Muslims and the political scenario in India

ZoneAsia-Pk

Old methods of gaining their sympathy, like abusing the RSS and the BJP, may be counterproductive as the nature of worry changes.

As the largest state of India, Uttar Pradesh holds critical importance in the national political scene. While the UP assembly election is almost ten months away, all the four major parties in the state - Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Samajwadi Party (SP), Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) - have started working on their plans. And so are emerging forces like the Peace Party and regional parties like the Rashtriya Lok Dal. For the Congress and the BJP, the results of election could substantially influence the results of the 2014 parliamentary election. Hence they are putting all their resources into the forthcoming assembly election. The BJP has fielded its firebrand from Madhya Pradesh Uma Bharti as the campaign incharge and has started working on the OBC-MBC plank (Other Backward Classes-Most Backward Classes) besides Hindutva, creating a slogan of 'Ram and Roti', meaning bread and religion. It has also started an outreach programme in the name of Mahasangram rallies in different parts of the state. The BJP has 48 MLAs in UP and is targeting 100, but going by its current situation and prospects, the party might lose a dozen of its current strength. This could be so unless the Congress succeeds in its plans to provide life support to the BJP in its endeavour to create a bi-polar political situation in UP in 2012 and the rest of the country for the 2014 parliamentary election.

The Congress on the other hand has started putting all its resources in UP as it is central to its national political strategy for 2014. It is organising Parivartan (change) rallies in different parts of the state. The party has deployed its ultimate weapon, Rahul Gandhi. He is firing salvos from time to time, from the party convention in Varanasi to Bhatta-Parsaul and visiting Kalawati and Dayawati for homemade food at Dalit houses. His trusted lieutenant, Digvijaya Singh, the high profile party general secretary officially incharge of UP and unofficially holding the charge to endear Muslims to the Congress, is also focusing greatly on UP. His main strategy is to dent the Muslim votes of the Samajwadi Party and the BSP and halt a possible significant Muslim and MBC vote migration to the Peace Party. He wants Muslim votes to move to the Congress in such a visible way that it could send confidence to its other traditional voters like Brahmins, Thakurs and Dalits, and they could move back to the Congress fold. Put together, they could make up winning numbers.

Digvijaya Singh is adopting the old style of the Congress abusing the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and softening the Muslims. He has forgotten that the world has changed so much and that Muslims are now more bothered about employment and economic issues than the RSS and the BJP. Muslim youth is looking for opportunities to participate in mainstream social and economic life. They ask how they are benefited by Digvijaya Singh abusing the RSS all the time or castigating Baba Ramdev. Their concerns are education, jobs, economic opportunities, housing, peace, progress and a better quality of life. They want to participate and play a role similar to what their non-Muslim friends and colleagues play in social and economic fields and in nation-building. They ask if Digvijaya Singh or any other Congressman is concerned about the real issues of Muslims. The Rajinder Sachar Committee report on the state of Muslims shows how Muslims have been left behind. They are poorer than even the Dalits. They are nowhere in higher education, in government jobs, large corporates, banks, PSUs or even in political management and in governance. Just look at their representation in the Lok Sabha or in government committees, boards and in commissions.

Muslim youth wonder what the UPA government, led by the Congress, is doing for Muslims. The elders in Muslim families are learning from their children and have started asking questions about the role of the Congress in reducing Muslims to a level, which the Sachar Committee has authenticated in its elaborate report. They also wonder about the appeasement of Muslims theory, which the BJP has built into propaganda for so long that many secular persons had started believing it. Dalits have reservation, a Special Component Plan for Dalits and targeted schemes for their socioeconomic upliftment. Muslims however, have only promises and rehashed programmes, called the 15 Point Programme, which is refurbished every five years and relaunched with much fanfare and zero results. It is full of phrases like 'shall be' and 'will be' and it yields no results. The only report that talked of delivering something in specific terms was the Justice Ranganath Mishra Commission report, which the Congress does not talk about or accept.

The maximum damage to Muslims in India after 1947 has been done by the Congress and the BJP, which have a Brahminical order. In just one act, the Presidential Order of 1950, the Congress has done Muslims more damage than probably the entire work of the BJP and the RSS put together in the last 50 years. The order took Muslims out of the purview of reservation in jobs and even today the Congress resists in the Supreme Court attempts to get Muslims into the scheme of reservation. The letter by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Kiran Reddy on Reddy's recommendation for Muslim reservation is deplorable. It says, "We need to do a survey, collect data, and consult the states". When Nehru threw Muslims out of reservation by the Presidential Order, there was no survey and neither were the states consulted. When Sikhs were reincluded in 1956 and Buddhists in 1991, no survey was done. Now, because it deals with Muslims, even after four years of the Mishra Commission report holding the ban against Muslims and Christians as unconstitutional, the UPA is resisting it.

Unfortunately, the UPA 2, which came to power after Muslims overwhelmingly voted for it, has been silent on the welfare of Muslims. Congress strategists have to understand that Muslims can no longer be fooled. They should learn from the Bihar election where over 30% Muslims voted for the BJP and the Janata Dal (United). There is a shift in the political thought of Muslims. They believe that only political empowerment can open the doors to educational, social and economic empowerment of a community as large and as poor as Indian Muslims. They do not want more MLAs, MPs and ministers. They want leadership. In our party-based parliamentary democracy, leadership matters, not leaders. Ministers, MPs and MLAs are workers of a party and they do what their leadership wants them to. Mayawati is leadership, Naseemuddin (a minister) is a leader. Mulayam Singh is leadership and Azam Khan is a leader. Muslims are therefore putting their faith in the Peace Party in UP.

THE PEACE Party leads a coalition of 7 parties and several OBC and Dalit organisations are supporting it. Its head Dr Mohammad Ayub is a man of international eminence and is not susceptible to money. There are mainly four Muslim-led parties in UP - the National Loktantrik Party led by Arshad Khan, the Rashtriya Ulama Council led by Maulana Aamir Rashadi, the Quami Ekta Dal led by Afzal Ansari and the Peace Party. There are a few district-level outfits like the Parcham Party and the Ittehad Millat Council. A few exist only on paper like the Welfare Party, the Muslim Majlis, the Rashtrawadi Party, etc. Among these, only the National Loktantrik Party has some following across UP, though thinly spread. The Rashtriya Ulama Council is a one-issue party that contested the 2009 Lok Sabha election on the issue of the Batla House encounter. Thereafter, it lost its deposit in district board elections all over, including in Azamgarh. Hence, it is as good as finished. The Quami Ekta Dal has a strong presence Mau district and good influence in two neighbouring districts. It is now part of the Peace Party-led coalition. The All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) is yet to enter UP but we understand it might contest in a few districts of western UP with small coalitions. Among the above parties, only the Quami Ekta Dal might win two or three MLAs. The AIUDF, if it contests seriously, may win a similar number.

The hope is from the Peace Party, which has a strong presence in over 50 districts and is trying to cover the rest before the election. It has woven caste-based alliances with mostly Hindu Dalit and OBC-based parties, with the exception of the Muslim- led Quami Ekta Dal. Though the Muslim agenda dominates, the Peace Party is fighting on issues of justice, corruption, governance and development by taking everyone on board. Its Parliamentary Board has 12 Hindus and 9 Muslims, with one ex-DGP, two Addl DGP rank officers, two ex-IAS officers, two former ministers and four ex-MLAs. The rest of the people are also highly qualified, including three surgeons. The party is estimated to win 50 seats in 2012. The increasing attacks by secular parties on the Peace Party are testimony that they take it as a serious player.

Voters in UP, particularly Muslims, take the Peace Party seriously and are reposing their faith in the party. They see that this party represents the unrepresented and is talking about development and governance. Launching the Peace Party in New Delhi recently, Dr Ayub said the issues before the nation today are corruption, un-employment, inequity and injustice, which are slowing down economic growth and increasing the divide between the rich and the poor and the urban and the rural. According to him, we will be inviting trouble if we do not address to the needs of the youth and the poor. The Peace Party would not ally with any party in power until it declares it would implement the Mishra Commission report and has a firm plan to bring black money back to India. He said the Peace Party would not associate with the Shiv Sena, the Samajwadi Party and the BJP, saying the BJP works on an RSS agenda based on Golwalkar's philosophy and the Samajwadi Party works on Lohia's philosophy. Both Lohia and Golwalkar had advocated the elimination of Muslim identity in their published books. It is for the Muslim intelligentsia to read those books and decide whether Muslims should vote for them.

There is a definite shift in the way Muslims are thinking. They will no longer vote only to defeat the BJP. This time they will vote to win. They have understood that when they started defeating the BJP, it had 2 MPs. The more they defeated it, the more the BJP grew. They need to stay away from defeating the BJP in next couple of elections, as they did in the past few years, and the BJP would automatically diminish. The dominating thinking among Muslims is to vote for their own party and not be misled by vote traders carrying Muslim names in different self-claimed secular parties. If the Congress wants Muslim votes in UP in 2012, it would have to address the real issues of Muslims. Muslims should not get jubilant on Digvijaya Singh or anyone abusing the RSS. It could be ploy to create a situation where the Muslims have no choice but to choose between the Congress and the BJP. We hope UP remains peaceful and the stakeholders do not create disturbances in the state to enhance their political prospects. We hope today's voter is wise enough to read such tactics. Political analysts should be up for major surprises in the 2012 UP election. The results for the AIUDF in Assam and the IUML in Kerala should be seen in the context of the shift in Muslim political thinking.