Author: Swaraj Thapa
Publication: The Economic Times
Date: September 20, 2003
URL: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=191436
Continuing with the efforts to rebuild
bridges with Muslims in Uttar Pradesh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi
has now decided to enlist the services of the influential Deobandi clergy.
Ms Gandhi has been invited by the Jamiat-ul-ulama-e-Hind, an organisation
of Deobandi clerics who have considerable influence in UP, Bihar and Assam,
to address a gathering in Lucknow on Sunday.
The Jamiat platform may see Ms Gandhi
renewing her appeal to Muslims to come back to its fold. She will be sharing
the dais with the Jamiat head Maulana Asad Madani and his son Mehmood Madani.
Interestingly, the move to address a minority gathering in the state capital
has come immediately after the party has helped install Mulayam Singh Yadav
as chief minister there.
The decision to share the dais with
the Madanis is reflective of party's desire to persist with its efforts
to win back the support of the Muslims, even when it has been forced to
support Mulayam Singh on the ground of "secularism''. The courting of Muslims
also holds the key to the Congress plan of improving its status from that
of a bit player in UP, which accounts for 80 of the Lok Sabha seats. Mr
Yadav replaced Congress as the first favourite of the minority community
in the state in 1989 and has managed to retain that spot with his aggressive
brand of secularism. Congress, however, hopes for a change in the situation
at least with regard to the Lok Sabha elections, even if the community
continues to back the SP at the state level.
The much hoped for division in affection
can help the party, its strategists feel, draw the members of the majority
community in the Lok Sabha constituencies where minorities have a significant
presence.
The strategy, however, does not
enjoy universal support within the party. Many have questioned the party's
belief in the clergys continued hold over Muslim masses and their ability
to tailor their voting behaviour to suit their own preferences. The SP
chief in particular, has proved this assumption about their influence with
the voters by bagging the majority support of the community in successive
elections even when the Maulanas and Imams were arrayed on the side of
his opponents. And even when he has his own share of supporters in the
clergy, Mr Yadav's support among the members of the minority community
is not exclusively dependent on the fatwa factor.
Though the spectacle of Congress
reliance on the clergy to reach out to the Muslims also say that in the
past, it proved counterproductive, providing fuel for the BJP's campaign
against the alleged appeasement of minorities, Rajiv Gandhi's backtracking
on the Shah Bano case under the pressure of clergys provided a big ballast
to the BJP in mid-eighties with Mr LK Advani swiftly homing in on it as
a vindication of his thesis of appeasement.
