An open letter to Amit Jani

Dear Amit Jani,

I don’t expect you to remember me. I’m a young organizer who once looked up to you and one that happens to be a Muslim. One of our mutual friends connected me to you in the middle of 2017. He gave me your number and asked me to “talk politics with you” in order for me to receive advice about my career, after all, I was only 19 years old with big aspirations. I never followed up with you for some reason and that was that.

Two years later, I was scrolling through Facebook and read your appointment headlines with the Biden Campaign. It was a proud moment. I bragged about you to my peers, citing our encounter. There was finally a South Asian figure in a position of influence.

But even though I thought that we were similar in many aspects, with the recent waves of headlines I realized I was wrong.

Mr. Jani, your link with the right winged, facist regime of the BJP in India is frightening. As a Muslim Outreach Coordinator, having strong ties with Indian Prime Minister Modi, is distrubing. Modi overlooked a Muslim massacre in Gujarat, India, while he was Chief Minister. This year, he has imposed the longest Internet crackdown on Kashmir, a Muslim majority region. He even made Muslims of India second rate citizens via the Citizen Amendment Act. Being in agreement with PM Modi and the BJP while being the Muslim Outreach Coordinator is a heinous act.

But since I saw the hashtag #RejectAmitJani, I’ve been thinking a part of me wanted to shoot you a text and tell you that your silence, while oppression is taking place in India, speaks volumes to me.

But there is a bigger problem here. Your appointment as the Muslim Outreach Coordinator is everything wrong with the political process of this country historically like we just want to be heard. For far too long we’ve been represented by people who don’t look like us or don’t have the same beliefs. The Biden campaign follows the line of countless campaigns prior that failed to represent Muslim Americans.

No matter how qualified you are at the end of the day and how much you might be able relate to the problems that the Muslim Community faces the truth is can’t advocate for us without the inherited bias you have. Try holding a conversation with the Vice President’s campaign about Kashmir, CAB and CAA. Biden has not spoken on these instances while other democratic candidates such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have. Kashmir, a predominatantly Muslim region, has been on the forefront of human rights violations. The new Citizen Amendment Act has opened the floodgates for hate acts against Muslims, as seen by the Delhi pogroms. Not. A. Single. Word. From. Biden. That reflects poorly on you and your ability to advocate for Muslims.

As you are aware, minorities have not had a seat at the political table, especially the American Muslim community. We have been nothing more than political pawns and election cycle talking points. We Muslims have been praised and demonized in the name of votes, but often never heard. Seldom have we had someone advocate for our interests. We are silenced in a disguised ways. One of those ways is your ineptitude to use your seat at the table to advocate for muslims and their interests.

So here are my final thoughts: even if the Biden campaign made a blunder by appointing you to represent Muslims, I would expect you to know better and call it a historic conflict of interest, one that you didn’t want anything to do with but instead you capitalized on that opportunity . An upsetting ending, put a foreseeable one nonetheless.

P.s let’s not forget there are hundreds of Muslims qualified to do the damn outreach for us.

Regards, Mohammad Sikandar a concerned Muslim Organizer.