When the future of Indian Muslims is discussed these days, the 2019 Shaheen Bagh movement led by thousands of Muslim women is often cited. But for a professor at Jamia Millia Islamia, it doesn’t qualify as a significant movement.
The years 1857 and 1947 were big transformative movements for Indian Muslims. And though Shaheen Bagh was important, it was only a temporary shake-up. There’s a big qualitative difference between the two, said Mujibur Rehman releasing his new book titled Shikwa-e-Hind: The Political Future of Indian Muslims, at the India Islamic Cultural Centre (IICC) recently. The book is written in the context of the rise of Hindu nationalism.
“Imagine France and Germany, people of those two countries decide to organize a protest movement and compare that to the protest movement that we saw by Indian Muslims in Shaheen Bagh,” said professor Rehman.
There were others on the panel with him who vehemently disagreed. Five MPs and one former Union minister – Salman Khurshid to Manoj Jha – said the author was not giving much credit to the Shaheen Bagh movement.
The panel had politicians from Congress, RJD, AIMIM, TMC to Shiv Sena (UBT) — Manoj Jha, Jawahar Sircar, Priyanka Chaturvedi, Asaduddin Owaisi, Shashi Tharoor and former external affairs minister Salman Khurshid.
The large auditorium was fully packed with students, historians, activists, and diplomats. Panellists as well as the audience had lots of complaints about the direction India was going in.
The two-hour-long marathon discussion started with the recent crisis in Bangladesh, moving to the Shaheen Bagh movement, back to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, before going into secularism, and Muslim representation, among others.
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor expanded Rehman’s argument and said the last quarter of a century has seen a steady increase in the minoritisation of the Indian Muslim. “There is absolutely no doubt that the presence, the last 10 years of BJP rule under Narendra Modi’s government, has marked a certain culmination of this process,” he said.
Amid the discussion of a sensitive issue, Tharoor did not forget to discuss the book, saying it was an “excellent work of scholarship.”
Shaheen Bagh protests
The book’s cover carries the face of a woman sitting as part of the Shaheen Bagh protests and the caption reads Mohabbat Zindabad.
Khurshid said the book raises many important issues. But it’s the beginning, not the culmination. The entire discussion was characterised by reproach, complaint, and despair. “I hope one day you will write a book, Jawab-e-Shikwa,” said Khurshid with hope.
Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Jha too didn’t agree with the author’s view on the Shaheen Bagh protests.
“You don’t measure Shaheen Bagh on the scale of grandeur, on the scale of what it achieved. Remember what constituted Shaheen Bagh,” said Jha, adding that such occasions give a sense of belief that all is not lost.
But Khurshid doubted there would be a repeat of Shaheen Bagh. He said a lot of us believe that Shaheen Bagh succeeded.
“But I know what’s happening to the people who are associated with Shaheen Bagh. People have really suffered,” he said.
Shiv Sena leader Priyanka Chaturvedi disagreed with Khurshid and said Shaheen Bagh is not just a movement that petered out.
“It made us sit up, stand up and realise that the time has come where every single citizen, every single voice needs to be heard,” she said.
As the discussion progressed, Jha compared the rising Muslim sentiment with German history. He said Führer did not invent anti-Jewish sentiment and did not make it in the lab. It was already present in German society.
“Our society had a similar kind of subterranean level feeling,” he said, adding that the arrival of “this gentleman” (Narendra Modi) is the sole work of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani.
Also read: Indian Muslims don’t need a ‘Muslim’ leader, but someone who can rise above religious labels
“Bangladesh can happen here too”
The book discussion couldn’t keep itself away from the ongoing crisis in neighbouring Bangladesh.
For Khurshid, the destruction of Mujibur Rahman’s statue in Bangladesh was a shattering moment.
“I had seen statues being destroyed in Iran, Afghanistan and Libya. But I could have never imagined in Bangladesh,” he said with a caution—“what’s happening in Bangladesh can happen here.”
His statement stoked controversy and former Union minister Anurag Thakur said the Congress leader’s remark had laid bare Congress’ intent to create anarchy.
But the Congress leader justified his fear, saying that Bangladesh is a concentration of much that we have in our country.
“And the spread prevents things from blowing up in the manner in which they have blown up in Bangladesh which is terrible,” he said, admitting that the Muslim leaders disappointed young Muslims of this country.
AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi’s entry at the book launch, who came an hour late, changed the tone of the discussion and brought up the issue of the representation of Muslims in Indian politics.
The Hyderabad MP was cheered by the audience.
Like most of the panelists, Owaisi too wasn’t optimistic about the future of Muslims in India. Slamming political parties, he said optimism is not reflected in the number of Muslims getting elected in the Lok Sabha.
Taking a jibe at Tharoor and Congress, he said you and your party can continue with a moral victory.
“I am a bit pessimistic,” he declared, calling the 2024 victory a majoritarian victory and asking if things would change for Muslims if there had been a non-BJP government.
He praised the author for rightly calling Muslims the new untouchables of the Indian political society. For Owaisi, the success of secularism is when Muslims get equally elected in the Lok Sabha, assemblies, municipalities, Zila Parishad and Panchayat.
“My dream is that someday a Muslim woman should become India’s Prime Minister, a Hijab- wearing,” said Owaisi inviting audience applause.
A young member of the audience who hailed from Bihar’s Bhagalpur grabbed the mic to ask Owaisi why he doesn’t work on the ground like political strategist Prashant Kishor.
“We will try to work harder,” said Owaisi with a smile.
(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)
This must be a reportage by a trainee journalist.
So well written that a spot appears like a special story.
Great notes from the echo chamber and then you wonder why the majority gets riled up. If the party in power is busy in othering, the others too are busy doing exactly that.