FRONT PAGE | Wednesday, November 4, 2009 | Email | Print | 
Jamiat backs fatwa on Vande Mataram, but PC ignores provocation at Deoband meet
Pioneer News Service | New Delhi
A fresh controversy has cropped up over Vande Mataram with a top body of Islamic clerics directing the community members against its recitation on the grounds that some verses of the national song were against the tenets of Islam.
The Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind’s support to seminary Darul Uloom’s fatwa came at its 30th general session in Deoband. The concluding day of the three-day function on Tuesday was also attended by Union Home Minister P Chidambaram after the fatwa had been passed.
“The fatwa of Darul Uloom (opposing recitation of Vande Mataram) is correct,” said one of the 25 resolutions passed at the general session in Deoband. Darul Uloom’s fatwa department had issued the edict in 2006 describing recitation of Vande Mataram as anti-Islamic.
The Jamiat resolution said, “We love and respect the mother, but do not worship her...The house demands that the issue of Vande Mataram should not be deliberately raised for causing communal discord and threat to law and order.” The resolution also condemned what it called the exploitation of Vande Mataram for targetting the Muslims.
The BJP is up in arms against Chidambaram for giving legitimacy to the resolution with his presence and demanded that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh explain the compulsions behind Chidambaram to attend the programme after the resolution against singing of Vande Mataram was passed.
“We begin our programmes by singing Vande Mataram. But the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind function started with a protest against the national song,” BJP vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi told reporters in New Delhi.
Naqvi said Chidambaram should have at least said something about the resolution in his speech. “I have a copy of his speech. He has mentioned about Babri mosque demolition and communal riots, but there is no mention of the resolution against Vande Mataram,” the BJP leader pointed out.
The Jamiat also attacked the UPA Government and asked it to stop making “lucrative promises” to minorities and immediately implement the recommendations of the Sachar committee report.
The body also adopted a series of resolutions asking the UPA Government to stop interfering in minority affairs, including tampering with madarsa education system. “We demand from the UPA Government to implement the Sachar Committee and the Ranganath Commission recommendations so that maximum number of people was benefited,” another resolution said.
Jamiat opposed the Government’s plan to set up a Central Madarsa Board, saying it was yet “another attempt by the Government to interfere in the madarsa education system. “The Government must avoid setting up the board,” it warned, Jamiat backs fatwa against Vande Mataram, PC ignores provocation at Deoband seminar demanding Government to make a law against communal riots and to secure Waqf properties.
The resolutions opposed amendment in Article 377 and 33 per cent reservation for women, calling it “unnecessary” as well as “unacceptable”. The Jamiat further condemned suicide bombings saying it takes lives of innocent people. Darul Uloom had issued a fatwa in favour of yoga after some clerics last year banned Muslims from practicing it.
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