Prominent Muslims of West Bengal tell Mamata to stop mindless minority appeasement in an open letter

In a report dated July 12, 2018, an Urdu Daily quoted Rahul Gandhi saying, “Yes, Congress is a muslim party”. In its response a former MP Shahid Siddiqui tweeted,” Is the quote correct or the party will contradict it? Muslims don’t want a Muslim party, they want a National Secular party, which doesn’t discriminate between citizens.”

We will come back to Rahul Gandhi later.

A few days back in a Kolkata hospital, the kin of an 82-year-old patient who died, attacked a junior doctor, beat him brutally bludgeoning him on the head and made a fatal hole in his skull rendering him comatose. This dastardly attack was immediately followed by nation-wide protests. The West Bengal government’s cold-hearted attitude towards curbing the protest without so much as raising a finger on the murderous mob was distressing but was nothing surprising, considering how minority appeasement has come to be commonplace in the not-so-secular state of West Bengal.

In another incident in Kolkata, former Miss India Universe Ushoshi Sen Gupta was assaulted and harassed, her Uber driver was beaten by a group of bikers who belonged to the minority community and the silence was again observed by the ones in power in West Bengal.

Not to mention that Malda, Dulagarh and other riots that rocked the state under the rule of Mamata Banerjee and the handling of such heinous crimes on the part of members of the minority community only point at the inexcusable minority appeasement done by Didi. Yes, in Mamata Banerjee’s Bengal secularism and minority appeasement transcends even justice, and law and order.

Observing Didi’s prejudice to a particular community, a group of prominent Muslims, in an open letter have demanded to bring to book the culprits involved in the young doctor’s assault as well as Ushoshi’s mistreatment and all other crimes where Muslims are involved. They wrote that it will send a strong message to other communities that Muslims are not being shielded by the state government. They demanded that Muslims should not be protected for merely appeasing them and should face the law as every other person and that they are grieved and embarrassed by such incidents.

The signatories of the open letter were educationist and businessman Imran Zaki, educationist and social worker Mamoon Akhtar, social worker and entrepreneur Mudar Patherya, nutrition specialist Hena Nafis and Dr. Zahid H Gangjee among fifty-three others.

It is obvious that the community of Muslims are well aware of the view that other communities have started having about them. It is no secret that the majority population in West Bengal thinks that Muslims are mollified for votes by Mamata Banerjee and her coterie. From delaying Durga Puja Visarjan for letting Muharram processions pass to targeting Saraswati Puja celebrations, Didi has been insolent to Hindu sentiments in the state causing great displeasure amongst the Hindu community.

Muslims in the state are well aware of the fact that there has been a massive Hindu unification since 2014 and West Bengal is no exception to this phenomenon. If Mamata goes unabashed with her Muslim appeasement, she will only help the BJP’s cause by giving them an easy pathway to the state. The Lok Sabha elections are nothing but an extremely clear indicator of the same. A pretty clever thought, but will Didi listen? Considering Didi’s antics in West Bengal are for common Muslims and signatories of this open letter are people of high repute.

Let’s now come to the Rahul Gandhi episode, he was questioned by Muslim leaders for excessive minority appeasement before Lok Sabha Elections 2019 but Congress didn’t listen. Congress did create an image of it being a grand old party of Muslims in India which led to more people ditching it to vote for the BJP.