India Looks to Muslims to Stand Up I Mohd Adeeb

They should ask the secular parties: will you stand with us when our mosque is demolished? When our children are lynched, will your heart even ache? All you want is the vote. If a Dalit commits suicide, every political party goes there — because of the vote. Seven people were lynched in Gurugram. We kept longing for someone to even come and ask what these people's fault was. So because of that, if the entire community resolves this, then Akhilesh Yadav will not be afraid to call a Muslim onto the stage, and Rahul Gandhi will not hesitate to raise his voice alongside Muslims. We have to build our own identity, establish our own relevance. That relevance will only be proven if the Muslim community rises above ashraf, pasmanda, this caste, that biradari, and stands united. Because if you stand united, believe me — I can say with certainty — a great many secular Hindus are looking toward you. Stand with them. But first, make yourselves strong. The misfortune is that for Muslims, an election is like a festival, a fair. Now tell them to step back from elections. When I first said this, people said: you yourself are done with parliament, now you are telling us, who are about to die, to die too. We have stopped thinking, and we are up against people who decided their approach a hundred years ago.