Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan continued with his nonsensical rants on Twitter on Thursday inspired by Congress. Ever since the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu & Kashmir, Imran Khan has attempted to engage in ‘Twitter Diplomacy’ to corner India but hasn’t had much success. After the Citizenship Amendment Bill was passed by both the houses of the Upper Parliament, it was only to be expected that he will have something to say that makes little sense.
In a tweet thread, Imran Khan deemed the abrogation of Article 370 to be illegal and called it ‘annexation’ of J&K. Then, he claimed that two million Indian Muslims were stripped of citizenship in Assa, a claim that is patently false. Around 19 lakh people in Assam did not find their names in the NRC, of which around 5 lakhs were Hindus. This means that the remaining Muslims are not Indian citizens but entered India illegally from Bangladesh.
India, under Modi, has been moving systematically with its Hindu Supremacist agenda. Starting with illegal annexation & continuing siege of IOJK; then stripping 2 mn Indian Muslim in Assam of citizenship, setting up internment camps; now the passage of Citizenship Amendment Law;
— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) December 12, 2019
Moving forward, Imran Khan, who happens to be the symbolic head of an Islamic State, labelled India ‘Hindu Supremacist’ despite the fact that India is a secular country. He compared India to Nazi Germany and raked the familiar trope of ‘mob lynchings’.
will lead to massive bloodshed & far-reaching consequences for the world. As in Nazi Germany, in Modi’s India dissent has been marginalised & the world must step in before it is too late, to counter this Hindu Supremacist agenda of Modi’s India threatening bloodshed & war.
— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) December 12, 2019
Only yesterday, Home Minister Amit Shah accused the Congress party of speaking the same language as Pakistan and Imran Khan. Given the latest tweet thread by Imran Khan, it can’t be denied that the argument is indeed valid. It is a good time, perhaps, to compare the stance taken by Imran Khan and that by the Congress party on the issues mentioned.
Article 370 and Kashmir
Imran Khan has always maintained that the abrogation of Article 370 was illegal and has vehemently opposed the move. He has also appealed to the international bodies to meddle in Indian internal affairs. The Congress party has the same stand on the matter. In a resolution adopted by the Congress Working Committee on the 6th of August, the party claimed that ‘every principle of Constitutional law, States’ rights, Parliamentary procedure and democratic governance was violated’ during the abrogation of Article 370. The Congress party and Imran Khan basically have the same stand on the issue, that Article 370 was abrogated in an illegal manner.
Following the abrogation of Article 370, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury had kicked up a storm by questioning the government whether Article 370 and the state of Jammu and Kashmir is an internal matter. He questioned how can matters related to Jammu and Kashmir be ‘internal’ if it is being monitored by the UN since 1948. Shashi Tharoor, recently, had cheered for foreign interference on the matter by the USA.
The NRC
Imran Khan claims that two million ‘Indian Muslims’ have been stripped on citizenship. The Congress party, too, has opposed the NRC tooth and nail. The Congress party had expressed its opposition by claiming that 40 lakh exclusions in the final draft of the NRC were too high and surprising. It was alleged that the BJP had a political motive behind the NRC. Senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge too had termed the exclusion to be wrong. The number came down to two million later.
More recently, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, leader of the Congress party in the Rajya Sabha, attempted to undermine the NRC by labelling Narendra Modi and Amit Shah as illegal immigrants. He, too, made it an explicitly religious issue.
Mob Lynching
The Prime Minister of Pakistan has constantly made an issue out of the ‘mob lynching’ narrative. While the crimes do need to be addressed, this is entirely an internal matter of India. Furthermore, the ‘mob lynchings’ are reflective of a law and order problem, rather than a communal one. But the Congress party and Imran Khan are united in their belief that the crimes must be used to target Prime Minister Modi and damage India’s reputation.
The Congress party promised a new law in its 2019 election manifesto to curb ‘mob lynching’, which distinctly reminded one of their Communal Violence Bill initiative that automatically deemed Hindus as aggressors and Muslims as victims in every instance of communal violence.
Praveen Chakraborty, who heads the Congress party’s data analytics department, is the founding trustee of IndiaSpend which came up with the dubious ‘hate-tracker’ that manipulated, misrepresented and tortured data to paint Hindus as aggressors and Muslims as victims all the time. Thus, it won’t be farfetched to say that Imran Khan is merely borrowing a leaf out of the Congress’ playbook to attack Narendra Modi.
Citizenship Amendment Bill
The subject matter of Imran Khan’s latest rants is the CAB, which the Congress party opposed tooth and nail in the Parliament. In the process of doing so, Anand Sharma of the Congress party absolved the Islamic fundamentalists of all sins for the creation of Pakistan and placed the blame entirely on the feet of Hindu Nationalists. Senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal claimed that the Bill was of Jinnah and Savarkar’s dreams.
The Congress party also called the Bill unconstitutional and in violation of the Articles of the Constitution, a claim that has been disputed by Harish Salve, one of the leading legal luminaries in the country. Thus, even on the CAB, the Congress party and Imran Khan’s opinions are perfectly in alignment with each other.
The Hitler Comparison
Imran Khan has been comparing India to Nazi Germany ever since the abrogation of Article 370 and Narendra Modi to Hitler. The Congress party has been indulging in such comparisons even earlier. In April, Congress IT Cell head shared a morphed image of Adolf Hitler to compare him to Narendra Modi. Sam Pitroda, the ideological mentor of Rahul Gandhi, had indulged in such comparisons in March. Thus, it’s another instance where Imran Khan picked up a narrative initiated by the Congress party.
