Kuwait: Kuwaiti Member of Parliament Dr. Saleh TH Al-Mutairi has submitted a letter to the Kuwaiti Parliament urging his country to ban entry to any member of the ruling BJP of India into Kuwait amidst the Hijab row in Karnataka.

The letter that is signed by several Kuwaiti parliamentarians has demanded the government to impose an immediate ban on the entry of any member of the ruling BJP into Kuwait, blaming the saffron party for oppressing Muslims in India.

The letter adds that the Government of Kuwait should take strict note of the happening in India and should ban members of BJP into Kuwait unless the oppression of Muslims in India ends.

ALSO READ: Karnataka HC reacts to students being stopped at gates to remove Hijab by policemen

The letter specifically points out the Hijab issue in Karnataka where girl students are being barred from entering colleges wearing Hijab.

Mejbel Alshrika, the Director of the Center for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law at the Kuwait Lawyers Association, and a Member of the Training Committee of the Kuwait Institute for Protection and Legal Studies, shared the letter on micro-blogging site Twitter.

ALSO READ: Karnataka lecturer resigns from job after being asked to remove Hijab; Watch her video message here

“A group of powerful Kuwaiti parliamentarians have demanded the govt. of Kuwait to put an immediate ban on the entry of any member of the ruling BJP of India into Kuwait. We can’t sit back and watch muslim girls being publicly persecuted they said. Time for the Ummah to unite.” (sic) he wrote in the tweet.

Indian National Congress leader and MP Shashi Tharoor also retweeted Mejbel Alshrika’s tweet and added that domestic issues have international repercussions.

“Domestic actions have international repercussions. I hear from friends across the Gulf of their dismay at rising Islamophobia in India &the PM’s unwillingness to condemn it, let alone act decisively against it. “We like India.But don’t make it so hard for us to be your friends”. Tharoor noted.

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Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (PTI): 'Jai Bhim': These two words have come to symbolise the awakening and empowerment of the Dalit community in independent India, but not many people know how it originated.

The slogan, which also encapsulates the immense reverence in which Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar is held, was first raised at the Makranpur Parishad, a conference organised at Makranpur village in Kannad teshil of today's Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar district in Maharashtra.

Ambedkar, the chief architect of India's Constitution, died on December 6, 1956.

Bhausaheb More, the first president of the Scheduled Castes Federation of Marathwada, organised the first Makranpur Parishad on December 30, 1938.

Dr Ambedkar spoke at the conference and asked the people not to support the princely state of Hyderabad under which much of central Maharashtra then fell, said Assistant Commissioner of Police Pravin More, Bhausaheb's son.

"When Bhausaheb stood up to speak, he said every community has its own deity and they greet each other using the name of that deity. Dr Ambedkar showed us the path of progress, and he is like God to us. So henceforth, we should say 'Jai Bhim' while meeting each other. The people responded enthusiastically. A resolution accepting 'Jai Bhim' as the community's slogan was also passed," More told PTI.

"My father came in contact with Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar in his early years. Bhausaheb was aware of the atrocities the Nizam state committed on Dalits. He told Ambedkar about these atrocities, including the pressure to convert. Dr Ambedkar was strongly against these atrocities, and he decided to attend the 1938 conference," he said.

As Ambedkar was against the princely states, he was banned from giving speeches in the Hyderabad state but was allowed to travel through its territories. The Shivna river formed the border between Hyderabad and British India. Makranpur was chosen as the venue for the first conference because it was on the banks of Shivna but lay in the British territory, ACP More said.

The stage made of bricks, from where Dr Ambedkar addressed the conference, still stands. The conference is organised on December 30 every year to carry forward Ambedkar's thought, and the tradition was not discontinued even in 1972 when Maharashtra experienced one of the worst droughts in it history.

"My grandmother pledged her jewellery for the conference expenses. People from Khandesh, Vidarbha and Marathwada attended it. Despite a ban imposed by the Nizam's police, Ambedkar's followers crossed the river to attend the event," said ACP More.

"This is the 87th year of Makranpur Parishad. We have deliberately retained the venue as it helps spread Ambedkar's thought in rural areas," he added.