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Thursday March 28, 2024

Muslims, the BJP and the battle for UP

By Aijaz Zaka Syed
February 24, 2017

The writer is an award winning journalist.

When in doubt, go back to the basics. That is what the BJP is apparently doing in Uttar Pradesh. Staring at what looks like a humiliating debacle in India’s largest state, the party has chucked the clever mantra of ‘sab ka saath, sab ka vikas’ and is pushing its core agenda that has seldom failed to deliver.

 

No, the saffron party is not for the zillionth time promising to build the Ram temple at the site of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. Of course, the temple remains on the agenda and it will until the party has squeezed the last drops of political mileage. But now that the Supreme Court has proscribed the use of religion for votes, politicians have to be careful and clever with their words.

So trust Prime Minister Modi, the great communicator and master of speaking between the lines, to come up with this true gem: “Ramazan me bijli aathi hai tho Diwali me bhi aani chahye; Gaon me qabrastan banta hai to shamshaan bhi banna chahye!” (If electricity is provided non-stop during Ramazan then it must be available during Diwali too. If a graveyard is built (for Muslims), there should be a cremation ground (for Hindus) too.”

Having made his point, he added thoughtfully, lest anyone accuse him of hate speech: “Bhed bhav nahi hona chahiye,” (There should be no discrimination!)” reminding one of his BJP predecessor, Vajpayee, who was known to kill his enemies with kindness.

Clearly, the more things change for the BJP, the more they remain the same. The uninitiated may wonder about the relevance and connection of graveyards and crematoriums with electoral politics. But the people of UP, ruled by the Samajwadi Party government of Akhilesh Yadav, long accused of ‘Muslim appeasement’, have got the message.

There’s no evidence to suggest that the SP government is favouring Muslims over Hindus as it goes about dispensing the largesse of graveyards and crematoriums. Besides, the last thing Muslims want or care for is a graveyard. I am sure the same goes for their Hindu brethren. But who cares about facts, as Yogi Adityanath said when confronted by NDTV’s Sreenivasan Jain. The idea is to sow the seeds of strife and it is successfully done.

Clearly, as the going gets tough for the BJP, Modi and his desperate followers are increasingly turning to the tried and tested antics. It’s terribly important for the BJP to win UP, from where the party won a whopping 71 of 80 parliamentary seats in 2014 riding the ‘Modi wave’. If the party does not do too well in this round of assembly polls, it’s sure to have an impact on its showing in the 2019 general elections.

Considering it is the heart of Hindi heartland and the Gangetic cow belt, the strategic importance of UP can hardly be exaggerated. The state has given eight of India’s 14 prime ministers. Modi himself represents the state from Benares. Not for nothing it is said that the road to Delhi goes through Lucknow.

Understandably, there is visible nervousness in the saffron camp, with the prime minister and BJP chief Amit Shah going all out to woo the UP voters. An upbeat opposition insists that UP is a referendum on the Modi government, just as it had turned the state elections in Delhi and Bihar into a vote on the Central government.

Which wouldn’t be far off the mark considering it is no one but Modi all the way in UP and other states going to polls. It is his fierce, forbidding visage on the campaign posters and adverts that stares back at you everywhere, just as it did in Delhi and Bihar. As if it is Modi who will be ruling from Lucknow. The dear leader’s prestige is at stake.

The fact that the BJP has not projected anyone as a chief ministerial candidate does not help. No wonder the party apparatchiks are quick to dismiss the suggestion that this is a vote on the Modi government, especially on the catastrophic effects of its ill-advised and atrociously implemented notes ban. Millions suffered as thousands of livelihoods were wiped out in a state known for its exquisite handicrafts and artisans. The traditional industries of cities like Aligarh, Benares, Kanpur and other cities, acclaimed the world over, have been hardest hit. And they are all likely to give their piece of mind in these elections.

No wonder the BJP appears more than a tad desperate despite the unseemly family drama of the ruling Samajwadi Party that unfolded in full media glare and dragged on for weeks. The massive goodwill that Akhilesh Yadav, the young chief minister, enjoys has seemingly survived the Yadav soap. His image is that of a sincere leader with integrity. He has been successful in his efforts to provide good governance despite being nagged by his domineering father and manipulative uncle.

Muslims, nearly 20 percent of UP’s 204 million population, have largely voted for the SP in the past many elections because of its promise to provide security. This promise has been repeatedly violated. The state witnessed hundreds of small riots in the last five years, especially in the horrific 2012 Muzaffarnagar riots when thousands of Muslim families were driven out from their homes. They still live in make-shift relief camps and cannot muster the courage to go home.

Yet the community has no option but to stick with the SP, largely because it seems like the best bet to keep out the BJP, whose politicians and numerous allied outfits have been behind Muzaffarnagar and trouble in other places. The SP-Congress alliance is seen as a blueprint for 2019 and may be the only model to take on the BJP in the rest of the country. If the alliance wins, Akhilesh could even emerge as a challenger to Modi at the national level. The Congress looks incapable of recovery anytime soon.

The open witch hunt by Hindutva groups in the name of love jihad and beef has poisoned relations between the Hindus and Muslims in the Hindi belt. Dadri, not far from Delhi, also happened in UP where Muslims were once very close to communities like the Jats. All that has changed – thanks to the Parivar.

So even 70 years after Independence, security – not education or jobs and development – remains the top priority for UP’s Muslim, just like their brethren elsewhere. If they are seen as voting for the party A or B en masse, who is to blame? They voted for the Congress for decades after the Partition without getting anything in return and despite the thousands of riots that happened on its watch.

The once affluent and influential UP Muslims remain in the pits, the most backward in the country by every metric and yardstick. The state does not have a single Muslim MP in this parliament despite its large Muslim population.

Notwithstanding this long saga of indifference and shameless exploitation by ‘secular’ parties, Muslims have dutifully voted for them all these years, driven by the same fear and anxiety. The question is: who created this fear psychosis and sense of insecurity in them? And what does it say about the world’s largest democracy?

Still, the BJP seems surprised when the country’s largest minority votes in a particular fashion or for a particular party. The truth is that this arrangement rather suits the BJP as well as its secular adversaries. They can use the community both as a bogey and a vote bank respectively for mutual benefit.

 

Email: aijaz.syed@hotmail.com