“According to the Constitution, India is a secular nation and not a Hindu Rashtra. If he (Bhatwat) says that it is a Hindu Rashtra, then he is speaking against the Constitution of India and the Centre should take action against him.”
Reacting to RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s recent statement, National Conference president Dr Farooq Abdullah today said that if India became a Hindu Rashtra, Kashmir would not remain part of the country.
At a function in Jammu recently, Bhagwat had said that India is a Hindu Rashtra (Hindu country).
Abdullah said government should take action against the RSS chief for speaking against the Constitution.
“According to the Constitution, India is a secular nation and not a Hindu Rashtra. If he (Bhatwat) says that it is a Hindu Rashtra, then he is speaking against the Constitution of India and the Centre should take action against him.”
Dr Farooq was speaking to reporters after a party function at NC headquarters NawaiSubh here.
“If they want to keep on saying this . . . this will breed doubts in people that perhaps Quaid-i-Azam (Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan) was right and others were wrong,” the NC president said.
“If Bhagwat says that India is a Hindu Rashtra, then I want to tell Bhagwat that Kashmir will not remain part of that India. Kashmir was with such India where (the followers of) every religion have equal rights,” he said.
He asked national leaders to speak against RSS in unison and “say that the RSS propaganda is not acceptable to any party.”
“As long as India respects every religion in accordance with the Constitution, gives equal right to every person of every religion how small he may be, he has every right under that Constitution and if it is eroded, then be ready for a revolution which you will not be able to control (sic),” he said.
Hitting out at Defence Minister ManoharParrikar, Dr Farooq said, “If he thinks the demonetisation and the board exams will end the unrest in Kashmir, it is a misconception and the storm will rise again.”
“This storm will not die down. Whatever they do, this storm is there and after exams they will see that the storm will rise once again.”
Parrikar had said that since the high currency notes were demonetised, “terror funding has come down to zero and there hasn’t been stone-pelting on security forces in Kashmir.”
“I regret that he has given a very wrong statement. There is no doubt that children appeared in the examinations because they got a concession of 50 per cent (in the syllabus). Who gives 50 per cent concession? They thought they will pass because of the concession,” Abdullah added.
The former Chief Minister also slammed the NarendraModi dispensation over the demonetization move, saying the Prime Minister’s aim was to “bury fake currency but the government did not think about problems to the poor who have to stand in queues for 24 hours and even then they don’t get money.”
“They (government) should have thought over it before taking such a step and taken such measures so that people did not have to face these difficulties.”
“They have created a tsunami in front of people and you are seeing the result of that. I’m hopeful that its result will be bad for them (government) in the coming elections,” Abdullah said.
