New Delhi: Madhya Pradesh government is exploring legal options as it seeks to ban Congress leader Salman Khurshid’s book Sunrise over Ayodhya for equating “robust version” of Hindutva with ISIS and Boko Haram.
The book has courted controversy with complaints being filed against the senior Congress leader for allegedly defaming Hindutva.
“Congress talks of dividing the country and Salman Khurshid has taken the same idea forward in his book Sunrise Over Ayodhya. We will take opinion from legal experts about banning this book in Madhya Pradesh,” state Home Minister Narottam Mishra said Friday.
Calling it a “very condemnable book”, Mishra said “these people do not leave any opportunity to break Hindutva, divide Hindus into castes.”
“To break our country of India… Bharat tere tukde honge Inshallah Inshallah.. Rahul Gandhi went to that person first, didn’t he? That is the same idea that Salman Khurshid is taking forward,” said Mishra.
His remarks were in reference to Congress leader Kanhaiya Kumar’s rally in Delhi, when he was a student at JNU, where the slogan was allegedly chanted.
“They (the Congress leaders) want that somehow the country gets divided on the basis of castes. They want to ensure Hindutva gets fragmented and so they do not leave any opportunity to attack our faith,” Mishra added.
The state home minister also said Congress president Sonia Gandhi should make her stand clear over the issue. “The Hindutva about which even Supreme Court has said that it is a way of life, they have raised questions on that Hindutva. Now Sonia Gandhi ji has to make it clear with whom does she stand with.”
What Congress leaders say
Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said the comparison was “factually wrong”, even as other party leaders questioned the timing of the book release ahead of crucial state assembly elections next year.
“In Mr. Salman Khursheed’s new book, we may not agree with Hindutva as a political ideology distinct from composite culture of Hinduism, but comparing Hindutva with ISIS and Jihadist Islam is factually wrong and an exaggeration,” Azad tweeted.
In Mr. Salman Khursheed’s new book, we may not agree with Hindutva as a political ideology distinct from composite culture of Hinduism, but comparing Hindutva with ISIS and Jihadist Islam is factually wrong and an exaggeration.
— Ghulam Nabi Azad (@ghulamnazad) November 11, 2021
Khurshid, however, Thursday said he stands by what he has written in his new book. In an interview with PTI, the Congress leader said: “I have not called these guys terrorists… What Hindutva has done, it has pushed aside Sanatan Dharma and Hinduism and it has taken over a robust, aggressive position similar to Boko Haram and those other guys.”
(Edited by Neha Mahajan)
Also read: Narottam Mishra, MP minister who’s gone from ‘Good Samaritan’ to torchbearer of hardline Hindutva