New Delhi: Congress MP from Wayanad, Rahul Gandhi, while delivering a lecture at London-based think tank Chatham House, said, “RSS is a fundamentalist and fascist organization which has basically captured all the institutions of India.”Rahul Gandhi said this. Also said that RSS can be called a ‘secret society’, which was formed on the lines of the Muslim Brotherhood. But what exactly is the Muslim Brotherhood and does it have anything to do with India? In fact, the Muslim Brotherhood is an international Islamist organization that has been banned by many countries, including some Muslim countries.
In one of its reports, India Today quoted Encyclopedia Britannica as saying that the Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by Hasan al-Banna as a religious-political organization in Ismailia, Egypt. It advocated a return to the Quran and Hadith for a healthy modern Islamic society. The organization was initially active in social services, but entered the political arena in the 1930s, 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 disband the group, but the Muslim Brotherhood assassinated Mahmoud Fahmy al-Nukrashi, the then-Egyptian prime minister, in 1948. Shortly thereafter, Hasan al-Bana, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, was assassinated. The Muslim Brotherhood also tried to assassinate Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1954. This resulted in a crackdown on the group and six of its leaders were sentenced to death for treason.
The Muslim Brotherhood also participated in the elections held in Egypt in the 1980s. In 2000, members of the Muslim Brotherhood won 17 seats as independent candidates. In January 2011, there were protests against the Hosni Mubarak government and the Muslim Brotherhood supported them. Hosni Mubarak resigned as president and the Muslim Brotherhood formed a political party and became its chairman, Mohammed Morsi. In 2013 there were protests against Mohammed Morsi and hundreds of people were killed. Egypt’s military chief General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi suspended the constitution and ousted the Morsi government. Egypt began a heavy crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, with hundreds of its supporters being convicted and sentenced to death.
Ban on Muslim Brotherhood
The Muslim Brotherhood faced a government crackdown not only in Egypt, where it was founded but in many other countries. The Austrian Parliament ratified the new anti-terror law on 8 July 2021. Under this law, Austria became the first European country to ban the Muslim Brotherhood. The Supreme Court of Russia banned the Muslim Brotherhood in 2003, calling it a terrorist organization. As of 2015, the Muslim Brotherhood is considered a terrorist organization by the governments of Bahrain, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates due to its terrorist ties.
Muslim Brotherhood and India
Although Rahul Gandhi mentioned the RSS and the Muslim Brotherhood in the same breath, the Islamic organization has been accused of working against India’s interests in the past. Various media reports stated that in September 2021, the Muslim Brotherhood was reported to have launched a campaign to damage India’s image and defame prominent personalities in the country. In January last year, several media reports said that the Muslim Brotherhood tried to change India’s non-violent image as a fundamentalist country. The hashtag #BoycottIndianProducts trended on Twitter, behind which it was said that the Muslim Brotherhood was behind it.
