Has ‘Mohabbat Ki Dukkan’ ( shop of love) of Congress shut shop in Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh?

Has ‘Mohabbat Ki Dukkan’ ( shop of love) of Congress shut shop in Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh?

S.M.A.KAZMI

Dehradun, Sept 13

Has the “Mohabbat Ki Dukaan”( shop of love) opened by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi shut shop in the hill states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh? This question was not only asked by Assadudin Owaisi chief of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) but agitating the minds of the members of the minority community in these two hill states.

The increasing number of incidents targeting minority Muslim population in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh by the right wing Hindutva forces backed by BJP/RSS and the most recent  controversy about a mosques at Sanjauli near Shimla and Uttarkashi in Uttarakhand has raised pertinent question about the direct complicity of Congress party leaders and workers in such campaigns or their silence in standing up with the minority when they are directly targeted with violent attacks and even forced to flee the hills.

Even today, a procession of Hindutva organisations is being taken out against a mosque in Mandi town of Himachal Pradesh where police had to resort to lathi charhe and water canons while, in Uttarakhand’ s Tilwara town in Rudrparayag district, an edict has been passed by the market committee asking shop and houses owners to get their Muslim tenants evicted following a brawl between two persons belonging to different faiths. A video of the Tilwara market panchayat in being circulated widely.

Earlier few days ago, situation nearly went out of hands when thousands of Hindutwa workers marched on to Sanjauli mosque few days ago seeking its demolition despite prohibitory orders and had to be lathi charged to control the situation.  The statement by Himachal Pradesh Congress Minister Anirudh Singh on the floor of the state assembly added fuel to the fire when he demanded an investigation into the construction of the mosque which was there since 1960s. He said that the said mosque was built illegally  and the constructoion work for it started in 2010 and not in 1950 as claimed. Sounding more as a proponent of safforn brigade Minister Anirudh Singh also reportedly talked about ‘Love Jehad’, a term used by BJP / RSS and influx of Muslims in the state much to the delight of opposition BJP legislators. He was confronted on the issue by his party legislator Harish Janartha who called for restraint.

Lok Sabha MP Asaduddin Owaisi reacted sharply to the statement saying that there is “only hatred in Himachal’s Mohabbat ki Dukaan (shop of love)”. He said that the Congress minister was “speaking the language of the BJP.”

He was right in claiming so as the record shows that Congress leaders in both these states have preferred to look the other way as the assault on Muslims increased following the ascendency of right wing politics in the country since 2014.

While, there is miniscule Muslim minority population of 2.18 per cent in Himachal Pradesh which is politically not substantial but is used by the BJP/RSS to scare the majority community and consolidate Hindu votes but in contrast in Uttarakhand has nearly 15 per cent Muslim population  mostly residing in the terai districts of Dehradun, Haridwar, Nainital and Udham Singh Nagar district which is politically significant.

But despite getting Muslim  votes substantially since the formation of the new state of Uttarakhand in 2000, the Congress which has ruled the state twice from 2002 till 2007 and from 20012 till 2017 has never done anything or stood up when the Hindutva Forces started targeting them post 2014.  There are two Congress Muslim legislators namely Furqan Ahmed from Piran Kaliyar and Qazi Nizammuddin from Mangalore, both from Haridwar district but apart from highlighting the issues of their respective constituencies ,they have never stood up for the entire Muslim community lest they be labelled as communal. There are other legislators and leaders also who had been helping their Muslim supporters of their respective areas like Sumit Hariydesh of Haldwani who helped the community members in fighting the railway land encroachment case of Banphoolpura in the Supreme Court and Suryakant Dhasmana, senior Vice-president of party in Dehradun who had stood in thick and thin of his supporters irrespective of religious affiliations.

Interestingly, when it comes to the onslaught of Hindutva forces against Muslims since 2014 in Uttarakhand hills and their selective targeting , the senior Uttarakhand Congress including its’ former Chief Minister Harish Rawat and Pritam Singh have preferred to look the other way. They perhaps fear that if they are seen standing with Muslim cause they would annoy the Hindu Majority community. The fact of the matter is that Congress has been wiped out completely in the last three consecutive Lok Sabha elections losing all the five seats and also lost two consecutive state assembly elections to BJP in 2017 and 2022.

But when it comes to voting in the elections, the Congress gets majority of Muslim votes. The Haridwar Lok Sabha seat which Harish Rawat represented and in 2024 his son was a candidate had 30 per cent Muslim votes which was majorly cast in their favour. Similarly, Muslim vote percentage  in Nainital-Udham Singh Nagra Lok Sabha seat is 20 per cent while in Tehri Garhwal seat it is 7 per cent. During the 2024 Lok Sabha poll it was estimated that Muslims voted overwhelmingly for the Congress. Harish Rawat who has benefitted from Muslim votes has yet to utter a word against targeting of Muslims in the hills of Uttarakhand while he is busying hosting ‘Rayata’, Malta, Jhingora and Sugarcane parties> his daughter Anumpa rawat is a Congress legislator from Haridwar.

The Uttarakhand Congress leaders have taken the Muslim votes for granted since they believe that the community has no alternative but to vote for them. In the initial year after the formation of Uttarakhand Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) had presence in Haridwar and Udham Singh Nagar districts amongst Muslims but later they got disillusioned with the party since Congress and the BJP were the two dominant parties sharing power between them till 2017. However, with the advent of aggressive Hindutva politics, Congress has been marginalised in an upper Hindu caste majority state of Uttarakhand.

It has been reported, that Congress Rajya Sabha member Imran Partapgrahi has taken up the issue of anti-Muslim ranting of Himachal Pradesh minister Anirudh Singh with party President Mallikarjun Kharge who has supposedly talked to Himachal Pradesh Congress leadership. The Congress leaders of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh perhaps do not understand that by ignoring the core ideology of Congress party of taking every one along particularly Dalits, downtrodden and Muslims, they would be further marginalised while BJP/RSS sticking and aggressively working on their philosophy of Hindutva combined with hate against minorities has gained politically.