‘Muslims are worse off in W Bengal than in any other state, yet we don’t want the Left Govt to be voted out’

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.

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.

• The booklet carrying your father’s sermons says that one should love his country first.

I am a Muslim and if I love my country then it is so because I am a Muslim. If a person is not a real Muslim then we can get suspicious whether he is a friend of the country or not. Those who practise religion can never be enemies of the country because our religion teaches us to love our country.

• But now some people are saying that those who led in Nandigram did so because they got support from the US. So now there is an allegation that you are friends with America.

Here, he (Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee) is not just a chief minister but a dictator as well. So when he saw such a big obstruction he started accusing people without any evidence. During George Bush’s visit to India we had staged a demonstration which nobody did in the country. Even Bardhan Sahab had participated in that. So when we opposed Bush’s visit to India, we did so because we were his (Buddhadeb’s) friends!

... contd.