Was Jawaharlal Nehru communal? PM Modi asks Opposition
New Delhi : Attacking Opposition over the continuous protests against CAA, Prime Minister Narendra Modi blamed Congress for influencing people with reference to Jawaharlal Nehru, Partition, the 1975 Emergency and the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
The Congress, he said, was having problems when "our government is taking decisions on wishes of the country's founding fathers".
He pointed out the details from Jawaharlal Nehru's policies on minorities in Pakistan after partition.
"For someone's aspiration to become the Prime Minister of India, a line was drawn on the map and India was divided into two. After the Partition, the way how Hindus, Sikhs and other minorities were persecuted is unimaginable," PM Modi said, replying to a debate on the President's speech.
He said in 1950, when the Nehru-Liaquat Ali pact was signed, it said that minorities won't be discriminated against in Pakistan. "A big, secular person like Nehru, a big visionary; and everything to you, why did he not use all citizens and not minorities? There must have been some reason," he taunted the Congress.
"Why did Nehru use minorities? He replied to this too, and I'd know you'd abandon him too, whenever the need arises. Nehru had written to Assam Chief Minister and I quote - 'You'd have to differentiate between Hindu refugees and Muslim migrants'. This is what Nehru wrote to Assam Chief Minister. Nehru in this parliament, in 1950, said that 'there is no doubt that the affected people who have come to settle in India deserve citizenship and if the law isn't suitable then it should be modified'. In 1953, in the Lok Sabha, Nehru said 'in East Pakistan, authorities are pressurizing Hindus. There are documents and reports. In all these instances, was Nehru communal? I want to know? Did he discriminate between Hindus and Muslims? Did he want a Hindu nation," he asked.
"I want to clearly state that with the CAA coming, there will be no impact on any citizen of India of any faith. CAA does not affect any Indian, it doesn't harm minority interests," he said in his more than 90-minute long reply.
Hinting at the Congress, he said: "Those who have been removed from office by the people of India are now doing the unthinkable. They see citizens on the basis of their faith. We are different. We see everyone as Indian."
He added: "Muslims gave the Quit India slogan, but they were always Muslims for Congress, they are Indians for us. I had the privilege to touch Abdul Ghaffar Khan's feet. Be it Kalam or anybody else, they are all Indians to us."
