KALABURAGI: Asaduddin Owaisi, the president of National President of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul-Muslimeen (All India Council for Unity of Muslims), today said that Narendra Modi is sending a clear signal to the Muslims of India about their place in India's polity by consecrating the Ram Temple at Ayodhya with his own hands.
Owaisi, who projects himself as the true champion of Muslims as opposed to the 'pseudo-secular' opposition parties such as Indian National Congress, was answering questions from the media on how he feels about the inauguration of the temple -- located at the spot where a mosque stood for 500 years -- on Monday.
"Narendra Modi is aiming to consolidate the majority vote by doing this. He's giving an indication to the Muslims of India as to what their place is in India's politics," he said, speaking on the sidelines of an event here today.
In his characteristic style, he also eviscerated the opposition that he claimed were not that different from the BJP when it came to tapping the religious sentiments of the majority community for electoral gains.
By way of example, he pointed out to the Aam Aadmi Party government of Delhi, which he said has suggested that religious songs such as Hanuman Chalisa and Ram Dhun should be sung in Delhi government schools once a week.
"Do government schools have religion," he asked, before moving on to the three critical developments that paved the way for the construction and Monday's inauguration of the Ram temple at Ayodhya.
The first, he pointed out, took place soon after independence when Congress' Govind Ballabha Pant was the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.
It was at that time that idols were placed at the Masjid, he noted. He pointed out that the then collector of Ayodhya, K K Nair, closed the Masjid to Muslims and allowed Hindus to worship the idol, before it was locked again.
In 1986, when Rajiv Gandhi was the prime minister, the locks to the mosque were opened and Hindus were again allowed to start worship, he pointed out.
The third major development, he pointed out, took place on Dec 6, 1982, when the mosque was brought down by a mob assembled by BJP leaders.
Today, said Owaisi said, the opposition leaders are refusing to go to the inauguration ceremony only because it has been hijacked by Modi, not because of any ideological opposition to how the temple came to be constructed in place of the mosque.
"Everyone is saying - if Modi was not there, we would have also gone. But no one is saying anything about the three dates I have mentioned above. Why? Because everyone is fighting for the votes of the majority community," he said.
He asked why no one was talking about the masjid, and the failures of the law and order machinery that led to its demolition, paving the way for Monday's event.
"If GB Pant had removed the idols, would we have had to see this day? If the locks were not opened in 1986, would this day have come? If the Babri Masjid was not demolished on Dec 6, would this have come to this? These are all questions of mine, but no one is giving any answers," Owais said.
Asked about his opinion of the Supreme Court judgment of 2019 that handed over the disputed land for the construction of a temple, Owaisi quoted former Chief Justice JS Verma: "The Supreme Court is supreme, not infallible."
"But even that judgment did not say anywhere that Babri Masjid was constructed by demolishing any temple," he said, adding that he had predicted that the judgment would open a Pandora's box.
"Today, you can see that Sangh Parivar is going everywhere and saying it was a temple here and not a Masjid."