The BJP has decided to embrace “social activists” who participated and spread venom during the manufactured and mysteriously-funded Shaheen Bagh protests, which began in December last year and ended only after authorities had the site vacated in March due to non-adherence to COVID-related protocols. Shahzad Ali, who until a few months ago was a disgruntled man participating in the communal anti-CAA-NRC-NPR protests at Shaheen Bagh has now been grandly welcomed into the saffron party’s fold; a party which the deliberately misinformed protestors and organisers of Shaheen Bagh claimed was on the cusp of waging a war against the country’s Muslims, and disenfranchising them.
Shahzad Ali, along with 100 other protestors joined the saffron party yesterday, in the presence of Delhi BJP chief Adesh Gupta and leader Shyam Jaju. “I have joined the BJP to prove wrong those in our community who think that the BJP is our enemy. We’ll sit together with them over the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) concerns,” the new member of BJP, Shahzad Ali said subsequent to his induction into the party. Delhi BJP president Adesh Gupta said, “These people were influenced by BJP’s effort to reach out to everyone, and not use them as a vote bank. Today’s event shows that Muslims’ faith in the party has increased.”
The large-hearted, or perhaps even desperate attempt of the BJP at winning over Shaheen Bagh protestors and all their sympathisers is problematic at multiple levels. The shoddily-funded protests, which were nothing but a roadside display of Islamic supremacy and intolerance were premised on hatred directed towards the BJP. If Muslims who participated in such protests now claim to have understood what CAA is, and how they were wrong about the BJP only a few months ago, rest assured, it would not take a genius to realise that such people are indulging in brazen political opportunism, which the saffron party, for reasons best known to them, is entertaining.
The Shaheen Bagh protest, which was aimed at inconveniencing the general public commuting daily between Delhi and Noida became the breeding ground for the anti-Hindu riots of February, which were masterminded by the likes of Tahir Hussain, Umar Khalid and PFI operatives. Can the BJP today claim that those people which it has accepted into its fold rather generously, had nothing to do with the riots? That none of them played even minute role in the riots? Why the BJP is trying to win over people whose only purpose in life is to deride India and Hindus is something which we fail to comprehend.
Fearmongering was used a political tool by the protestors to wage a civilizational war against Hindus. The protestors did not mind sacrificing their children in the winter cold, only to avail free Biryani and to satiate their sadistic wants of seeing the ruin of India by indulging in a crassly communal demonstration. A genuine hatred for Hindus kept such ‘protestors’ united, and what was paraded around as a movement against the authoritarianism of the Modi government, led by Muslim women, soon became a radical circus being funded by terror-sympathising organisations.
Why would the BJP accept into their fold rabid India-haters, who think that we have turned into a Nazi state where all minorities are on the verge of being exterminated? Shaheen Bagh, which was not more than a funded anti-BJP Islamist cringe-fest was painted internationally as a legitimate ‘resistance’ by the country’s Muslims to forces which aimed at crushing them, in their minds. The whole ‘protest’ was premised on BJP-hatred, and now, the same BJP thinks it would look ever-so-benevolent by taking such extremist elements in its fold.
For the BJP to accept the entry, or perhaps even itself facilitate the same is nothing more than an abject sign of weakness and submission. It serves as a testimony to the fact that the ‘protestors’ were able to prevail, and impression the minds of the saffron party’s leaders that the only way for the BJP to redeem itself would be by having such radical elements in the party’s ranks. Just in case the BJP did not already notice, the nuisance which was organised for months at Shaheen Bagh was in any case finding no takers across the country. By taking multiple protestors in the party, however, the BJP has not only legitimised their winter-circus, but also perhaps orchestrated a failed attempt at showing how protestors have joined the party to puncture the popular narrative prevalent among the country’s Muslims with regard to CAA and an imminent nationwide NRC.
People who live their life by abusing India, cursing it, disrespecting its culture and its people should ideally find no audience in the BJP, which claims to stand for the civilizational ethos of Bharat. There were multiple Muslims who support CAA. Instead of facilitating their entry, the saffron party has committed a grave mistake by allowing activists of the Islamist protest site among its ranks.