) to 4.5%.

With RSS around, does India need foreign enemy to undo its democratic-secular fabric?

By Shamsul Islam*
Many well-meaning liberal and secular political analysts are highly perturbed by sectarian policy decisions of RSS/BJP rulers led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, especially after starting his second inning. They are vocal in red-flagging lynching incidents, policies of the Modi government on Kashmir, the National Register of Citizens (NRC), the demand for 'Bharat Ratna' to Savarkar who submitted 6-7 mercy petitions to the British masters (getting remission of 40 years out of 50 years' sentence), and the murder of constitutional norms in Goa, Karnataka and now in Maharashtra.

Rushdie, Pamuk, 260 writers tell Modi: Aatish episode casts chill on public discourse

Counterview Desk
As many as 260 writers, journalists, artists, academics and activists across the world, including Salman Rushdie, British Indian novelist, Orhan Pamuk, Turkish novelist and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in literature, and Margaret Atwood, Canadian poet and novelist, have called upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi to review the decision to strip British Indian writer Aatish Taseer of his overseas Indian citizenship.

Worrying signs in BJP: Modi, Shah begin 'cold-shouldering' Gujarat CM, party chief

By RK Misra*
The political developments in neighbouring Maharashtra where a Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government assumed office has had a trickle down effect in Gujarat with both the ruling BJP and the Congress opposition going into revamp mode.

Post-Balakot, danger that events might spiral out of control is 'greater, not less'

By Tapan Bose*
The fear of war in South Asia is increasing. Tensions are escalating between India and Pakistan after the Indian defence minister's announcement in August this year that India may revoke its current commitment to only use nuclear weapons in retaliation for a nuclear attack, known as ‘no first use’. According to some experts who are watching the situation the risk of a conflict between the two countries has never been greater since they both tested nuclear weapons in 1998.

'Favouring' tribals and ignoring Adivasis? Behind coercion of India's aborigines

By Mohan Guruswamy*
Tribal people account for 8.2% of India’s population. They are spread over all of India’s States and Union Territories. Even so they can be broadly classified into three groupings. The first grouping consists of populations who predate the Indo-Aryan migrations. These are termed by many anthropologists as the Austro-Asiatic-speaking Australoid people.

Counterview

Search This Blog