Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s hate speech in Banswara followed by those of Union minister Anurag Thakur and sundry Bharatiya Janata Party leaders should end the debate that the ruling party is anywhere close to being secular. The prime minister’s oft quoted idiom of ‘sabka saath, sabka vikas, sabka vishwas’ is indeed a jumla.
Repeated speeches on painful communal lines underline what’s happening across India. They encourage rogue elements to punish Muslims on the most trivial pretexts. A good example are two incidents in the recent past in Delhi and Gujarat.
A sub-inspector of Delhi police kicked a couple of Muslims boys sitting behind each other in congregational prayer. As per reports, the sub-inspector was suspended. But is he still in the same station? Has he been relegated to the police lines? Has a charge sheet been filed against him?
In Gujarat, five people were arrested for beating up a group of international students who were offering namaz on campus. How many more were there? It will also be interesting to know if the goons bear any political affiliation. But as it happens with news of this kind, we expect it to be safely buried and the perpetrators bailed out soon enough. I dread to imagine what would’ve happened if the perpetrators had been Muslims.
The Muslim community has not reacted to any of these incidents. In fact, reaction amongst Muslims to all that has been happening over the past seven to eight years has been muted. The community remains anxious, sullen and fearful of harsh administrative action.
Muslims discuss their situation in homes, in mosques, in schools and universities but there is hardly any public demonstration of grief, dismay or anger. The few times when there have been protests, they were brutally put down. Students of Jawaharlal Nehru University and Jamia Millia Islamia will always carry scars of police brutality.
Bulldozers in lanes, demolition of mazars, homes, shops and terraces crush spirits. No one wishes to be treated harshly at police stations and left to fight criminal cases for years. But these methods are now par for the course and adequate to break the confidence of a once proud community. Muslim representation in government and private sector jobs is minimal. There is not a whimper when they are denied housing. Representation in parliament and the state assemblies has been steadily dropping. If the idea is the eventual marginalisation of the Muslim community in India then there has been a steady progress on these lines.
Politicians across the world do not understand the language of subtlety. Winning elections is so physically exhausting and financially draining that adrenalin takes over. Pig-headedness, muscle and adrenalin do not make for sensitivity. At a time when humans are considered fungible or tradable products, a minority is a troublesome reality for a party with right-wing ideology.
In India, with the exception of the BJP and sundry right wing parties for whom Muslims are a dispensable product, the remaining parties see them as useful in a market in helping to win elections or to consolidate and approach realms of power. Before every election, there is talk on how the Muslims would vote. Drawing rooms feverishly discuss the potential trend of Muslim voting patterns. How important are reservations for them? Is there enough or overdoing of affirmative action and would that make a difference when they vote? Will they vote on secular lines for a national party or would they vote on communal or parochial lines or for a regional party that can pander better to local aspirations?
The reality is different because Muslims consistently vote for the same reasons and along the same logic as other communities. At times they do vote along communal lines favouring Muslims candidates and reduce their numerical advantage in constituencies where more than one Muslim candidate contests. At times they vote for the party that is the ‘flavour of the day’. For example in Uttar Pradesh they have voted for the Congress, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party in different elections, depending on circumstance and time in history and they did vote out Congress after the emergency. In each of these instances, it was either a generic issue that affected everyone or a specific case that affected the local community. They neither vote tactically, nor do they sit huddled in chaupals accepting diktats from self-proclaimed leaders. Therefore the concept of a Muslim ‘vote bank’ is not true today.
No community, least of all a minority, feels comfortable to be in constant limelight. Minorities live with their problems, their moments of joy and pride, their troughs and highs, but each time the community arrives at a stage that it wishes to move on with pride, it is reminded that it is an ill-educated minority, that people often wish to favour it as a demonstration of generosity or pity, that it must become part of India’s development story.
For the past few months, since the bugle for elections was sounded, Muslims have been told that they are beleaguered and economically backward. With the exception of the BJP, various parties are now champions for the “poor” Muslim. Interestingly, I do not hear the same concern for Christians. Obviously their small numbers render them unimportant. Why waste one’s time if the community cannot make a political difference?
However, I do believe there is hope that stems from the large liberal secular Hindu community. I am part of a community of retired civil servants called the Constitutional Conduct Group (CCG). The group now has about 180 members. They believe and have consistently stood for upholding values of pristine secularism, equality and fraternity enshrined in the constitution and particularly the fight against rising communal hate.
Much like the CCG, India now has scores of independent bodies, NGO and individuals who write, agitate and approach the courts on such matters. The tremendous popularity of ‘independent’ news outlets and youtube channels that fearlessly write and speak about secularism, inclusiveness and on the dangers of policies of hate and exclusion shine a light of hope.
I have always maintained that its the majority of secular Hindus who have prevented India going the way of Pakistan or Afghanistan. Efforts at Talibanisation of its people have failed consistently. Politicians and parties since the 1950s have tried to bribe people on communal lines but their success has been underwhelming. Even when parties that may have underlying communal agendas do attain power, it’s on a manifesto of development. Recent surveys are clear that real issues of dealing with problems of the young, the farmers and the marginalised need to be addressed rather than a constant harping of preferences to particular communities or an adversarial attitude towards others.
Najeeb Jung is a former lieutenant governor of the National Capital Territory of Delhi and a former vice chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia.
