South Asia Citizens Web

Owaisi is perhaps the youngest scion of the erstwhile fascist organisation of Indian Muslims known as the razakars that sought to create an independent Islamic state from the nizam’s sprawling territories in the heart of India.

As a cultural organisation, devoted to the cause of solidarity of all peoples, SAHMAT has been dismayed by the series of official and semi-official measures that have followed the unfortunate incidents on the Line of Actual Control in Jammu and Kashmir, in which soldiers on both sides have lost their lives. On such occasions it is most important to keep the avenues of communication open, even if for the purpose of conveying one’s own version of events to such people on the other side whom one can reach. To close down such avenues deliberately is surely sense-less and self-defeating. By shutting down visas that were to be made available to aged Pakistan entrants, sending back Pakistan cricketers and sportswomen, refusing to stage Manto’s plays by visiting Pakistan theatre persons, and banning Pakistan’s persons of literature from participating in functions in India, are measures that manifestly belittle the image of our Republic, and do nothing to serve the cause of peace and improve relations between our two peoples.

24 January 2013
While one may or may not agree with the terminology employed by the Home Minister in his recent speech at Jaipur, we feel that for long prejudice has ruled investigations, obscuring the role of organizations and their multiple affiliates in planning and executing of attacks and bombings in the country. The veneer of ’nationalism’ — narrow, exclusionary and based on hatred for minorities as it is— cannot hide the violence that Sangh and its affiliates beget and peddle. (…)

Press Statement
We the undersigned are concerned by the developments in Andhra Pradesh following the alleged hate speech by Mr. Akberuddin Owaisi recently. Many groups and organisations including many of the undersigned had condemned the speech and demanded action and also against members of some Hindutva organisations who were engaging in similar activities. There were many instances of hate speeches and communal instigations by leaders and members of different communities in the past (…)

RETHINKING SECULARISM by Bhagwan Josh, Dilip Simeon, and Purushottam Agrawal(published in Mainstream, December 30, 1990). NB - This article was published 23 years ago, but is probably unread today. It was written in the period immediately following Advani’s failed Rath Yatra, and the BJP’s withdrawal of support to VP Singh’s government in late October. It was also the time of the unrest following the implementation of the Mandal commission recommendations in August 1990. Readers may judge (…)