Author: Kanchan Gupta
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: February 2, 2005
He prefers the name 'Laden', as
in Osama bin Laden, because "nobody will remember my real name". The other
reason why Maulana Meraj Khalid Noor has opted for this nom de guerre is
because he looks like Osama bin Laden. Obviously, this preacher of Islam
from Narpat Ganj in Bihar is infatuated by either the physical features
or the ideology of the world's most recognised face of terror, if not both.
And, Mr Ram Vilas Paswan, who is locked in a bitter, no-holds-barred fight
over Bihar with Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav, his colleague in the United Progressive
Alliance Government, finds it politically expedient to take 'Laden' along
with him every time he ventures forth into a Muslim dominated area. After
all, as he recently told a newspaper reporter, "Osama does have some following
among the Muslim youth".
Not to be outdone by his rival,
Mr Yadav has come up with a cockamamie report that absolves the Muslim
mob which set fire to a railway coach full of Hindus at Godhra of all guilt,
promised communal reservation in jobs and educational institutions (a promise
also made by Mr Paswan and his Lok Jana Shakti Party) and pledged to make
Urdu a compulsory subject for all school students. For good measure, he
has also secured the public endorsement of a motley group of ulemas, led
by Tauqeer Raza Khan of All India Millat Council. And, just in case all
this has not driven home the point that Muslims, who constitute anything
between 16 and 18 per cent of Bihar's electorate - perhaps higher if you
factor in unabated waves of illegal immigration from Bangladesh between
the conclusion of the Census of India survey and this month's Assembly
election -- are best looked after by Mr Yadav, his Rashtriya Janata Dal
has been putting up posters with visuals of the 2002 riots in Gujarat.
Mr Paswan and Mr Yadav, of course,
are "secular" politicians who are key allies in the Congress-led "secular"
dispensation that rules India. So, their pandering to the lowest common
denominator of base, communal politics, is nothing less than a shining
example of how "secularism" must be upheld in India; it is a weapon forged
by India's "secular consensus" to defeat the "communal" Bharatiya Janata
Party. The Central Election Commission, which sees itself as an all-empowered
authority, has had no hesitation in choosing sides in this cynical exploitation
of rank communal sentiments: it is with both Mr Paswan and Mr Yadav. Had
that not been the case, the Election Commission would have acted by now
and carried out its laughable threat against those appealing for votes
in the name of religion to its logical conclusion. By not taking punitive
action against either Mr Paswan or Mr Yadav, the Election Commission has
made known its passive endorsement.
Long years ago, when the BJP was
yet to taste power, such despicable pandering to minority communalism was
known as "minorityism", a word made fashionable by Mr L.K. Advani in his
fight against pseudo-secularism. The pathetic manner in which Rajiv Gandhi
caved in to India's mullah brigade and used the Congress' parliamentary
majority to undo the Supreme Court's judgement ordering maintenance for
Shah Bano, a destitute Muslim woman thrown out by her husband, marked the
high point of minorityism. Other examples were the Congress seeking Muslim
votes through fatwas issued by Syed Abdullah Bukhari, the imam of Jama
Masjid, and the offer to pay imams from public funds, an offer which P.V.
Narasimha Rao believed would serve as absolution for his perceived role
in facilitating the destruction of the disputed Babri Masjid structure
by enraged Hindus. Since minorityism necessarily implied repudiation of
India's Hindu majority sentiments and rejection of Hindu aspirations, the
Ayodhya movement was declared both illegitimate and beyond the pale of
secular politics.
The intervening years since the
annulment of the Supreme Court's judgement aimed at providing justice to
an indigent Muslim woman saw the gradual eclipse of the politics of minorityism
as practised by the Congress. The BJP, in the mistaken belief of garnering
incremental support, did desperately try to "secularise" its identity during
last year's Lok Sabha election campaign by borrowing more than one example
set by the Congress. Witness the BJP's absurd promise of creating jobs
for two crore Urdu teachers, a number later scaled down to two lakh by
a red-faced PMO, its pledge of setting up more madarsas and the hilarious
'Himayat Yatra' which featured garishly painted buses plastered with the
portraits of Gen Pervez Musharraf and Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee. It was a
comical sight to see BJP leaders with bright red tikas, saffron angavastrams
and skull caps; some other standard bearers of Hindutva had themselves
photographed sporting a chequered kafiyah. And, amazingly so, the BJP even
secured an endorsement from Syed Ahmed Bukhari, who has replaced Syed Abdullah
Bukhari as the imam of Jama Masjid.
All that, however, did not wash
with the Muslim voters who voted with double their usual enthusiasm to
defeat the BJP's candidates, as well as those of the other parties who
contested as members of the National Democratic Alliance. It has been suggested,
and forcibly so, that the BJP lost in 2004 because of the riots in Gujarat
in 2002. That may be partly true, but if riots were so overwhelmingly instrumental
in deciding popular vote, then the Congress would have never won an election
in Assam after the Nellie massacre of 1983 when 3,300 Muslim men, women
and children were slaughtered in a single day or come to power in Punjab
after the anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984 which witnessed more than 4,000 innocent
people being butchered. Nor, for that matter, would Mr Yadav have won repeatedly
since 1990 on the strength of Muslim and Yadav votes after the October
1989 riots in Bhagalpur during which more than a thousand Muslims were
killed by Yadav mobs.
There is something perverse about
popular Muslim response to the political perversity called minorityism:
so long as the pandering is done by leaders of the Congress or other parties
who wear their "secular" credentials on their sleeves, Muslim voters are
willing to be swayed. This could be entirely because given the track record
of these parties that claim to protect Muslim interests even while doing
enormous damage to the community - in Bihar, Muslims are at the bottom
of the pile, living in wretched impoverishment - of taking recourse to
regressive and retrograde measures that appease those who are drawn by
Osama bin Laden and flock to see Mr Paswan's 'Laden', who in turn influence
voter preference. In short, the communal card played by "secular" parties
carries greater conviction than the BJP turning a trick or two.
In a sense, the pandering to crass
communal sentiments during this month's Assembly elections mark the return
of minorityism to Indian politics: in the form of conducting a campaign
that is shorn of all pretences of following the laid down code of conduct
and unrestrained by an Election Commission which is patently partisan and,
therefore, lacks the legitimacy to conduct a free and fair election. This
could be construed as good news for the BJP that may yet rediscover the
merits of steering an ideological course and revive its political battle
against minorityism which, in the 1980s and 1990s, fetched it the support
of Hindus across India's social classes tired of passively watching the
cynical exploitation of Muslim sentiments for political gains. Unless,
of course, the BJP chooses to discard the Indian angavastram for the Arabic
kafiyah and skull cap.