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A sense of insecurity is creeping in among Muslims: Hamid Ansari

Author: Dimple Shah
by Dimple Shah
Posted: Aug 10, 2017

In an interview to Karan Thapar, outgoing Vice-President Mohammad Hamid Ansari talks about a wide range of issues, including on cow vigilante attacks, lynchings and the mood of the Muslim community. The interview is scheduled to be broadcast by the Rajya Sabha TV at 8 pm on August 10, the last day of Ansari’s term. Full transcript of his interview with Karan Thapar:

Karan Thapar: Mr Vice-President, let me start with a rather unusual question – you were born on April Fool’s day in 1937. Is that the secret of your success?

Hamid Ansari: Well most of my life I got away without having to give a birthday party. And that tradition was broken only in my first birthday in this House, when a message came in the morning that Dr and Mrs Manmohan Singh would wish to come and wish you happy birthday. I couldn’t say no to that!

Karan Thapar: Now, you’ve spent 10 years as Vice-President, and as I said, no one has spent more time as Vice-President than that – what did it mean to you, a career diplomat, to be Vice-President of India? Hamid Ansari: Well, I said right in the beginning that every citizen is in a sense, a political creature. But being in the thick of things was a new experience, a novel experience.

Karan Thapar: Did the protocol, did the prestige become inhibiting for someone who was quite a free bird? Or was it something that you were to accustomed to as a High Commissioner and as an Ambassador?

Hamid Ansari: Well, yes but it was a different kind of constraint which one went through as the representative of the country. This was a different kind of thing - there were constraints on movement and things like that for understandable reasons. One had to live with it.

Karan Thapar: Was it exciting and fun or was it at times intimidating and restrictive as well?

Hamid Ansari: Well, not intimidating, but restrictive – yes!

Karan Thapar: In other words, you couldn’t do half the things that you would have liked to do because your position simply didn’t permit it.

Hamid Ansari: Couldn’t walk down Chandni Chowk.

Karan Thapar: And a couple of other things that I suppose, we shouldn’t mention...Let me put it like this, as Vice-President you’ve had this unique and privileged vantage point to look at the functioning of the Indian political system. This is also the 70th year of our independence – has our political system functioned effectively and smoothly? Or is it often dysfunctional and perhaps disruptive?

Hamid Ansari: It is both. It has been both. Two things have happened. Over a period of 70 years, democracy has deepened in the country. There’s much greater voter participation, much greater public interest in what is happening in the political field. On the other hand, the functioning of political institutions in the country at various levels, is not at its best.

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Hi, My name is dimple shah and this is the News article Blog

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Author: Dimple Shah

Dimple Shah

Member since: May 08, 2017
Published articles: 447

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