'They wanted the city to be a great business hub. They didn't like the fact that taxes collected in Bombay would go outside the city.'
His victory means that his party will have to learn from him, because after the rise of Donald Trump, the Democrats have been in disarray. They have had no real answer to the Trump phenomenon and Zohran, with his emphatic and clear policies aimed at working class Americans offers them a national path for a return, asserts Aakar Patel.
"We condemn the Ahmedabad bomb blasts. Gujarati Muslims want peace. We are a business-oriented people and we believe that peace must be maintained. Muslims of Gujarat are not at all involved in any terrorist activities," said Saeed Umarjee, son of Hussein Umarjee prime accused in the Godhra carnage of 2002, in which 59 people were killed. Since 2003, Hussein Umerjee is in Sabarmati jail with 85 other accused.
Pakistan wanted to be constitutionally communal, India wanted to be secular but is communalising itself. All three nations share a penal code, but they have amended their laws to enable the State to specifically target minorities, points out Aakar Patel.
'The biggest damage is inflicted not during the riots, but after the riots. The curfews and inactivity brings misery to survivors of the riots. In every riot, some 3,000 Muslim families slip below the poverty line. Nobody talks about them.' Zafar Yunus Sareshwala, who speaks in Narendra Modi's favour and has initiated the dialogue between Modi and Gujarati Muslims, tells Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
'The biggest damage is inflicted not during the riots, but after the riots. The curfews and inactivity brings misery to survivors of the riots. In every riot, some 3,000 Muslim families slip below the poverty line. Nobody talks about them.' Zafar Yunus Sareshwala, who speaks in Narendra Modi's favour and has initiated the dialogue between Modi and Gujarati Muslims, tells Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
Zafar Sareshwala tells Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt why Muslims are better off under Narendra Modi's rule than they were under the Congress.
Narendra Modi can never be Vajpayee because the poet-prime minister had a heart. Modi doesn't. He only understands the language of business, of profit and loss. It is beyond his capacity to understand a complex country like India, says Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
Since 2014, India has left its moorings as a pluralist, modern, secular State because that is how the BJP wants it to be, notes Aakar Patel.
'Islam says the person who has been hurt has the right to pardon the accused. So don't ask me on whether I will pardon Narendra Modi or not. Go and ask this question to Gujarati Muslims who have been hurt.' 'Secular and non-secular is not an issue for Muslims. The day Muslims become strong, the non-secular guys will become secular. And if Muslims are weak, the same secular guys will cut the throats of Muslims.' 'The secular character of India can never be finished. India is secular by its nature. Whoever comes to power, he will have to become secular to rule,' Shia cleric Maulana Kalbe Jawad Naqvi tells Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com
It reinforces the Muslim stereotype, says Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
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