Professor Bhim Singh, President of Jammu Kashmir National Panthers Party, said on Thursday that the whole country and the ruling leadership (BJP-RSS) in India should learn a lesson how secularism and bhaichara (communal amity) was defended by the Kashmiri leadership during the most dangerous and difficult days of the partition when blood had been shed everywhere.
Given the present regime’s attempts to turn the country into a ‘Hindu Rashtra’, he said with firm conviction that India would always remain secular even after the current BJP rule.
Speaking at a gathering of party leaders, most of them were lawyers and former ministers and legislators, Prof Singh said the BJP leadership must record this message that secularism in India will remain as long as Bharat is there.
Secularism has become the foundation of socialist, democratic and secular India which shall remain as soul in the Indian Constitution and in the mind and heart as long as India shall survive among 193 Members of the United Nations as on today, he added.
He reminded the countryman about secularism which appeared in 1947 while India was divided and the entire country was facing communal conflict.
The world should remember that Kashmir had majority of Muslim population and it was only Kashmir which rose to occasion and saved the minorities at that time in the state. The world shall never forget that secularism ruled Kashmir even at that time, former Kashmir lawmaker said.
He also appreciated Ms. Mehbooba’s statement which she gave on Wednesday in Srinagar saying Kashmiri leader Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah had defended Kashmiri Pandit community and Sikh community in Kashmir during 1947.