The Bharatiya Janata Party and Muslims in India can’t wish each other away. They must find a middle path. The chasm between the largest political party in the world and the largest minority community in the country appears to be deepening and widening.
Whether one likes it or not, the BJP is not going anywhere in the near future. Even if its government gets replaced, it will continue to influence the country's politics with dominance. Muslims are the largest minority, if they can be described as a minority, in the country with 20 crore population. They are not going anywhere either. Most of them make no secret of their aversion for the BJP. They proudly claim that they don’t vote for the BJP and they won’t vote for the BJP. Rather, they will vote in a way to ensure the defeat of the BJP.
But this is not working for the Muslims. The BJP is not getting defeated. The BJP despite “absolute opposition” by the Muslims has returned to power at the Centre for the third consecutive term and has been winning elections in many states with massive Muslim population, like Assam, of its own and in Bihar, in alliance. This is also because such a sweeping hostility towards the BJP helps it in reverse consolidation to its greater advantage.
Muslims may be feeling that they have genuine reasons to oppose the BJP today for its espousal of the Hindutva ideology, in which Muslims do not find themselves anywhere, but the community has a history of dissociating from, and opposing the mainstream parties. Prior to Independence, there were mainly two political parties in the country; Indian National Congress and the Muslim League. Congress had proven secular credentials. Yet, an overwhelming majority of the Muslims opted for a communal and sectarian party, the Muslim League, rather than the secular Congress.
Even today in India, Congress does not remain the first preference for the Muslims. They prefer regional parties like the Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar, the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal and so on. They only vote for the Congress in the places where they feel that the party can actually defeat the BJP.
Rahul Gandhi’s stringent secular stance, that at times sounds appeasing, does not yield any dividends for the party. Rather, it alienates the majority community, thus gravitating it towards the BJP.
The BJP has adopted an approach and ideology that most of the minorities in the country, for reasons best known to them, feel is “majoritarian”. In reality, it is the reverse of the Congress and the regional parties like the RJD, the SP or the TMC and others. Like these parties sound “appeasing” towards the Muslims, only the Muslims and not other minorities like Sikhs are Christians, to consolidate their vote bank, the BJP also makes no secret of its posturing towards the majority community to consolidate its vote bank. In a way it is the battle of narrative and rhetoric only. In reality neither the BJP does anything special for the majority community nor its opponents do anything special for the Muslims except for the token and symbolic posturing.
Also read: Congress denied Muslim women rights for appeasement: MP CM
Time has come for both the Muslim community and the BJP to bury the proverbial hatchet and reconcile with each other. None of them can wish each other away. That is a reality. And they should not. Instead of being seen as confrontationist and hostile towards the BJP, the Muslims should treat it like any other party. After all, they do not vote for all the parties. They don't claim that they want to defeat all the parties that they don't vote for. Even if they don’t have to vote for the BJP, they should ideally not be making a spectacle of it. They don’t stand to gain in any way.
They need to introspect as to what has the community gained “specially” in the states they have managed to keep the BJP out of power. They have only managed to do so in West Bengal. The social and economic indices of the community remain as pathetic in West Bengal as anywhere else. The RJD, the most preferred party for the Muslims anywhere in the country, for Lalu Prasad Yadav’s aggressively stringent approach towards the BJP, was in power in Bihar for 15 years in a row. Did anything change for the Muslims there for the better? Except for some gangsters like Shahabudin, whom Lalu used as “Muslim symbol” wielding power, the common Muslims plight remained miserable.
The Muslim community instead of sticking to the regional parties like the RJD, the SP or the TMC should try to build up its own leadership which will understand its problems better and will not be driven and guided by the electoral interests alone.
All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi is one leader who has been trying to adopt a “pragmatic” approach for the community. But the problem with his pragmatism is that he is projected as having “some secret understanding” with the BJP. Because, if his party fields candidates, they get the Muslim votes. Those parties, which have developed a belief that they are exclusively entitled to get the Muslim votes to “defeat the BJP”, accuse him of cutting the Muslim votes to help the BJP, which of course is not the case.
For the Muslims to negotiate and deal with the BJP, there needs to be a strong and influential leader who takes his/ her own decisions and that too for the community. Such leaders cannot emerge in the parties they are supporting right now. Those parties will always keep the community in good humour with mere tokenism and anti-BJP rhetoric alone, while someone like Owaisi may prioritise community interests over pointless rhetoric, as he knows his base is strong and secure.
The community should think and introspect as to what those parties have done for it except for propping up leaders like Azam Khan, who are concerned more about their personal prosperity than the community’s, although they exploit the community name and sentiments towards that.
The BJP has often been questioned as to why there are no Muslim Lok Sabha MPs from the party. There is a caveat to that. How many Muslims vote for the BJP? They just don’t vote for the party at all and they make a spectacle of their pronounced hostility towards the party that has been in power for over a decade now.
The community needs to rethink its strategy and approach to come out of the shadows and margins of the parties that merely play with their sentiments and carefully crafted insecurities. This can only be possible once the community has its own strong, mature, powerful and pragmatic leadership.
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