The oath-taking ceremony in for the 18th Lok Sabha was filled with commotion after AIMIM chief and Hyderabad MP, Asaduddin Owaisi ended his oath with ‘Jai Palestine’. AIMIM president and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi’s controversial slogans after taking oath as a member of the 18th Lok Sabha on Tuesday has been expunged from Parliament records. Pro tem Speaker Bhartruhari Mahtab said all slogans used by the newly elected MPs during the oath-taking ceremony would not be taken on record and stand expunged.
Row Over Owaisi’s Jai Palestine Slogan
Why In News
- The oath-taking ceremony in for the 18th Lok Sabha was filled with commotion after AIMIM chief and Hyderabad MP, Asaduddin Owaisi ended his oath with ‘Jai Palestine’.
- AIMIM president and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi’s controversial slogans after taking oath as a member of the 18th Lok Sabha on Tuesday has been expunged from Parliament records. Pro tem Speaker Bhartruhari Mahtab said all slogans used by the newly elected MPs during the oath-taking ceremony would not be taken on record and stand expunged.
What Does Owaisi Said
- Asked about his remarks, Owaisi told reporters, “Other members are also saying different things… How is it wrong? Tell me the provision of the Constitution? You should also listen to what others said. I said what I had to. Read what Mahatma Gandhi had said about Palestine”.
- Asked why he mentioned Palestine, he said, “They are oppressed people.” The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen leader, who has been elected from the Hyderabad seat for his fifth term, took oath in Urdu. He also recited a prayer before taking oath.
- After taking oath, he hailed his state Telangana, Bhimrao Ambedkar, apart from raising the AIMIM’s slogan for Muslim, along with the West Asian country.
- His remarks led to uproar in the Lower House. Radha Mohan Singh, who was in the Chair at the time, assured the members that anything apart from the oath will not go on record.
- The uproar continued for few minutes, after which the oath-taking resumed.
- Pro-tem Speaker Bhartruhari Mahtab returned to the Chair soon, and said that only oath or affirmation is being recorded.
- “I have said earlier please avoid invoking anything other than oath or affirmation. That is only to be recorded… That should be adhered to,” Mahtab said.
Kiren Rijiju
- Talking to reporters outside Parliament later, Rijiju said he will check the rules regarding remarks. “We do not have any enmity with Palestine or any other country. The only issue is, while taking the oath, is it proper for any member to raise the slogan praising another country? We will have to check the rules. Some members have come to me and complained about raising of Palestine slogan at the end of oath,” Rijiju said.
Iconic Figures Support For Palestine
- Mahatma Gandhi : As an anti-colonial leader and a lawyer, Gandhi asserted that “Palestine belongs to the Arabs,” along with his well-known sympathy towards Jewish people. “No exception can possibly be taken to the natural desire of the Jews to found a home in Palestine. But they must wait for its fulfilment till Arab opinion is ripe for it,” he said in 1938. Gandhi also said that “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English and France to the French”.
- Muhammad Ali Jinnah : Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder Pakistan and president of the All-India Muslim League, brought increased focus to the Palestinian issue on the world stage. Jinnah objected to the establishment of a Jewish national state on Palestinian territory. He consistently supported the Arab cause and maintained friendly relations with Palestinian leaders throughout his political career. He once stated, “It is not shame. It is monstrous and criminal. Why doesn’t President Truman take one million Jews into the USA? The reason is that the Jews do not want a National Home in Palestine. What they want is to reconquer Palestine, which they lost 2000 years ago, with the help of British bayonets and American money”.
- Malcolm X : “Did the Zionists have the legal or moral right to invade Arab Palestine, uproot its Arab citizens from their homes and seize all Arab property for themselves just based on the “religious” claim that their forefathers lived there thousands of years ago?” he said, standing firm against occupiers.Then he answered: “Only a thousand years ago, the Moors lived in Spain. Would this give the Moors of today the legal and moral right to invade the Iberian Peninsula, drive out its Spanish citizens, and then set up a new Moroccan nation… where Spain used to be, as the European zionists have done to our Arab brothers and sisters in Palestine?”
- James Baldwin : A well-known American writer, James Baldwin, said in 1979 that Israel wasn’t created for the salvation of Jews but as a strategic move for Western interests. Baldwin highlighted the enduring cost borne by Palestinians due to colonial policies and Europe’s Christian conscience. “The state of Israel was not created for the salvation of the Jews; it was created for the salvation of the Western interests,” he said. Baldwin then added, “The Palestinians have been paying for the British colonial policy of ‘divide and rule’ and for Europe’s guilty Christian conscience for more than thirty years.”
