• Hello, I’m Shekhar Gupta, and welcome to Walk the Talk. I’m in front of Masjid Abdul Nabi, a great Islamic institution, built more than 500 years ago. And my guest this week is a very young maulana, 39-year-old Maulana Mahmood Madani. Welcome to Walk the Talk.

Thank you.

• You are young, maulana, and you represent one of the most liberal streams of Islam. You have so much of work pressure but people do not understand that. People do not understand that your party was responsible for the resistance in Nandigram in West Bengal. Sadiqullah belongs to your party.

He’s the state general-secretary of the party and the state unit took the lead on the issue.Whenever such issues have come up, Jamiat Ulama has a history of taking on a leadership role. Jamiat Ulama played a leading role even in the freedom struggle. Jamiat was formed in 1919 and in our first meeting we took a resolution on attaining complete freedom.

• So you were even a step ahead of the Congress?

The Congress used to talk only about internal independence, but at that time Jamiat demanded complete independence.

• And even during the time of Partition, your party was against Partition?

This was the only Muslim organisation making such a demand and Maulana Asad Madani, my father, made such a demand not for political reasons but on the basis of religion. He said our religion does not allow us to divide people on the basis of religion.

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