By Abdul Bari Masoud
NEW DELHI: Salman Khurshid, a former Union minister for law and justice, minority affairs, and external affairs, and one of the top most lawyers, will take over as president of the India Islamic Cultural Centre. Members and supporters of the Centre breathed a sigh of relief when Khurshid emerged victorious in the general body election on August 11. They had been worried that the institution may fall into the hands of RSS proxies.
There were seven candidates in the fray for the IICC president post, including Dr. Majid Ahmad Talikoti, who is the national convenor of the Muslim Rashtriya Manch, an outfit of the RSS. Talikoti was seen as the proxy candidate of former President Sirajuddin Qureshi, who was hankering to keep his stranglehold on the center. Except Qureshi, all his panel members bit the dust while Talikoti was relegated to fifth position.
According to the election results, Salman Khurshid secured 721 votes out of 1671 polled votes. While his panel candidate Mohammad Furqan won the vice president post, he is a former mayor of Aligarh. Besides the Khurshid panel, Abrar Ahmad (retd. IRS), Asif Habib (businessman), Afzal Amanullah (former Bihar home secretary), and Qureshi (meat merchant) led panels were in the fray for seven seats on the Board of Trustees and four seats on the Executive Committee of the Center. Wasim Ghazi and Suhail Hindustani (a BJP member) contested the post of president independently. As many as 75 candidates, including independents, were in the contest for the 13 posts of the management body of the institution. Kalimul Hafiz (a hotelier), who contested for the VP post on the Qureshi panel, secured only 238 votes. He was a bitter critic of Qureshi but switched his loyalty in the last moment in the hope he could get through because of Qureshi’s vote base.
The result was a mixed bag, as no single panel won all the posts. There were 2054 members eligible to vote. The counting process of votes was very cumbersome, which ran for three consecutive days. One of the main reasons for the torturous delay in counting was a single ballot paper for all the posts.
After his triumph, Khurshid told India Tomorrow that restoring democratic functioning to the 43-year-old institution would be his first priority. Since Qureshi was first elected in 2004 and served four consecutive terms till January 2024, the center has lost its democratic identity during the past 20 years. Qureshi was held accountable by numerous members for his dictatorial work style and exploitation of the platform for his own benefit. Especially during his final term, Qureshi made a number of the pro-Hindutva elements inside the center’s membership and transformed the organization into a hub for them. It is said he has gone bankrupt and is facing serious charges of financial irregularities and loan default. Members alleged that to save himself from the long arm of law, he was hobnobbing with rightwing forces.
Without taking the name of RSS, Khurshid said he plunged into the election because he wanted to prevent these forces from taking control of the institution. He contested the 2009 election unsuccessfully. He said he would try to restructure the institution to fulfill the dreams of its founders.
The IICC rules and bylaws set a maximum age of 75 for the President. One is ineligible to continue as the organization’s president after 75 years. However, there is no cap on the most consecutive five-year terms that one may occupy. When Qureshi turned 75 years old, a group of trustees petitioned the Delhi High Court to remove him from office as president. He was abruptly removed from the office. As of right now, Khurshid, the newly elected president, has just three years left in office before he turns 75 in 2027. Throughout the two-month long election campaign, Khurshid’s age was a major issue. In response to this question, he said that he would shorten the tenure from five to three years and eliminate the possibility of serving more than two terms in office.
In response to a question on whether he would remove the ignorant, undeserving members that the former president had admitted, he stated that he would form a committee to investigate the matter and ask that they develop a standard for membership. Regarding the matter of excessive membership costs, he stated that multiple members have brought up the issue of the Rs 1 lakh payments, and he will take a closer look at it.
On the aims of the institution, he said he would strive to make an intellectual activity hub as dreamed by the founding members. The Center will invite Islamic scholars from India and abroad for talks and make the center a bridge between people of different faiths, he added. He also said that civil services coaching will be revived, which was closed down by the former president.
The mismanagement of the center is all palpable in its functioning. Even the website of the IICC is not updated.
On IICC results, several members and wellwishers congratulated the new team. Er AA Siddiqui, a member, said, “End of an era of absolute mismanagement and autocracy.
And beginning of an era of hope and aspirations led by Salman Khurshid Sb and his team. Let’s stand united under any circumstances, come what may, and make our all-out efforts towards the aims and objectives of our beloved IICC.”
In his reaction, Pasha Patel said, “Congratulations, everyone. Let the celebrations begin. By defeating the RSS and its minions, members of the India Islamic Cultural Center have restored our faith in them.
This may seem like a small victory, but it is not. It is a significant victory—oone that heralds a new era for the country and the community in its fight against the anti-national forces led by the RSS.
And let us vow to uproot the RSS from all state institutions by voting for secular candidates. The RSS has done immense damage to the country. The 2024 general elections showed us the way on how to deal with them through the battle of the ballot. The IICC elections have reinforced our belief and faith in the representatives of our community.
Those who are holding a dialogue with the RSS must be isolated as the black sheep of our community. We should and shall remain aligned with secular parties in our battle to reclaim the idea of India, i.e., unity in diversity.
Sirajuddin Qureshi must repent for the grave damage that he has done to the community. He must atone for his sins. His legacy—wwhatever that it was—nnow lies in tatters.
Why isolate those holding dialogue with RSS as a blanket approach? Yes, we must isolate those who may be making compromises to make deals for personal or political mileage at the cost of public interest.
However, constructive dialogue with adversaries, including RSS, is healthy. We cannot ignore them, as it’s a sizable group with 100 years of history and hard work, even though they are promoting a narrow, anti-Indian ideology.”
Echoing his sentiments, noted journalist and president of All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat (registered), Dr Zafarul Islam Khan, said, “Congratulations, Salman Khurshid saheb. Good to see that the thoughtless, barren clique has been defeated. Now please go back to the original program behind the IICC to make it an intellectual center of the Muslim community and a center to promote good relations between communities. Your other urgent duty is to set up a screening committee to look into numerous faceless, illiterate, and unworthy members inducted by the previous president by nominating them and paying their membership fees from his pocket. This is a well-known “secret” of the IICC and the reason why the previous president kept winning previous elections until the age bar prevented him from further victories.
Another senior journalist, Syed Khalid Hussain (Singapore), said, “With you (SSlaman Khurshid) now at the helm of the IICC, it is hoped that you and your team of able administrators would focus more on the Center’s primary objective of promoting understanding among the people of different faiths and work for national integration.
It is also expected that the Indian Muslims’ prestigious cultural hub would be used more to organize scholarly talks, discussions, seminars, symposiums, exhibitions, as well as educational, literary, and personality development programs to promote talent, and less for events such as mushairas, qawwalis, sangeet sessions, dance drama, theater, and frivolous activities.”
It may be pertinent to mention the genesis of the IICC’s existence.
Muslims celebrated the end of the 14th Hijra, a momentous occasion, all around the world. India, the nation with the second-highest Muslim population, actively participated in the centennial celebrations as well. Given the significance of the occasion, the Indian government established a committee to plan the celebrations, with Justice M. Hidayatullah, the country’s vice president at the time, served as its chairman.
The concept to establish an India Islamic Cultural Center in the national capital, New Delhi, emerged during the Centennial Celebration. A significant number of well-known Indians, including some of the well-known Aligarh Muslim University old guys, contributed to making this ideal cause a reality.
Finally, the IICC as a ‘Society’ was registered in April 1981.
Original signatories to the Memorandum of Association of the Society, i.e., India Islamic Cultural Centre, were:
(1) Hakim Abdul Hameed, as the first president
(2) Mufti Atiqur Rahman, Vice President
(3) Badr-ud-Din Tyabji, ICS – Director
(4) Syed S. Shafi, Joint Director
(5) Chaudhary Mohd. Arif, Secretary
(6) M. W. K. Yusufzai, Treasurer
(7) Begum Abida Ahmed, Member
The concept to establish an institution that might foster mutual understanding between individuals of diverse religious backgrounds and support the goal of national unity greatly attracted Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India at the time. This image was taken on August 24, 1984, when Mrs. Indira Gandhi laid the cornerstone for the India Islamic Cultural Center. In 1994, a new Board of Trustees was formed, with Begum Abida Ahmad serving as chairman. As the first Director General of the Center, Mohd. Fazal served as a member of the Planning Commission at the time. Later on, the Center’s Director General was named Moosa Raza, a former Secretary to the Indian government.
