Thread by @MukulAgarwal66

Arif Mohammed Khan

On October 6, 2017, I wrote a six-page letter to the Prime Minister. The next day, I had an hour-long meeting with him…

I complained to him that in 1986, we committed a blunder by enacting a law to reverse the judgment in the Shah Bano case, and now we will repeat the same blunder if we don’t enact a law to ensure that the judgment of the Supreme Court is respected and followed.

The Prime Minister told me that the law will be enacted.

The next day, I had a three-hour-long meeting with a team of officers from the Law Ministry and gave them whatever inputs I could. Eight days later, the (triple talaq) draft was finalised. The Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha and passed…

A lot of noise is now being made about conflating the civil with the criminal offence… Had Parliament made a law without any provision for punishment, would it not have met the same fate as the Supreme Court judgment?

If people can, in the absence of a provision for punishment, defy the judgment of the Supreme Court, would they not have defied the law enacted by Parliament?

Mr (Asaduddin) Owaisi (AIMIM chief) is keen on the equality clause — why is a Hindu man punished for one year and a Muslim man for three years, he asks. However, no one is being punished for divorce. Here the punishment is for haram, for doing something unlawful.

I have very strong feelings on lynching because I am a survivor of lynching. After my resignation in 1986, there were at least three attacks at my house. Then in 1990, they almost had me…If anybody is subjected to this kind of treatment because of his faith, colour

we must also remember that in the last five years there has been no instance of any major communal riot in India. If the lynchings are creating insecurity, why does that not create a sense of security?

It is the privileged sections, at whom, in the name of secularism, some crumbs of power were thrown… it is they who are feeling uneasy. It is they who are creating this fear in the minds of the people. How is the common man concerned with these things?

MMS said ‘Muslims have first claim to the resources of this country’. The next day when a Muslim steps out of his house, his neighbour will look at him and think, ‘Oh, so now they have the first claim on the country’s resources’. You are only creating hostility for me (Muslims).

What does minority mean? Should I accept that my status is less? Should I become the victim of an inferiority complex?

Right from 1981, since my first year in Parliament, I have said that I find it humiliating when I am told I am from a minority community. I win with Hindu votes, I defeat a Hindu candidate… Am I a minority?

You are only trying to demean, devalue me. I am a full-blooded proud citizen of India. I have equal rights. If I am less than no one, then my responsibilities too are not less than anyone