New Delhi: Amid the ongoing war in Iran, former Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, Najeeb Jung, asked the people to raise their voice against the American attack and declared that the concept of pan-Islamism does not exist.
“Our Arab friends have proven that the concept of pan-Islamism does not exist. It is the Arab world, not the Islamic world,” he said, delivering a speech at the People’s Conference for Peace: Condemning the Assassination of Ayatullah Syed Ali Khamenei, organised by Indian Muslim for Civil Rights (IMCR) and Association for Protection of Civil Rights (ACPR).
Speaking at Delhi’s Constitution Club, he asked, “Will the world stay silent? Will nobody rise up?” He also mentioned the press and said, “The less we speak of Indian media, the better.”
“I think we are all proud of what the YouTubers do. But the less we speak of the Indian media and the less we speak of the CNNs and the BBCs and the Al Jazeeras who have sold their conscience for 30 pieces of silver…there is no voice to speak of the Iranians.”
“People like Swamiji, people like Siddhartha, people like Salman here should really go out and raise the conscience of people, what Salim Sahib has said, and raise the conscience of my brothers and sisters in India, the Sikhs, the Muslims, the Hindus, the Parsis, to come out and speak with courage,” he added.
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Force of pain
In his speech, Jung said he stood “ashamed at the behaviour of all the Arab nations that stand as their neighbours without batting an eyelid and conniving with powers in the West. I stand ashamed today that the world doesn’t have a Gandhi.”
Jung said the Arab world had driven the deepest shaft for a few dollars. “And what will they get? What security will the Americans provide them at the cost of humanity, at the cost of the lives of children who are dying?”
He added that there was a Karbala (sacrifice) every day in Palestine for two years, and the world kept quiet, and now it’s going to be the same in Iran because of “the mistake made by our friends in America and the satanic forces in Israel.”
“They forget the concept of sacrifice, the concept of bearing pain that the Iranians have. The Iranians, a 7,000-year-old civilisation, have known the force of pain,” said Jung.
Jung started his speech with a couplet by Faiz Ahmed Faiz: Gadeen hain kitni saliben mere dariche mein, har ek apne masiha ke khoon ka rang liye ( How many crosses stand in my doorway, each carrying the colour of its own messiah’s blood).
Jung also told a story about Alexander, saying that Persian culture impressed him so much that he decided to stay back.
“You want to destroy that and the world sits quietly,” said Jung. “You can’t imagine how a child can sleep in Tehran or Isfahan, and what is the mental state of the people living there.”
The former Governor added that a major civilisation of the world (Iran) has to prove its bravery in the face of a barbaric onslaught that nobody speaks of.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)