Author: Editorial
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: May 4, 2002
URL: http://www.indian-express.com/archive_full_story.php?content_id=2022
Introduction: There is no role for
religious clerics in Indian politics
Those who thought the age of the
fatwa was over were taken aback when Maulana Mufti Abul Irfan of Firangi
Mahal issued one for a ''complete social boycott'' of the Muslim MLAs of
the Bahujan Samaj Party. He has called them ''traitors'' and asked Muslims
not to offer prayers in mosques with them.
A Shia cleric, Maulana Kalbe Jawwad,
has also threatened to punish these MLAs, while the All-India Muslim Forum
has sought their excommunication. One of them has reminded the legislators
that it was his 'fatwa' in favour of the BSP that saw them through the
elections. These announcements are disturbing because they lend credence
to the propaganda of organisations like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad that
Muslim politics is controlled, not by their elected representatives, but
by the Maulanas. It seeks to strengthen the stereotype of the Muslim politician
as one who cannot look beyond the vested interests of his community.
Also, that the community votes as
Muslims and not as citizens of a free, democratic country. Fatwas have
no place in a civil society and they deserve to be treated with utter contempt.
It is a measure of the secular credentials
of the BSP that it fielded a large number of Muslim candidates in the recent
elections in Uttar Pradesh. So did the Samajwadi Party. As the results
showed, it was a gamble that worked - 14 Muslims were elected on the BSP
ticket. But by no stretch of the imagination can it be claimed that they
were elected only on the strength of Muslim votes.
Presumably, people of all communities
and castes had voted for them. So the very assumption that they are there
by virtue of their religion is patently false. Even the claim that a fatwa
was issued in favour of the BSP is totally unacceptable. Successive elections
have proved that the manner in which Muslims vote vary from state to state
and person to person. The effect of a 'fatwa' is more in the realm of the
imagination than of reality.
In any case, Muslim voters do not
need any fatwa to decide whom to vote for and whom not to vote for, as
they are sensible enough to decide the issue for themselves. Those who
issue unsolicited fatwas are, therefore, doing a great disservice to the
community. More often than not, the fatwas are cited by critics as proof
of the Muslim politician's subservience to the clerics.
Significantly enough, although talks
between the BSP and the BJP for a coalitional arrangement in Uttar Pradesh
have been going on for quite some time, there has been no protest from
any of the Muslim MLAs. They know that the BJP and the BSP had contested
against each other in the last elections and that the only way a popular
government could be formed was by forging an alliance between the two parties.
Even in the BJP there are many MLAs
who are unhappy with the present arrangement. But they know that in the
larger interests of the state, certain compromises have to be made. That
is why the Mayawati government is in place in UP. The job of the elected
representatives is to ensure that the state is governed in accordance with
the Constitution. There is no need to bring religion into governance. Those
who issue fatwas need to know that in a democratic society it is the rule
of law that prevails and they themselves are completely out of tune with
the larger reality.
