A few days ago, Mr. Asaduddin Owaisi created a controversy by claiming that it was Muslims who were responsible for Rahul Gandhi getting elected from Wayanad after he abandoned Amethi, sensing defeat at the hands of Smriti Irani. He might have noted that Muslim voters were not supportive of Mr.. Gandhi even at Amethi, and this is what precipitated his flight from his family borough to the safety of Wayanad.

It is no secret that the Gandhi family, headed by matriarch Sonia Maino (her natal name), is hostile towards Hinduism and increasingly becoming hostile to India and its interests, even to the extent of support for its sworn enemy, Pakistan. Rahul Gandhi has made no secret of his dislike of India, coining the phrase Hindu Terror (aka Saffron Terror). This has been widely bandied about by his minions like Navjot Singh Sidhu and Shashi Tharoor traveling to Pakistan to ingratiate themselves with its leaders like Imran Khan and its army chief.

It is also a matter of record that Mr. Gandhi himself lobbied with senior U.S. officials suggesting that Hindu groups posed a greater threat to security than Jihadi groups. In the face of this, his flaunting of his Hindu identity as a Brahmin is nothing but a cynical poll gimmick. It is a matter of record that Mr. Gandhi has never criticized Jihadi groups or even mentioned the word Jihad in public. What is less known is the fact that his mother has been equally reticent with regard to Jihadi terror, even in the face of its threats to India.

An examination of her record over the years shows that Sonia Gandhi has never openly criticized Pakistani aggression or even Pakistan sponsored terrorism. This was so even during the Kargil War, when she was anything but supportive of the Indian Armed Forces waging a life-and-death struggle against the Pakistani intruders. This is not a new development and Islamist forces have taken advantage of her reluctance to criticize them.

As far back as 2001, within weeks of the 9/11 attacks, the Bin Laden family founded Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies invited Sonia Gandhi to deliver a lecture. Many found it strange, for the BJP was in power and Mrs. Gandhi has no credentials to justify the invitation, other than her willingness to speak. [My two-part article on the subject, in American Thinker, 2005, “Sonia Gandhi’s Reluctant War on Terror” can be read here Part 1 and Part 2]

As just noted, the most curious thing was her talk at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, a task for which she was by no stretch of the imagination qualified. Here is my summary of her performance at the event:

“In her talk titled ‘Conflict and Coexistence in our Age‘, Mrs. Gandhi spoke vaguely about extremism and fundamentalism, ‘of all religions’ without once mentioning the word Jihad or terrorism. Mrs. Gandhi has never once uttered the word ‘Jihad’ or mentioned Islamic terror in public even though India is one of the worst victims of Jihadi terrorism. The Telegraph of London called it a ‘strongly pro-Muslim speech’.

“Mrs. Gandhi is not an Islamic scholar - she has not even graduated high school. There was no reason for her to be invited to such a high profile institution, at such an inopportune time (November 2001), except its propaganda value. This proved suicidal for her party in the Gujarat state elections where the Congress was trounced. Adding to her troubles was a terrorist attack on a train that killed scores of passengers, mostly women and children. There again she failed to denounce Islamic terror.”

It was the same story again when on July 5, 2005 (two days before the London bombings), a band of Muslim terrorists armed with grenades and AK 47 rifles, attacked a temple complex at the sacred Hindu site of Ayodhya. Thanks to the vigilance and speedy response of the security forces, all the terrorists were killed before they could do serious damage. Still there was a gun battle lasting hours and a soldier was killed, but the intended holocaust of Hindu devotees was averted.

Mrs. Gandhi did not outright condemn the terrorist attack. All she did was to issue a weak statement appealing to the people to “stand as a rock against the divisive forces.” As was the case after the London blasts, there was talk of “backlash.” 

Teesta Setalvad, a Muslim activist close to Mrs. Gandhi, cautioned that the attack on the Ayodhya temple should not be labeled as Jihad. (Sic: Should it be labeled a tea party?) As usual, Mrs. Gandhi did not use the word Jihad.

Her appeasement policy came to the fore again in a human rights case that drew international attention. When Imrana, a young Muslim woman was raped by her father-in-law, a self-appointed Muslim body calling itself the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, issued a ruling that the rape had made Imrana ‘impure’ (haram) and that her marriage to her husband therefore stood annulled. Adding insult to injury, it directed Imrana to leave her husband and live with her rapist father-in-law as one of his wives!

There were protests all over India and the whole world reacted with shock. Salman Rushdie, himself a victim of religious persecution, wrote an op-ed in The New York Times (July 10, 2005) denouncing Islamic courts and Sharia (Islamic law) called it “India and Pakistan’s Code of Dishonor”.

In the midst of the storm, Mrs. Gandhi refused to intervene or even condemn it. Instead, she directed her government’s law minister, H.R. Bharadwaj, said to be her closest advisor, to issue a statement exonerating the Muslim Personal Law Board - saying that the government could not “interfere” in a religious matter. The strangeness of a Muslim law being applied in an avowedly secular state (India) made no impression on Mrs. Gandhi.

It is time to recognize that the Gandhi family which controls the Congress party has become the handmaiden of Islamic forces even when they are hostile to India.