Sangh affiliate will hold a Muslim women’s conclave in Ayodhya on 21 Feb to show solidarity with Hindus over Ram temple issue.
New Delhi: The Muslim Rashtriya Manch, an RSS affiliate, is organising a Muslim women’s conclave in Ayodhya later this month to push for the construction of Ram temple on the disputed site.
“It will be very significant for India’s Muslim women to come out and make a contribution to the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya,” Yasir Jilani, state convener, Muslim Rashtriya Manch told ThePrint.
“This would send out a message of peace and harmony throughout the world,” Jilani said, adding that if men cannot solve the dispute, then women should come forward.
The Sangh is hopeful that through the event, Muslims women will be able to show solidarity with Hindus on the issue of Ram Janmabhoomi.
Jilani is of the view that considering that Muslim women have been kept in the shackles of the orthodoxy for so long, their message will resonate across the country.
While the Sangh will honour whatever the verdict of the Supreme Court may be, thousands of Muslim women congregating and showing solidarity with their Hindu brethren would make all Indians aware of the issue, he added.
“Whenever there is a family dispute, it is the women who come forward and solve it. So when there is a national dispute, why can’t women come forward too,” asked Shaheen Parvez, convener of the Muslim Rashtriya Manch in UP, and the programme manager of the conclave, due on 21 February.
While the conclave is expected to touch upon a variety of issues pertaining to Muslim women, including triple talaq, the very fact that the congregation is in Ayodhya would “send out a message across the country,” Pervez said.
Asked if the move could possibly alienate the Muslim community even further, Pervez said, “There are scores of mosques in Ayodhya, which nobody touches. If our Hindu brothers say that Ram was born on this particular site, can’t we sacrifice for them?”
“It is a question of their devotion,” she added.
In line with RSS agenda
The conclave is in line with the RSS’ agenda of mobilising Muslim women. The Muslim Rashtriya Manch — founded in 2002, with the aim “to bridge the widening gap between Hindu and Muslim communities in India — has been at the forefront in mobilising the support of Muslim women against triple talaq, as the central government aggressively pushes for its criminalisation through a bill.
The RSS has opened other fronts on the same issue as well. Last month, Pervez, also a member of the BJP, wrote to the Prime Minister and UP chief minister, urging them to probe the degrees of Muslim clerics, who, she said, claim to be representatives of the Muslim community without any merit.
In December last year, ThePrint had reported that another RSS affiliate — the Sahara Kalyan Samiti — has launched a battle in the Delhi High Court for equal inheritance rights for Muslim women, as the Muslim Personal Law, the petitioners said, fundamentally discriminates against them.