America has detained many Indian dignitaries irrespective of their religion for questioning like APJ Abdul Kalam, George Fernandes,Shahrukh Khan and many more at its variousairports. But the recent frisking of Azam Khan at the Boston Airport is believed by many to be of different nature particularly in the aftermath of recent bomb blast in Boston. Azam Khan while pointing fingers at Salman Khurshid on his possible role in his detention has simply downplayed an important issue.
The Samajwadi Party,after sending a right message by boycotting the event at Harvard University or by announcing not to send Commonwealth delegation to US, failed to keep up the issue before the Muslim populace particularly in UP by making it Congress versus SPjust for political reasons. The other message which the party can be said to have successfully put across not only for Muslims but for others as well was that by doing so the party has displayed the courage that SP will not buckle under any kind of pressure from US administration even after SP is known to have saved the Congress in Parliament during vote on the Nuclear Deal treaty with the US.
ShivpalYadav, PWD minister, while reacting on the detention issue of Azam Khan, has written a letter to US president Barack Obama that detention of a senior leader of SP reflects racial discrimination in the US and has certainly hampered the image of Obama and his country.
The gradual alienation of Muslims from SP after it failed to fulfil promises like reservation to Muslims in proportion to their population or release of innocent Muslims languishing in jail for many years, the party was in search of an issue that could help the party to entice Muslims and the initial reaction from the Samajwadi Party in the frisking issue did help the party to convince the Muslimsat least to some extent because boycotting an event in America was not a small issue and that too for the sake of Azam Khan. Here,Akhilesh was morally and politically correct to defend his minority minister unlike other views that by doing so Akhilesh has let down India. The other announcement of withdrawal of cases against Tariq Qasmi has to some extent pacified the anger of Muslims. But the party should know for certain that it cannot gain much from some token gesture and needs to withdraw cases against all innocent Muslim youths to serve the purpose. And, what about reservation? Why the party is not taking the lead in this direction?
Alarmed by the formal praise of Mayawati by Imam Bukhari, party supremo Mulayam Singh is in contact with Muslim leaders to placate them before general elections. It is not only crucial for Mulayam Singh if we consider his political ambition for the Centre but also for the party to win maximum seats in order to play a role ofkingmaker after general elections, if he fails to fulfil his prime ministerial ambition.Mulayam’s recentstatement that China is bigger enemy than Pakistan is also seen as an attempt to woo Muslims.