Indian Islamic Scholars Back Indian Prime Minister Modi on Kashmir

Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind – a national body of Islamic scholars, in a resolution at its general council, ruled that Kashmir is an integral part of India, and there should be no compromise to the security and integrity of the nation.

Mahmood Madani, General Secretary of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, has also condemned Pakistan’s attempts to project India as anti-Muslim on international fora.

​The Islamic body has however come under criticism from several Muslims. Many took to Twitter to allege that the clerics have succumbed to government pressure.

​Since India repealed Article 370 and 35A of the Constitution, stripping Jammu and Kashmir of its special status, Pakistan has been accusing India of pursuing a sinister plan of ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Kashmir.

"Will the world silently witness another Srebrenica-type massacre and the ethnic cleansing of Muslims in IOK?" Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan had said after India's Kashmir decision.

The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been accused of pursuing the agenda of 'Hindu Rashtra'. The Federal Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Thursday speaking of images of Hindu Deities on the constitution: "Suppose we were to frame the Constitution today, and we were to put these images on its pages, a hue and cry would have erupted that India is becoming a Hindu nation, secularism is being done away with," said Prasad while addressing a 'national unity mission' event organised by the city unit of the BJP in Ahmedabad.

Pakistan has been at loggerheads with India over Kashmir for several decades, as it claims to be a stakeholder in Kashmir and India's and see India's move as unacceptable. India and Pakistan fought three wars since they gained freedom from the British colonial rule in 1947, two of them over Kashmir. Both govern it in parts but claim the territory in full.