Religious divide will destroy India�s IT leadership: Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw to Karnataka CM Bommai

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, Mar 31, 2022: In the first significant corporate voice of concern in India’s technology capital over efforts by hardline Hindutva groups to keep out Muslim traders from temple festivals in Karnataka, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, executive chairperson of Biocon Ltd, has urged Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai to resolve the “growing religious divide” in the state. She warned that the country’s “global leadership” in tech and biotech was at stake.

 

Taking to Twitter on Wednesday, Shaw referred to a report published in The Indian Express Wednesday: “Unease grows, Karnataka temple committees, traders admit pressure”.

“Karnataka has always forged inclusive economic development and we must not allow such communal exclusion — if IT/BT became communal it would destroy our global leadership,” wrote Shaw, who heads Asia’s leading biopharmaceuticals enterprise.

In the tweet, she tagged Bommai and said: “Please resolve this growing religious divide.”

Karnataka has always forged inclusive economic development and we must not allow such communal exclusion- If ITBT became communal it would destroy our global leadership. @BSBommai please resolve this growing religious divide🙏 https://t.co/0PINcbUtwG

— Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw (@kiranshaw) March 30, 2022

In a subsequent tweet, she posted: “Our CM is a very progressive leader. I am sure he will resolve this issue soon.”

The Indian Express had reported how the campaign to blacklist Muslim vendors has spread in several temple towns shutting down many local businesses. Several temple committees organising the festivals have expressed their dismay over the curbs and say these hit at longstanding social relations. The curbs come after the hijab ban in the state’s government colleges that has been upheld by the High Court.

The report quoted the management committee head of the Durgaparameshwari temple, which is said to have been built by a Muslim merchant, as saying that he had turned down the VHP’s demand to keep Muslim traders out, but that they had themselves stayed away due to the row.

Over the past few weeks, groups like VHP and Bajrang Dal have sought to impose bans on Muslim traders at temple festivals in Dakshina Kannada and Shivamogga.

The Karnataka government in an official statement in the state legislature this week said the restrictions on non-Hindus conducting business within the premises of temples is as per a rule introduced in 2002 under the Karnataka Hindu Religious Institutions and Charitable Endowments Act, 1997. This rule, many vendors say, has been weaponised to turf them out.

The state said it would take measures to see that such restrictions on Muslim traders are not imposed outside of temple premises in public spaces.

Courtesy: Indian Express