West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday spoke about unity of people of all religions and had something important to say to those who accused her of “Muslim appeasement”. \u201cSome people accuse me of Muslim appeasement. Let me tell them, I appease humanity.\u201d She was speaking at the 125th birth anniversary celebration of Swami Pranavanandaji Maharaj of Bharat Sevashram Sangha at Netaji Indoor Stadium.<\/p>\n
During her speech on Thursday, Banerjee referred to the cancellation of her trip to Chicago in 2018. The programme had been organised to mark 125 years of Swami Vivekananda\u2019s historic speech at the Parliament of Religion, Chicago. However, though she had been invited to attend the event, the organisers had later informed her that her scheduled programme had been cancelled. She reiterated on Thursday, her disappointment about not being able to attend the commemorative event in the United States and added that the organisers \u201cmust have felt some pressure\u201d to have taken such a step.<\/p>\n
In 2018, after the programme had been cancelled, in an apparent reference to the Narendra Modi government, Banerjee had said that the trip had been cancelled due to an \u201cunholy conspiracy hatched by some people\u201d. She had said it without naming anyone.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Banerjee said that \u201ca new religion\u201d is on the rise in India which aims to divide people on the basis of religion. \u201cThose who think that way are empty inside,\u201d she said. \u201cThe other name of humanity is service and service is religion.\u201d She appealed to people to strive for a united India and not practice divisive religious practices that discriminate among people.<\/p>\n
\u201cHinduism teaches us to embrace everyone with open arms,\u201d she said. Her remarks are significant under the backdrop of country-wide protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) which critics say are discriminatory against Muslims.\u00a0Banerjee asked people to not spread unrest or cause bloodshed. \u201cWe should save lives with our blood, not cause bloodshed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Banerjee referred to the cancellation of her trip to Chicago in 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":279,"featured_media":8026,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[291,57,69,49,37,310],"adace-sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-8560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-bengal","tag-anti-caa-protest","tag-bjp","tag-caa","tag-mamata-banerjee","tag-nrc","tag-religion"],"yoast_head":"\n