Asaduddin Owaisi, an outspoken politician and parliamentarian from Hyderabad, has spilt the beans about one of the worst-kept secrets this election season: That the votes of Muslims are much coveted but their company is a no-no for our so-called secular leaders.
If Sam Pitroda makes a disparaging remark about 1984 anti-Sikh riots, no less than the Prime Minister takes umbrage. But if a Yogi Adityanath or a Giriraj Singh makes their usual, provocative remarks targeted at Muslims, Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav as other ‘secular’ leaders look the other way.
The silence in most Muslim-dominated habitations in India’s hinterlands is almost eerie. As if there was no election happening! Leaders stay away. Photo-ops with prominent Muslim clerics and politicians are a thing of the past. No political party has sought endorsement from the Shahi Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid this time. There are no more talks of mob-lynching or references to “Hindu fundamentalists” or attacks on secularism. It takes Prime Minister Narendra Modi to remind the liberal intelligentsia of their “award wapsi” campaign. Yesteryear’s flag-bearers of secularism seem convinced today that the best way to protect it is to avoid Muslims.
The irony is when the Congress party’s Bhopal candidate, Digvijaya Singh, was dialling Hindu seers to visit his constituency, Union home minister Rajnath Singh was visiting Shia clerics in Lucknow to canvass.
Also read: Muslim votes matter: Here’s how they voted for BJP after 2014
At a meeting in Sikandarpur last week, Union minister and Ghazipur MP Manoj Sinha gave a rousing speech: “Don’t vote for me if you think the amount of work I have done in the last five years doesn’t outweigh those done in the previous 50 years.” As he left the dais, a group of Muslim villagers thronged him. “Meet Doctor Javed. He has quit the Samajwadi Party to campaign for me,” Sinha introduced one of them.
About 250 km north of Ghazipur, Union agriculture minister and MP from Motihari Radhamohan Singh was waiting for Hema Malini to show up at his meeting at Kesaria — unmindful of the farmers from nearby villages standing a few metres away. They saied they got “nothing” from the Modi government. Talks of Modi’s promise of doubling their income by 2022 had them in splits: “All we know is ka (k) se kamao, kha se khao.” They will vote for Modi, nonetheless. The minister couldn’t care less. Whenever Radhamohan Singh spotted a visitor from Delhi, he would send him to Muslim-dominated villages and line up dozens of them to say on oath how his development works have compelled them to vote for him.
Nobody could grudge BJP MPs the smile — and smirk — they wear when Muslims show up in their public meetings. Make no mistake. These MPs have no false notions about how many Muslims will vote for them. Just that the presence of Muslims around them gives these MPs a sense of accomplishment.
‘Sabka saath, sabka vikas’ has been finally achieved, howsoever symbolically. Let the secular camp disagree and resent. The Congress party’s 2019 election manifesto has no mention of ‘secular’ or ‘minority’; they figured four or five times in the party’s 2014 election manifesto. Of the 423 Congress candidates in fray in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, only 32 are Muslims — the community constitutes 14.2 per cent of the country’s population.
Also read: BJP wants to defeat the idea of Muslim vote bank by using Muslims
Asaduddin Owaisi sounds helpless when he says Muslims are asked not to speak out because it would help the BJP. No wonder, the irrepressible leader of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) has been rather quiet in the past couple of months. Even Azam Khan, the Samajwadi Party candidate from Rampur who has a penchant for stoking controversies, has been rather restrained. He did trigger a controversy with his “khaki underwear” remark, but he is known for worse. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, not many candidates want him to campaign for them. The only one who invited Azam Khan to canvass for him was ST Hasan, Samajwadi Party candidate from Moradabad.
So why have Muslims become untouchables for the secular camp? AK Antony, of course, convinced Rahul Gandhi that the Congress lost in 2014 because of its pro-minority image. So, the Congress president became a janeu-dhari Shiv-bhakt, visiting temples and sometimes dargahs. He wouldn’t overtly woo Muslims. When was the last time you heard him talking about Muslims and their interests? Wasn’t there something called Sachar committee report?
But Rahul Gandhi expects Muslims to vote for the Congress: First, because they have no other option at the national level; and, second, because he speaks against the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its former pracharak, Narendra Modi. If the Congress leaders have a third reason, they haven’t communicated to the Muslims as yet.
Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav defends his secular commitments by citing how he has fielded a Muslim candidate in Kairana constituency that was ravaged by communal riots in 2013. He, however, conceded in the same breath in a recent TV interview that secular parties were on the defensive vis-à-vis Muslims. “Yeh nahin hai ki hum kisi cheez se bachana chahate hain, lekin un cheezon se zaroor bach rahen hain jisse BJP laabh nah uthaa le (It’s not that we want to avoid something, but we are certainly avoiding certain things that the BJP could use for its benefits),” he said. The “something” or the “things” that Akhilesh Yadav was referring to were Muslims.
Also read: What Muslims in India say about Balakot, national security, ISIS and Kashmir
There was a time when the BJP’s political rivals accused it of pursuing an agenda to make Muslims “second-class citizens” in India. Today, the same secular camp is, for all practical purposes, treating Muslims no differently. Owaisi says it would lead to the “marginalisation and ghettoization” of the minority community. You can’t but agree. Talk to Muslims and you will know that they are not quite convinced by the arguments of their self-styled political patrons about their compulsion to play majoritarian politics in Modi era, as they say. In their lame excuses, the minority community sees signs of cowardice, opportunism and lack of ideological conviction.
As a Muslim taxi driver told me in Bhopal last month: “Arre sahib, both Digvijaya Singh and Pragya Thakur love us. And so do Modi and Rahul Gandhi. Only patrakars (journalists) pretend not to understand.”
Mani Shankar aiyar is “NEECH AADAMI”.
His prediction the Modi would loose his 2nd term election was off base by much. But
still w’nt admit his mistakes and anti-india actions in Pakistan and at home.
This is an interesting article by Mr DK Singh on the alleged marginalisation of Muslims. But objectively seen, marginalisation of communities is not a new phenomenon. Brahmins are the first victims. It all started over 75 years back in Tamil Nadu, with the false campaign by the so-called Dravidian Groups that a handful of Brahmins were occupying all top jobs in TN Govt. So they set about declaring a majority as backward and giving them supremacist quota. That effectively wiped out Brahmins in TN from most public functions. The DMK has never given a ticket to Brahmins in past fifty years. Now the same concept of untouchability has been replicated by the viciously casteist RJD/JDU in Bihar. Abusing communities is a regular feature of Indian politics. “Tilak, Taraju, aur Talwar, inko maro joote char” by Ms Mayawati has gone unchallenged. The DMK/DK leaders regularly abused brahmins, that went unchallenged. For no particular reason, the BJP contestant, Ramesh Bind, has openly said that he wants to disrobe brahmins and beat them up! No politician has condemned his obnoxious statement. The point is, Muslims are not alone. Atleast they have someone to write for them. Brahmins have none.
Merely blaming BJP will not help. Media too has played along and in the long run only gone to hurt the muslim community’s interests. Vested interests abound, the community has suffered. When the minority card was stretched too far, the hindu consolidation was bound to happen. Only that in Indian context, it took a little longer. It would be in the interest of the muslim community to move beyond thescope of victim hood.
It’s not overnight development, small and fringe groups have been supportive of Islamic terrorism, this has slowly and steadily created a negative image of Muslims in India, Muslims have been recipients of gallantry awards and their contribution in arts and other fields are as good as others in India, but some how good people couldn’t be in limelight, general perception needs to be broken by Muslims themselves, they need expose the radicals among them, Indian constitution provided enough space for development of minorities, but they have not tried to reform the society, no initiative on social ills like triple talaq even after seventy years of independence shows lack of leadership and will among community leaders , once they do reforms at community level and bring codes like Hindu code bill
Sachar Committee? really? The pathetic pamphlet created by entitlement peddling government of Manmohan Singh. The pathetic part of the story is that even the Indian so-called “right” has no answer to it.
The results were tabulated on a per capita spending basis of different communities, such as Muslims, Hindus, upper caste Hindus, OBC’s and Dalits.
Per-capita spending for Muslims was lower than the per capita spending for Hindus as a block.
Ok, so far so good. Now to spend, you got to earn money and for others, I mean those that do not live in New Delhi or any political capital, one has to work to earn that money. Now let us look at the labour participation rate for different communities. That is very low for the Muslims, in fact, it is lower by about 10% points than the average for Hindus.
Let us divide the per-capita spending rate for Muslims and Hindus and divide it by labour participation rates for the respective communities. Voila!, that ratio for Muslims is a bit higher than the Hindus as a group.
Conclusion: Muslims are poor because they do not want to work. Maybe Muslim women do not work for religious reasons. Muslims families are larger with more dependent children etc. Both of this is true, as per statistics.
Our great prime minister of that time even said that Muslims have the first right over nations resources. What he really meant was Sunni Muslim men have the first claim over national resources. I do not see him much concerned over Muslim women though. Looks like he had sub-contracted the job of herding Muslim women to the polling booths to Muslim men.
This is true. Despite modi being a thief, betrayer of our nation a with new radar and digital cameras controversy its certain that India was in wrong hands. Now this does not make congress any better. They are scared that what if they talking anything favourable to minority communities specially Muslims will reduce their chances of vote bank, because people in India still are uneducated and unreasonable other wise who will some sense vote for modi again. The Gujarat riot is still pending case against him. Journalist like Rajath Sharma would still ask him, modi Ji, aap kitna mahaan aadmi kaise bana, worst part is world have gone ahead we still fighting for Hindu Muslim vote.
Rice bag convert……pappu’s theory of Sona from Aaloo and Manmohan’s statement that Muslim have 1st right on national resources are dacoit and thief an betrayer of the people of this land…..and people like you who have no connect with sons of the soil will get a kick at right place on 23rd wait..
very rightly said amresh jee.
I disagree with the politicisation of religion.
Religion is a personal issue.
Owaisi and RSS are one and the same. They are two sides of a coin with hidden agenda and understanding. People should reject both of them and vote for only those who speak of nation and not of religion.
Idiotic and substandard. Try to think as human being always trying in terms of religion. If only hindutwa works, BJP would not have lost assembly elections in it’s hinterlands. Our electorate is intelligent and commands respect. They do not vote for freebeies. They may be poor but not greedy like riches. They are simple and not opportunists like tweeterettis and opinion writers. My country has been extending help to the downtrodden but not in the name of religion. Also please admit that those who are much more concerned about life after death and driven by clerics only , state has little option to deliver. It is far from the truth that by don’t of ones religion someone has been discriminated against by the state. Lynching happened, unfortunate and shameful, no doubt, but didn’t state take actions against the perpetrators? Do not expect proportionate representation on the basis of religion, better try to go along with the contemporary world and also try to contribute for all.
Indian politics it seems is about vote bank politics. Now Hindus have created their vote bank, so every party is rushing to get it. Vote bank is like wolf pack in forest. Others have to form their own pack for protection.
A very well balanced and thought provoking article. The Muslim intelligentsia is equally at blame for the ghettoisation of Muslims and that includes charismatic leaders like Owaisi, who has sadly remained a ‘muslim leader’ only.
Keep connected to the soil.
Key for any Political commentator.
Don’t be like that Times chap who is possibly neither connected to India nor to Pakistan or for that matter the Sub continent and because of his feeling of possible identity crisis longs to get back to where it all started for him.
It is vice versa the so called secular parties ditched the real secularism for appeasement of this or that religion first Muslims left them then the parties became sickular And now they are behind Hindus with soft hindutva V.P .Singh changed all their equations.One thing is certain that o.b.c,.s.c.,.s.t. minority togetherness is the only winning solution.
One simple question. If you are a poor Muslim family, would you rather the government in Delhi is led by the Congress or the BJP ?
Poor Muslims is better off voting BJP, as only party trying to improve infrastructure, which help poor. Poor Muslim is poor first and Muslim later. If he start thinking otherwise he will be taken for ride.