CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT IN DELHI- Failure of Vote Bank Politics?

 CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT IN DELHI- Failure of Vote Bank Politics?

 By R. Upahyay

Collapse of Islamic Empire and partition of Indian sub-continent are the two eventful chapters of the post-Mogul history of India.

The change of government led by the Bhartiya Janata Party now, is perhaps a third chapter for the Indian Muslims. Are they still in the same situation as they were at the end of the last two chapters?  It may not be so this time, but what is important is that this election for the first time over turned the vote bank politics practised by almost all the political parties.  The first chapter was the loss of Islamic power to the British in 1857 when Muslim intellectuals gave two parallel wake-up calls to the community. The call was in form of Deoband Movement for educating the community in puritan Islam with an objective to revive the lost Islamic rule in the sub-continent. A parallel call was also given by a British loyalist Sir Syed Ahmad for Anglicised education of the community with an objective to align them with the British for getting a major share in the administrative jobs in new government. This was known as Aligarh Movement. Both these calls can be bracketed into the first wake-up call for Indian Muslims to face the challenge of their stay in a non-Muslim ruled country. Ironically, no effort was made by the community leaders to unite the entire population of the sub-continent for their democratic aspirations. Our freedom fighters tried their best for a national unity but the Aligarh Movement thwarted their attempt under the banner of Muslim League and made the sub-continent the victim of partition.

The second chapter was for the Muslims who stayed back in India after partition. Since they were in a demoralised state of mind, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad addressed them in the forecourt of Jama Masjid, Delhi with a wake-up call for accepting the new situation in a positive manner. But instead of allowing the community to gauge the spirit of democracy and secularism, the ex-Muslim League leaders took over their leadership and carried forward the legacy of their parent party and pushed the community to a situation from where they did not think anything beyond the calls from the mosques.

For last sixty seven years, the community continued to be under the stranglehold of its religious leaders.  This was all in the name of saving the religious identity of Indian Muslims. May it be the Congress, the RJD, the SP, the BSP, the JD (U) or others, these ‘secular’ and caste-ist political parties exploited this situation, used it as bait for getting the Muslim votes in election.  Their vote bank politics succeeded so far but not this time.

In the history of independent India, the 2014 Lok Sabha election was the most bitterly contested democratic fight when these Muslim baiters again put their guns on the shoulder of the Muslims and trapped them with bait that Ganga-Jamuni Tehbeej was in danger. The high voltage war cry of this euphemistic medieval term denoting the mutually participatory co-existence and fusion of the Bhartiya and Islamic culture of the central plains of northern India particularly the region of Awadh in Uttar falling between the two holy rivers of Ganga and Yamuna convincingly scared the Muslims of the danger to their religious identity if they voted for the change. It is said that the Nawabs of Awadh were the forerunners of this  term for the musical cauldron of Persian and Varanasi music. However, the voters of the country ignored this irrelevant war cry and gave decisive mandate against the vote bank politics irrespective of religion or caste.

It is generally believed that except in Gujarat the Muslim voters collectively voted for the parties which they thought were capable of defeating the BJP. But their calculations failed particularly in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi.. This was the first election in Uttar Pradesh in post-Independent India that the Muslims did not get a single seat in spite of the fact that they constitute 18 percent population in the state.

With the change in government in Delhi, there is a decisive mandate to Bhartiya Janata Party. A section of Muslim youths also found participating in the celebration over this change but by and large the community members were not found to be happy with this change. Their strategic failure in fact is a clear reminder to the younger generation of the Muslims that they should go for a meaningful introspection and find out where the community had gone wrong.

Like Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Najma Heptullah, the Minority Affairs Minister in Narendra Modi cabinet also gave some sane advice to her community members. While talking to Indian Express on the day of taking over the charge of the ministry, she said, “Muslims are too large in number to call themselves a minority”. On the issue of job reservation for Muslims she said, “There is no provision in the Constitution for religion-based reservation”. “What is important is positive action to provide level playing field. Once we do that politically, socially and educationally they will be able to compete with the rest.” This is in fact an advisory note or a beginning of the third chapter of the post-Mogul history of Indian Muslims.

The Indian Muslims are only to shed the identity politics which their self acclaimed and self-seeking leaders have been playing up since the end of Islamic power in the sub-continent so that they could freely and fearlessly march with the entire country and revive the vibrant position of this ancient land in the world. This could be a third eventful and glorious chapter in the post-Mogul history of Indian Muslims.

The present government should also play its part in making an inclusive approach and give a final death knell to the ‘vote bank politics’ that had ruined not only the community but the entire nation.

(The author can be reached at ramashray60@rediffmail.com)