Congress criticises own leader for saying Bhagawat Gita promoted Jihad

New Delhi: The Congress party criticised its own leader and former governor Shivraj Patil for his 'Bhagavad Gita-Jihad' remarks, saying that the same was unacceptable. The party added that Gita was a key foundational pillar of Indian civilisation, PTI reported.

Patil had said that the concept of Jihad was not just in Islam but also in the Bhagavad Gita and in Christianity.

Waiting for the chance as it always does, BJP reacted against Congress over Patil's remarks and accused it of playing vote bank politics.

Now his own party criticises Patil.

Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh tweeted, "My senior colleague Shivraj Patil reportedly made some comments on Bhagavad Gita that's unacceptable. Subsequently, he clarified. The Congress's stand is clear. Bhagavad Gita is a key foundational pillar of Indian civilisation."

He shared lines from Jawaharlal Nehru's book 'The Discovery of India', like: "The message of the Gita is not sectarian or addressed to any particular school of thought. It is universal in its approach for everyone, Brahmin or outcaste. 'All paths lead to me,' it says. It is because of this universality that it has found favour with all classes and schools."

"During the 2,500 years since it was written, Indian humanity has gone repeatedly through the processes of change and development and decay; experience has succeeded experience, thought has followed thought, but it has always found something living in the Gita, something that fitted into the developing thought and had a freshness and applicability to the spiritual problems that afflict the mind," Nehru's book reads.

It was at the launching ceremony of the biography of Congress veteran and former Union minister Mohsina Kidwai, Patil said that there is a lot of discussion of Jihad in the religion of Islam. Jihad comes to the fore when despite having the right intentions and doing the right thing, nobody understands or reciprocates, then it is said one can use force, he said.

"It is not just in Quran, but in Mahabharata also, the part in Gita, Shri Krishna also talks of jihad to Arjun, and this thing is not just in Quran or Gita but also in Christianity," he stated in his speech in Hindi.

"If after explaining everything, people are not understanding, they are coming with weapons, then you cannot run, you cannot call that jihad, and you cannot call it wrong, this is what must be understood, there should not be this concept of making people understand with weapons in hand," he said.