What is Muslim Brotherhood that Rahul Gandhi is comparing RSS with
While speaking in London, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was built on the lines of the Muslim Brotherhood. He called the RSS a fascist and fundamentalist organisation. But what exactly is the Muslim Brotherhood and does it have any India link?
Delivering a lecture at London-based think tank Chatham House, Rahul Gandhi, the Congress MP from Wayanad, said, “The RSS is a fundamentalist and fascist organisation that has basically captured pretty much all of India’s institutions.”
Rahul Gandhi also said the RSS could be called a “secret society” that was built along the lines of the Muslim Brotherhood.
WHAT IS THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD?
The Muslim Brotherhood is a transnational Islamist organisation that has been banned by several nations, including some Muslim countries.
Britannica describes the Muslim Brotherhood as a “religiopolitical organisation founded in 1928 at Ismailia, Egypt, by Hassan al-Banna”. It advocated a return to the Quran and the Hadith for a healthy modern Islamic society.
It was into social services, initially, but in the 1930s, waded into the political domain, opposing Egypt’s ruling Wafd party. An armed wing of the Muslim Brotherhood was linked to various violent acts, including political assassinations. The Egyptian government planned to dissolve the group but the Muslim Brotherhood retaliated by assassinating then Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmud Fahmi al-Nuqrashi in 1948.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s founding father, Hassan al-Bana, was killed some time later.
he Muslim Brotherhood also tried to assassinate Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1954. This resulted in action against the group and six of its leaders were executed for treason.
The Muslim Brotherhood also took part in elections in Egypt in the 1980s. In 2000, Muslim Brotherhood members won 17 seats as Independent candidates.
In January 2011, protests erupted against the Hosni Mubarak government and the Muslim Brotherhood backed them. Hosni Mubarak quit as the president and the Muslim Brotherhood formed a political party and got its president, Mohammed Morsi.
Protests broke out against Mohammed Morsi in 2013 and hundreds of people were killed. Egypt’s military chief Gen Abdel Fattah al-Sisi suspended the Constitution and ousted the Morsi government. Egypt started a massive crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood with hundreds of its supporters being convicted and given the death penalty.
BAN ON THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD
It was not only in Egypt, where it was founded, that the Muslim Brotherhood has faced government action.
Austria became the first European country to ban the Muslim Brotherhood under the new anti-terrorism law adopted by the Austrian Parliament on 8 July 2021.
Russia’s Supreme Court had in 2003 described the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation and banned it.
As of 2015, the Muslim Brotherhood was considered a terrorist organisation by the governments of Bahrain, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates due to its terror links.
MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD AND INDIA
Though Rahul Gandhi mentioned the RSS and the Muslim Brotherhood in the same breath, the Islamist organisation has been accused of working against India’s interests in the past.
In September 2021, the Muslim Brotherhood was reported to have launched a campaign to damage the country’s image and discredit its prominent figures, media reports said.
Reports in January last year said the Muslim Brotherhood “tried to replace the non-violent image of India with a radical narrative”. A hashtag trending on Twitter #BoycottIndianProducts was launched for that purpose, media reports said.
