Ahead of the assembly elections in Assam, a short video has gone viral on social media where AIUDF chief Badruddin Ajmal is heard making some very communal and provocative remarks. The video is a short clip, and it’s obvious that it is a compilation of several different remarks made by the controversial politician during a speech.
In the clip, Ajmal is heard saying, “Mughal Badshahs ruled in this country for eight hundred years in this country… This country will be made an Islamic state… Who will form the ministry? Our grand alliance. UPA, grand alliance will come together to form a government there, and in this government, your party AIUDF will also be a part… Not a single Hindu will remain in entire India, everyone will be converted to Muslin”.
These are obviously highly communal remarks, and social media users posted the video on social media platforms accusing the AIUDF chief of delivering a highly communal speech.
However, although Badruddin Ajmal has given provocative and communal speeches in the past, in this speech he didn’t make any such comment. The video of his speech was mischievously edited to retain only selected lines to imply that he threatened to make India an Islamic nation. The speech was delivered at an election rally in Barpeta in Assam during the Lok Sabha elections in April 2019.
The unedited portion of the speech containing the lines in question can be watched in the video below. You can enable the Close Caption option the YouTube by clicking the CC button to read the English subtitles of his speech.
His speech roughly translates as this,
“In this India, Mughal Badshahs ruled for 800 years. They never dreamt, dared, that they will make this country an Islamic nation. If they had thought of doing so, in the 800 years, in entire India, not a single Hindu person would have remained. Everyone would have been converted as Muslim. Did they convert them? Did they do it? They didn’t try it, they didn’t dare it. After that for 200 years, the British ruled this country. Even they didn’t try to make India a Christian nation. After that, after the nation became independent. In the 70 years, Congress ruled for 55 years. From Jawaharlal Nehru, Shashtri to Rajiv Gandhi, till Manmohan Singh, till Narasimha Rao, not a single Congress leader dreamt of making India a Hindu nation. Modi Ji, don’t dream of this, your dream will not come true.
This time, you have to reply Modi Ji, BJP, RSS, Himanta Biswa Sarma and Party by voting on lock and key (AIUDF symbol). Vote such way, that Insa Allah, Modi would not be able to become a prime minister after elections. Who will form government? our grand alliance, UPA, Mahagathbandhan will form the government there, and your party UDF will be an ally in this government.”
The text in italics from the transcript of his speech has been deleted from the video of the speech to create the short clip which has been circulated on social media now.
Therefore, the AIUDF didn’t make the comments that he was accused of making. The video that is being shared on social media is a doctored video. Moreover, the video is from the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, not during the upcoming assembly elections.
