The “Man ki baaat” of senior PDP leader and Member Parliament Muaffar Hussain Baig at Dak Bungalow Baramulla crushed hundreds of eyes to trears on Tuesday day this week the 29th August 2017 . Addressing a rally after distributing the ambulances out of MPLAD fund to the hospitals of Baramulla Parliamentary Constituency Baig a former deputy chief minister of the state narrated the responses of some people on social networking sites to his remarks about Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the parliament during oath ceremony of newly elected Vice President of India Vankaiah Naidu recently. He cited three dimensions and I am adding the fourth to condemn the incident. Unfortunately some sections of media misrepresented the remarks of Muzaffar Hussain Beigh about Narendra Modi the Prime Minister of India. In Fact Muzzafar Hussain Beigh had narrated the outcome of the decision of the International conference of world leaders, intellectuals, Scientists, etc held during 2000 during which Mahatma Gandhi was chosen the world’s best leader with human attitude produced in the past one thousand years. While choosing Mahatma Ghandi for such status three reasons were given in the conference by the participants.
One- it was Mahatma Ghandhi who choose non violent methods for leading the freedom struggle of the country against British rule. Second-it was Ghandi who associated himself with the Harijins the victims of hindu cast system in cleaning the toilets and the third reason given for choosing Mahatma Ghandi was his whole hearted stress on communal harmony at the time of partition of the country when the lives of Muslims in India was at stake . It was Mahatma Gandhi Ghandi who went on huger strike for safety of the muslims.
During the course of address Muzzaffar Hussain Beigh in the parliament he had given simply a hint towards the present communal scenario of the country with unstopped offensives of Gow Raskhshaks and threat to the muslims in the country. Baig sought the intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to overcome this situation to prove himself second Mahatma Gandhi. The intent of Muzaffar Hussain Beigh in making the remark was to awaken the political conscience of the Prime Minister towards the muslims of the Country in general and the muslims of Jammu & Kashmir state in particular but unfortunately some sections of media misrepresented Baig’s remarks about the prime minister which generated hate wave against Muzafar Hussain Beigh in the valley. Second dimension of the situation is that despite being good humans we are extra ordinarily emotional in our attitude, and consequently it is easy for everybody in the world to mislead us. Without digging out the roots of a particular situation we do not hesitate to endorse any kind of propaganda r launched to mislead us.
Third dimension of the situation is that Muzzafar Hussain Beigh is not the politician of an ordinary mill and belives in long-term strategies but his vision is being blocked by the motives based on short term strategies with 4th dimension of my own and without flushing any praises to Muzaffar Hussain Beigh but out of my personal experience, I have not found Baig an egoistic politician as wrong impressions about his way of working are being created to further the causes of vested interests in Kashmir. He is one among those few politicians of the state who don’t believe in divisive politics but serve the causes of humanity irrespective of caste, creed or colour .In my small official capacity I got opportunities to meet him a number of times and I found in him a politician who thinks public service should be bench marks of all those engaged in the working of legislature and the executive wings of the government. He encourages people working for the improvement in the delivery of services to the people at the grass roots. So, wisdom demands that before reacting to remarks of any public functionary, we should take our own time to understand the dimensions of the statements of the public functionaries particularly the law makers.
———(The author is Executive Officer in J&K Government’s Urban Local Bodies Department . He has mailed this article to “Kashmir Horizon”. The views expressed by the author are his own but not of “Kashmir Horizon”)