It is unfortunate that neither the government nor the Muslim intelligentsia has cared to project Maulana Abul Kalam Azad as a role model for India’s Muslim youth (editorial page, Nov.8). “The Great Akbar” showed that there is no inevitable conflict between nationalism and religiosity. Azad is a shining example of a syncretic version of a political Islam which negotiated the world on its terms and proved that Islam can accommodate multiculturalism. Political parties like the Congress are only interested in sapping the self-confidence of the Muslim community by trapping it in a perpetual state of fear and victimhood. Indian political history needs to be resurrected from the graveyard of narrow agendas. It is time that the life and teachings of leaders like Azad were retold to the world.
V.N. Mukundarajan,
Thiruvananthapuram
