A signal to the West

By Mahesh Vijapurkar

MUMBAI, OCT. 30. While the Jamat-ul-Ulema's call to boycott American, British or MNC products is already being adhered to in the Muslim areas of Mumbai, a new association of restaurant and hotel owners here has resolved not to serve such products.

The association plans to ask non-Muslim businesses to join the boycott, since what is happening in Afghanistan, where innocent people are being targeted in the American airstrikes, is ``humanitarian, not sectarian''. It considers the boycott as a mature, peaceful opposition to the ``atrocities''.

The pamphlet distributed at a mosque in Malegaon after the last Friday prayers that led to police firing, too, carried a similar message, that every rupee gained from the sale of products by 4,000 non-Indian companies went to fund mischief by the U.S. against the innocents in Somalia, Bosnia, Iraq, the Palestinians and now Afghanistan. Buying such products meant collaborating with the U.S. or Britain in the killing of the innocents. The pamphlet's slogan was: ``Be Indian, buy Indian''. It carried nothing pro-Taliban or pro-Osama bin Laden.

Urdu printing presses had brought out several such pamphlets after the Jamat-ul-Ulema gave the boycott call on October 24. Areas with a large Muslim population no more patronise Pepsi or Coke. The pamphlets have also asked the people to educate their families, neighbours, relatives and the community against the use of the foreign products. Even the Swadeshi Jagran Manch did not have such an impact in a similar campaign.

Mr. Sahbuddin Sheikh, chairman of the newly-formed Indian Hoteliers' Association, said, ``we already have 200 Muslim members, and 500 took part at today's meeting in the Haj House. The numbers would go up to 800 soon''. The association did not want its members to have accounts with American or British banks and their credit cards, since ``we want to send a signal to the West''.

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