Indian Muslim Lawmaker Assaulted and Beaten for Taking Oath in Hindi

[FireFighter]

India lawmaker hit for Hindi oath

A legislator in the Indian state of Maharashtra was attacked by four rivals inside the state assembly for taking an oath in the national language, Hindi.

Samajwadi Party's Abu Azmi was hit by legislators from a regional party who wanted him to take the oath in the local language, Marathi.

The four assailants have been suspended from the assembly for four years.

The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena party has been campaigning for greater rights for the Marathi people of Maharashtra.

The party has been accused of several attacks on migrant workers in the last couple of years.

MNS is led by Raj Thackeray - a nephew of Bal Thackeray, the founder of the right-wing Hindu Shiv Sena party.

Slapped

The MNS legislators attacked Mr Azmi on Monday as soon as he began taking the oath in Hindi.

They snatched the microphone and one MNS member, Ram Kadam, slapped him.

Later, the assembly passed a resolution suspending the four legislators - Vasant Gite, Shishir Shinde, Ram Kadam and Ramesh Wanjale - for four years for unruly behaviour.

Politicians from various parties have condemned the assault.

India's governing Congress Party has described the incident as "constitutionally impermissible and democratically shameful".

The assembly began a three-day special session on Monday for newly-elected legislators to take their oaths.

Assembly elections were held in Maharashtra last month and the Congress and its regional ally Nationalist Congress Party secured a comfortable win.

Maharashtra is one of India's most important states. Its capital, Mumbai (Bombay), is the country's financial centre. The Congress has ruled the state for the last two terms with its ally the NCP.


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Shiv Sena men would have made 'tandoori' of Azmi: Bal Thackeray
IANS 10 November 2009, 01:46pm IST
MUMBAI: Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray has held Samajwadi Party leader Abu Asim Azmi "responsible" for Monday's mayhem in the Maharashtra assembly and said his party men would have made a "tandoori" or roast of somebody like Azmi for having hurt Marathi pride.

In an editorial in the party mouthpiece Saamna, Thackeray said that though elected from Maharashtra, Azmi took the oath as legislator in Hindi and not Marathi, and therefore he was beaten by the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) lawmakers.

Stressing that the Sena was born on the issue of Marathi pride, Thackeray said in the past the Shiv Sena has carried out many such campaigns against the use of Hindi and English in the state legislature, especially by its senior member Diwakar Raote.

"If somebody like Azmi had come in Raote's hands, he would have made a 'tandoori' out of him, and removed his skin," the editorial declared.

"That (Marathi pride) has been the Shiv Sena's philosophy always and would also remain in the future," he noted.

However, Thackeray lashed out at the MNS for the violent behaviour of its legislators inside the assembly.

He said that nobody can support the violence and pandemonium created by the MNS members in the assembly Monday.

"The proceedings of the assembly or parliament must be carried out as per rules and decorum, it cannot be reduced to an 'akhada' (wrestling pit) or a vegetable market."

Azmi was slapped and pushed by MNS legislators inside the assembly Monday for flouting the party diktat of taking the oath as legislator only in Marathi.

Reacting to Thackeray's views, Samajwadi Party state president Abu Asim Azmi said that Bal Thackeray was "approaching the last stages of his life and has lost his mental balance".

"In fact, despite all his efforts the Shiv Sena could not come to power again and he is feeling very upset, so he talks anything," Azmi said here Tuesday.

The Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) combine lost the Maharashtra assembly elections held Oct 13.

: tdown:

 

[PlanetWarrior]

Barbaric animals . They should have been jailed.

 

[skeptic9]

He wasn't slapped for being a Muslim, but because he was taking oath in Hindi instead of Marathi. MNS says nothing against the Muslims and it is a party formed primarily against Bal Thackerey's anti-muslim Shiv sena. So pls don't make it a atrocity on Muslims issue or something.


To be clearer, they are in no way "muslim-appeasers" or "pro-muslim", but I never heard them using the word "muslim" in any sense whether good or bad.

 

[FireFighter]

Barbaric animals . They should have been jailed.

That's exactly where they belong. It's a shame these people get to represent human beings. really shame.


The congress govn't is giving them all the protection under the sun. I wonder why? Banned from the assembly for only 4 years? what does that mean, they can come back after four years and beat up parliamentarians again?

How pathetic.

They should be sitting behind bars, not in assemblies. Any sort of physical assault would land you in jail, and attacking an official for a good year in Canada. In Mumbai they get to walk away free....how pathetic

 

[arihant]

I don't know why government has not still arrested Raj. The incident against Bihari/UP was enough.

 

[RobbieS]

A shamefull incident. MNS is pretty much like the BNP in the UK. Xenophobic bigots. This party should be outlawed!

 

[brahmastra]

its not about hindu-muslim as the thread poster says in the Title.

 

[jaunty]

Well first of all, as usual, one more lame attempt to give the incident a communal touch by starting the thread as "Indian Muslim---------". I don't understand why you guys are so obsessed with showing Indian society in bad color. Get over it. But if you seriously don't know let me tell you this no one in India(hindu+muslim+ ------) is talking about his incident as "Indian Muslim Assaulted----". They might have assaulted a hindu as well for speaking hindi. In fact these MNS goons are already doing this in Mumbai. So no its not another Indian Muslim Bias. Good try but no cigar.

Coming to the incident MNS and Siv Sena are desperate to get some Marathi support in the state, but I am afraid by acting stupid like this they are losing more than gaining and that is pretty evident from the recent assembly election which forced Bal Thackerey to virtually cry-----(read the following link)

Bal Thackeray blames people for pushing state into 'hell' - India - The Times of India

I think these MNS goons should be given severe punishment for trying divide the country on the basis of language and regionalism. A mere four year suspension is like a slap on the wrist. They deserve more.

Recently I read a very good article by Vir Sanghvi on Bombay-Mumbai issue

Bombay to Mumbai, or else...

Now that the Bombay/ Mumbai controversy has returned to the headlines, thanks to the Maharashtra elections, this may be a good time to examine the whole issue of the naming and renaming of places.

But first, let’s get the Mumbai/ Bombay row out of the way. The argument for the use of Mumbai over Bombay is usually phrased in the following terms. First, Mumbai is the city’s original name; Bombay is a Raj-era corruption. Second, Mumbai/ Bombay was created by Maharashtrians. And third, that therefore we should use their name for their city.

All three claims are controversial. “Mumbai” may well come from the name used by the Koli fishermen who worshipped the goddess Mumbadevi in a village on the site of today’s Bombay. But another theory is that the name comes from the Portuguese “Bom Bahia” or beautiful bay and has as much claim to historical accuracy. Secondly, even if the Kolis did call their village Mumbai, this village was demonstrably not the city of Bombay, which was established by the British.

Second, while Maharashtrians played an important role in the creation of what was then called Bombay, they were not the only ones. The city was built by Parsis and Gujaratis, both Hindu and Muslim. Till 1960, Bombay was the capital of Bombay state and Maharashtra did not even exist. So it ignores history to pretend that Maharashtrians were the only ones who created Bombay/Mumbai and that everyone else is an outsider.

Third, guess what Gujaratis call Bombay? They call it Mumbai too. So it is not as though Maharashtrians have any monopoly on the name or that by refusing to use the term Mumbai, Gujaratis such as myself are rejecting the city’s Maharashtrian identity.

Frankly, we don’t see ‘Mumbai’ as being only a Marathi name; we see it as a Gujarati name too. So if I call Mumbai Bombay, I am not disrespecting Maharashtrians any more than I am disrespecting my own community — to the extent that the use of Bombay is an act of disrespect at all.

Which brings us to the larger issue. Do we need to change the names of places? Of cities? Of countries, even?

The broad answer to that is: yes. Whatever our individual views on the subject, there’s no doubt that place names change all the time. New York was New Amsterdam when the Dutch ran it. Singapore was originally called Temasek. Russian cities keep changing names. The old Leningrads and Stalingrads have now been abolished in favour of the traditional names.

Usually, the new names stick after a while. Who still calls Sri Lanka Ceylon? Unless there is a change of regime, Burma will end up being known as Myanmar forever. Nobody refers to Thailand as Siam any longer.

Much the same is true of Indian names. Forget about the more recent change in the name of Madras city (to Chennai). Let’s not forget that the whole state used to be called Madras before it was renamed Tamil Nadu. Karnataka used to be called Mysore. Arunachal Pradesh was known as NEFA. And so on.

So, the desire to change the names of places is not new. And usually, people who use the old names soon seem silly or out of touch. The Iranians used to be annoyed when Winston Churchill insisted on referring to their country as Persia. Now, as the expatriate Iranian comedian Omid Djalili has noted, anybody who talks about Persia might as well also refer to Mesopotamia and Assyria.

And often, the enthusiasm for changing names stems from valid impulses. We may laugh at the more recent attempts to change street names in India (does anybody call Connaught Place Rajiv Chowk?) but, equally, few of us would like to live in cities where every street was named after some colonial oppressor. For instance, nobody in Delhi refers to Cornwallis Road or Curzon Road any longer. The new names have become so firmly established that the old ones have been forgotten.

Why, then, does the change in Bombay’s name to Mumbai provoke so much controversy? After all, Madras became Chennai with a minimum of fuss. Calcutta is now officially Kolkata. Bangalore is Bengaluru. And so on.

The short answer is that in no other Indian city are those who use the old name terrorised as completely as they are in Bombay/Mumbai. Elsewhere, the change is cultural. In Bombay/Mumbai it is violently
political.

I still remember when the idea was first floated by Bal Thackeray in 1979. I was editor of Bombay magazine at the time and Thackeray told me that he wanted the name to be changed on cultural grounds. (“It reflects our culture better than the British name&#8221. We argued about names and culture (why didn’t he call himself Thakre then, rather than borrowing the spelling of his name from William Makepeace Thackeray?) but the discussion was good-natured. “You don’t have to change the name of your magazine!” he laughed.

Since then, however, the issue has become overtly political. The Shiv Sena and its breakaway faction, the MNS, now regard the use of the name ‘Mumbai’ as proof of their own virility. Anybody who prefers Bombay is seen as demeaning their manhood and is dealt with through the use of force and intimidation.

This is what makes the Bombay/Mumbai issue different. The CPI(M) and the DMK have cadres that are much larger than the MNS’s. But they don’t threaten to beat up people who refuse to say Kolkata or Chennai.

Mature parties know that history and time are on their side. They recognise that eventually — after a generation perhaps — the old name will be largely forgotten and the new name will take hold.
But the MNS is a party in a hurry. It needs to find issues with which it can a) hit the headlines b) claim to be speaking up for Maharashtrians and c) flex its muscles to remind everyone that it is capable of violence and disruption.

What better way to do that than to make a fetish out of the use of ‘Mumbai’ and to target somebody as high profile as Karan Johar who is especially vulnerable when he has a movie on release?
It is sad because the intimidation takes a process that would have happened naturally — the shift from Bombay to Mumbai — and turns it into a symbol of intolerance, division and sectarian hatred.

If Raj Thackeray — or Thakre, if he prefers — loves Mumbai as much as he claims to, then this is one issue he should abandon.

Time will achieve what his goons will not.

Bombay to Mumbai, or else...- Hindustan Times

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[skeptic9]

@jaunty

MNS is nothing more than a Congress proxy, they are there to divide the Marathi votes of ShivSena/BJP and make a Congress victory easier.

 

[Ruag]

Wow! Simply amazing! Have a look at the ridiculous title of this thread!

A conflict occurs between Maharashtra MLAs over the issue of regional language versus national language. But the person who started this thread only saw that one of the involved parties was an "Indian Muslim"?!

Given an opportunity, you people will try find a communal angle in every dispute in India. Seriously... what do you people think of yourselves? Some sought of custodians of Indian Muslims?

Buzz off...

Back to the topic, Raj Thackeray and his party are a disgrace to human civilization.

 

[sensenreason]

I think four year suspension is fine. A second offence from MNS guys should mean suspending all of the MNS MLA's...

I live in Mumbai and the issue is not an Hindu-Muslim one at all. But,a Marathi and Non-Marathi and a political issue. Baba Siddiqui of Congress also took oath in Hindi,is muslim and was not attacked. Azmi was...Seems the thread owner doesnt understand the issue and is trying to give it a certain color.

Congress supported MNS to thwart Shiv Sena, and they have succeeded. At the end of the day, if all that MNS do is create hungama in parliament then its preferable to MNS/SS inciting violence or riots on the streets.Ofcourse, a more straight forward policy of banning MNS or putting its leaders in jail sounds better but the fact is Mumbai despite being in Maharshtra has only 40% Marathi's its like Lahore having 60% non-punjabi's; Im sure there would have been a political outfit of Punjabi's who would have recented this exclusion of Punjabis from their own land (even if its by default rather than design) .In other words, there are genuine grievances (Im north Indian and am a target for MNS and do not sympathise with them in any way) and if Raj is jailed another Raj will emerge.

 

[Hulk]

I am surprised how every news in India is given Hindu Muslim color here, I have read heard so many news since yesterday none talked about Hindu Muslim. This issue can actually create divide between various states in India. The worst part is that he got so many votes just on hate. This goes to show how our society behaves, he is just exploiting the hate within Maharashtra against north Indian's.

 

[PostColonial]

Yeah..highlight the fact that he's a muslim. What next? Is he low caste too? Perhaps disabled? Left handed?

 

[King Julien]

self delete!

 

[Sravan]

I was watching news about this all day and just struck he is muslim after watching this thread