People's Democracy

Wooing The Muslims?

Nalini Taneja 

COULD the Muslims even think of voting for the BJP after Babri Masjid demolition, and especially after the genocide in Gujarat? Nobody in their right senses would think so, and neither does the BJP. But both the BJP and the corporate sector are at pains to show the majority of the Indians and the world that the possibility exists, just because they are making a show of ‘peace overtures’ to Muslims and to Pakistan. The media is, sadly, going along with the story, questioning its details and the efficacy of some of the moves, but nevertheless happy to promote the farce going on in full political gaze.

The truth is, while meetings are being addressed by Vajpayee with audiences in which burqa clad women and bearded Muslim men are prominently showcased, which are then carried by all prominent newspapers and channels, the real audience being addressed is not the Muslims who are willy nilly mobilised for these meetings, but the soft Hindutva middle class which needs some reassurance to continue voting for the BJP, the ‘India Shining’ campaign having come a cropper.  

INDIA SHINING CAMPAIGN

Let us not forget that the India Shining campaign was also addressed to the same constituency --- the well off Hindu majority, relatively uninformed about the impact of the economic policies because it derives its view of liberalisation policies from the media which has been unashamedly and unconditionally promoting it and because it has not been affected adversely by these policies enough just yet to start questioning them. The ‘Shining’ campaign could hardly have been directed at the vast majority of the Indians living in India’s small towns and villages, whose experiential reality is so different and who are undergoing the worst livelihood crises since Independence. The campaign, even in its restricted appeal, failed even before the real appeal for votes by actual candidates started, because it became difficult to sustain in the face of hard facts and statistics so painstakingly brought forward by left parties and utilized by the Congress and other parties. It became difficult to sustain because even a relatively uninformed citizen began to question how India could be shining when so many commit suicide and remain hungry, unemployed, uneducated and shelterless. The corporate media was forced to give up the campaign.

The ‘appeal’ to Muslims is a direct outcome of this failure, and for want of something positive to talk about. The campaign, as with the shining one, cannot be addressed to those who form its subjects --- the Muslims. The Muslims, experiential reality is directly contrary.

MUSLIMS’ EXPERIENTIAL REALITY

“Gujarat must not happen again”, says the prime minister, when Gujarat is happening even today. The Muslims are being intimidated daily in Gujarat, are unable to come back to livelihoods lost during the pogrom, Muslim children have not found alternative schools, lakhs rendered homeless remain so, and the government is not only not concerned, it is actually actively aiding and abetting the denial of justice and intimidation of those who are trying to rebuild their lives or seek justice. It is actively protecting and even today utilizing the same cadre for ensuring victory in the elections and preventing Muslims from exercising their voting rights. The very fact that the prime minister of this country says that Gujarat must not happen again to Muslims is an indication that he sees it as a possibility, and we know that all such possibilities can become a reality only with the connivance or approval of the government. Moreover, is it for the Muslims to ensure that Gujarat does not happen again, or for him to make a commitment that it will not happen again? Let us note that he has made no such commitment. On the contrary he is putting the onus on Muslims, and warning them rather than reassuring them.

As for his other sops --- they can only be laughed at. Two crore posts for Urdu teachers in a scenario when teaching jobs are being done away with all over the country at all levels of education and in all branches of study! Moreover, does he know that this figure perhaps exceeds the total number of all teachers in south and Southeast Asia? Even the election commission does not take it seriously enough to charge him with breaking the election code of offering incentives for votes. The saris in Lucknow for which so many women got killed are more real than any promises to Muslims, although of course, a leader of any other party having made this statement would have been accused of Muslim appeasement.

COMMUNAL MINDSET

The real mindset of the BJP is revealed in statements of other Sangh Parivar leaders who say they could well do without Muslim votes, and of Vajpayee himself when he said that Muslims cannot live anywhere in peace. At his meetings with Muslims pictures of him and Musharraf are paraded, promoting the idea that Muslims in this country have a special vested interest in Pakistan, something he has said as much. He says peace with Pakistan is something Muslims should appreciate; as they should that there are three Muslims in the national cricket team. Can there be a greater proof of a communal mindset? Are they there courtesy him, is he taking credit for the fact that they have been allowed to be in the team, or is he giving his Parivar new ideas of where to strike next?

The decision to completely forgo Muslim goodwill and Muslim votes was inherent in the planned genocide in Gujarat. The genocide and the hate campaign around it signified the adoption of a particular electoral strategy, where Muslim votes become redundant with the addition of new sections like tribals, dalits and a large section of women who can be brought into the Hindutva fold through the enlargement of the organisational network achieved through funds generated through being in government for the last six years and through the crores taken from abroad in the name of charity and Gujarat earthquake and Orissa cyclone. In Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Gujarat and northeast we can see the newly grown networks in place. Electoral calculations had already been made, and an electoral strategy devised that excluded the need for Muslim votes.

BJP’S ELECTORAL STRATEGY

What the BJP had not reckoned with is the impact of its economic policies. In order to keep the goodwill of the western imperialist world in the wake of Gujarat, it had hastened its pace of disinvestment and concessions to the WTO regime, particularly as Congress was willing to offer them the same. In its bending over backwards to appease the western imperialist interests, it has alienated large sections of ‘Hindus’ it calculated as its natural constituency. The India shining campaign has been replaced quickly by a consensus building campaign, appealing to those who can be retrieved --- the Hindu middle class getting apprehensive with the cultural policing and sectarianism of the Sangh Parivar, who any way identify Indianness exclusively with upper caste Hindu culture, but nevertheless would like to go their way undisturbed, with their fashion-shows that the media and the corporate sector has a stake in and other such things.

Lately there have been vilification campaigns against authors and theatre-persons, banning of books, destruction of an archive and library and so on, all of which have brought some sections into an oppositional mode as far as the BJP is concerned, and the accommodative voice of the prime minister is aimed at appealing to them rather than to the Muslims called for the meetings. What better way to show accommodativeness than to be seen around with bearded Muslim men and burqa clad women who are not part of the social daily life of the Hindu middle class being wooed.

ELECTORAL CHOICE FOR MUSLIMS

Let us not make a mistake. The media coverage of Vajpayee’s ‘overtures’ to Muslims is a personal appeal and message being sent out to the Hindu middle class and not to Muslims. As far as the Muslims are concerned, they never had it so bad. For the first time they are being pushed into voting as a community. All election analyses of post-Independence elections show Muslims as voting with others in their areas. Babri Masjid demolition, Gujarat genocide, and the ascendancy of the Hindutva forces in the government, have pushed the community to a wall. Apart from opportunists like the Shahi Imam, who hardly represent Muslim opinion, the call unequivocally from Muslims all over the country is the same as what we ourselves are asking to defeat the BJP by voting for whoever is best in a position to defeat the BJP in your constituency. Even pushed to the wall, Muslims are making a secular choice all over the country.

It is a different matter that they are being let down by mainstream bourgeois parties who are as much concerned with appeasing a ‘Hindu vote bank’, because they refuse to appeal to them as workers, peasants, students or the unemployed, and are hesitant to come out forthrightly for secularism and against liberalisation in their campaigns. They are tied to the same programme and the same constituency as the BJP through the purse strings of the corporate sector, which has put its stake in the Hindutva strategy for ensuring a fast pace of liberalisation. Apart from the left parties, and the BSP, the number of Muslim candidates being put up by political parties has come down drastically, through desperation and intimidation where the Parivar goons hold sway the Muslims are being forced to attend BJP meetings held by the PM. And as usual, Vajpayee holds centre stage, ensuring media coverage for what he says, while his Parivar, under his benign shadow, and the protection of his government, goes about its business as usual.

The only ‘Muslim’ votes the BJP will get is through intimidation where the Parivar is in action, and in many places Muslims may not get to vote at all. Gujarat, for instance.