Muslim body 'will accept Modi' if he apologises for 2002

A Muslim grouping that claims to have the support of over 80 percent of India’s Muslims says it will be willing to “conditionally accept” Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi if he apologises for the 2002 Gujarat riots. “Sufi Muslims can conditionally accept Narendra Modi… if he says what happened (in 2002) was a mistake and would never happen again. We will be soft on anyone who is ready to apologise,” the president All India Ulema and Mashaikh Board noted in Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh on Sunday. The political statement by the grouping, which represents moderate Sunni Sufi Muslims, acquires significance in the context of the Uttar Pradesh elections coming up next year, and the perception that Narendra Modi is emerging as a candidate for prime ministership in the run-up to general elections in 2014. The grouping of Sunni Sufi Muslims has also resolved to back reforms in the madarasa system of education and opposes the “regressive” deobandi system of education, with an emphasis on religious orthodoxy. [caption id=“attachment_109067” align=“alignright” width=“380” caption=“Reformists within the Muslim community are slowly beginning to find a voice. Amit Dave / Reuters”]  [/caption] The effort by Sunni Sufi Muslisms may represent another effort by moderate sections within the Muslim community to find a voice against more extreme elements. Yet, the experience of Ghulam Mohammed Vastanvi , the mohatamim (Vice-Chancellor) of the Deoband-based Darul Uloom,who paid a price for coming out in support of Modi, and was forced to retract his statement, shows that the process isn’t always an easy one. The Ulema and Mashaikh Board distanced its members from the hardliners within the community and resolved to favour reforms in the madarasas. It claimed that wahabis in India promote the “regressive” deobandi system of education in order to “poison young Muslim minds”. The Board’s move is considered politically significant to the extent that Modi had, during his recent Sadbhavana Mission , proclaimed the end of “vote bank politics” where the Muslim community voted as one bloc in return for political gestures of “appeasement”. The Sadbhavana Mission, which was marked by a three-day fast led by Modi, was widely perceived as an effort by Modi to re-brand himself as a somewhat more moderate leader, who emphasises “development for everyone”, not a strident Hindutva line that came to define him some years ago.