 "Not just today, Muslims feeling alienated since 1947: Heptulla")
"Muslims are alienated because they are economically and educationally backward. Now people are saying these utterances (against Muslims) are making them feel alienated.
"It is not that today Muslims are feeling alienated. Muslims have been feeling alienated since Independence, because they have been relegated to such backward situation," Heptulla told PTI.
She was responding to a query whether objectionable comments and hate speeches by right wing elements were alienating the community under the Modi government.
"They were alienated already, relegated into backward situation, because they were educationally and economically alienated and social alienation is linked to it. This is the genesis of the whole situation. You just don't feel alienated that somebody made a statement," she asserted.
Attacking the Congress, the Minority Affairs Minister said in its successive regimes, the party only lent "vocal support" to Muslims while the present government has put things into motion through policy initiatives and programmes.
The Minister, however, refused to react specifically to objectionable utterances by some BJP leaders and ministers or the controversy surrounding 'Ghar Wapsi' programme and the ban on beef in some states.
She also dismissed a US religious panel report that communal atmosphere in India has been vitiated since the 2014 general elections, and said people sitting abroad are often far removed from reality.
"People sit somewhere and prepare reports. They don't realise what kind of sensitive fabric Indian society is. In villages, Hindus and Muslims live together and for centuries.
"People who try to create dissent and divide in the country don't understand... They sit abroad in America and make such reports," she said.