New Delhi (AsiaNews) – Rashad Hussain, US special envoy to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, is currently on a tour of India to discuss with Muslim leaders and academics initiatives by the Obama Administration on education, global health, entrepreneurship and extremism.
Son of Indian immigrants, Mr Hussain will visit a number of Indian cities, including Mumbai and New Delhi, to find ways to bridge the gap between the United States and the Muslim world.
AsiaNews has met Syed Ali Mutjaba, an Indian Muslim writer and peace activist, to discuss the visit. Mr Mutjaba is also the founder of the South Asia Contact Group.
What need is there to engage Indian Muslims at this point in time?
India is home to the second largest Muslim population in the world. In its effort to engage the entire Islamic world, the United States sees India as an important cog in the Islamic wheel, even though the voices of Indian Muslims may not matter globally. As far as timing is concerned, the United States is contemplating pulling out its troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. After it entered Iraq and subsequently Afghanistan, it saw its image suffer a huge loss in the entire Muslim world.
With the increasing radicalisation of certain groups within Islam, will this visit have any positive outcome?
It is true that US policies in recent times have contributed to the radicalisation of certain Islamic groups worldwide, even though in India, such policies have hardly had any negative impact on any substantial segment of the Muslim community. The visit by the US envoy is designed to restore the dented image of the US in the global Muslim community. It may not have any positive outcome, but it may sends signals that the current US administration is making efforts to address Muslim sensibilities.
In your opinion, what gives the US the right to see itself as the custodian of peaceful dialogue, to the extent that it should send an envoy to India?
One has to accept the stark reality that the US is the lone superpower on earth. It has given itself the mandate to correct what is wrong in the world. It has come to realise that large parts of the Islamic population has a bad opinion of the US, so it has thought to start a peaceful dialogue to iron out the differences. This is a huge change in US thinking. There is nothing wrong with a US envoy coming to India. In fact, this has to be seen in positive terms, because within the Indian debate, Muslim voices are marginalised or totally blacked out. By sending its envoy to India, the United States has raised the visibility of Indian Muslims, showing that globally their support matters. This will create a positive impression about Muslims in India.
