JOIN USAsaduddin Owaisi slams Mohan Bhagwat's 'Muslims most content in India' remark
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's remarks that the "most content Muslims are only in India" has kicked up a political row with AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi asking tersely "what is the measure of our happiness?".
Owaisi, whose party is trying luck in Bihar assembly elections in alliance with Upendra Kushwaha's party RLSP and BSP, latched on to Bhagwat's remarks to allege that the RSS ideology wants to "make Muslims second class citizens."
Bhagwat whose remarks about the review of reservation in the 2015 Bihar polls had created a political storm on Friday asserted that Indian Muslims are the most content in the world and held that any kind of bigotry and separatism are spread only by those whose self-interest gets affected.
Bhagwat in an interview to 'Vivek', a Hindi magazine based in Maharashtra also gave the example of man Muslims having fought in Mewar king Maharana Pratap's army against Mughal emperor Akbar to buttress his line that people from all faiths stood together in India's history whenever there was an attack on the country's culture.
While claiming that Muslims in India are most happy, Bhagwat also drew the allegory of Pakistan and reminded that it did not give rights to followers of other religions.
On Saturday, Owaisi reacted sharply to it tweeting, "What is the measure of our happiness? That a man named Bhagwat can constantly tell us how grateful we should be to the majority? The measure of our happiness is whether our dignity under the Constitution is respected."
Going hammer and tongs against the RSS chief, he said, "Don't tell us how 'happy' we're while your ideology wants to make Muslims second-class citizens."
The AIMIM leader said he does not want to hear Bhagwat say that Muslims have to be grateful to the majority for living in our own homeland.
"We're not seeking the majority's goodwill, we're not in competition with the world's Muslims to be the happiest. We just want our fundamental rights," he said.
Meanwhile, the RSS supporters also put out the video clip of Bhagwat's remarks to counter a media report. ".
"What is happening to them (minorities). They get Constitutional rights. Pakistan did not give it (to minorities). In the kind of atmosphere that was prevailing at the time, India would have said that since Pakistan has been created for Muslims, only the writ of Hindus will run large here. But our Constitution did not do this. Even Baba Saheb Ambedkar, who believed that there should be a transfer of population, also did not propose anything for transferring Muslims living in India. This is the nature of our country. This nature is called Hindu," Bhagwat said.