All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) leader Asaduddin Owaisi has stirred the hornets’ nest by saying that he would not raise ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai,” slogan, if one were to hold knife to his throat.
launching a broad side on RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat who had suggested early this month that the new generation needs to be taught to chant slogans hailing mother India, Owaisi said at a public rally at Udgir in latur district on Sunday: “I don’t chant that slogan. What are you going to do, Bhagwat sahab”.
“I won’t utter that (slogan) even if you put a knife to my throat. “Nowhere in the Constitution it says that one should say: Bharat Mata ki Jai,” Owaisi said in continuation, amid loud cheers from the crowd that had gathered at his rally.
Talking to various television channels on Monday, Owaisi reiterated the statement that he had made on Sunday. “There is no question of my going back on his statement. I stand by my statement that I will not chant ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ slogan even if you hold a knife to my throat. The Constitution does not mandate anyone to chant that slogan. Nor is there any provision under either IPC or Cr PC that prompts the authorities to register an offence against me if I refuse to raise that slogan”.
Owaisi’s statement should be seen in the context of the statement of Bhagwat, who had on March 3 said that “the new generation needs to be taught to chant slogans hailing mother India”. Bhagwat’s suggestion had come in the backdrop of the row over alleged anti—India sloganeering on the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus.
"Now the time has come when we have to tell the new generation to chant ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ (hail mother India). It should be real, spontaneous and part of all-round development of the youth," Bhagwat had said.
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