Since, early morning by when the election trends started pouring in on every TV
channel and social media platform. A pall of gloom seems to have descended on
every Muslim locality in the country. But the moot question to answer is, are we
ourselves responsible for this? The answer to this is, both yes and no.
Before the elections a lot of debate was focussed on the tactical voting by
Muslims. But the trends seem to belie this. As the trends indicate, in Delhi and
Bihar to some extent is some seats of UP, where they were supposed to vote
tactically, at the last moment they shifted their allegiance to the Congress and as
a result, BJP is leading in all these seats.
The trends have also established the fact that India is going to be a, minority
hating, democracy hating, anti-secular Hindu Rashtra, where one religion and
one perverse ideology is going to dominate the entire nation.
The election results have also brought home two stark realities.
One, the Muslims of India have to get their act together and fight for their
religious and minority identity in a country which is going to be dominated by
one religious and political thought only.
Second, it has shown that what the common Indian wants. In this we’ll have to
include both educated and non-educated, secular and non-secular Hindus. What
the results show is that every Hindu wants their religion to dominate and be the
foremost in every walk of life.
The trends have /results will establish the fact that common Indian voters,
contrary to what every sane person would like to believe, hate Muslims and
Pakistan and their stupidity was exploited by the right-wingers. Added to this is
the fact that most political parties in the country have become family firms.
Individuals like Atishi who talked about education and achievements in Delhi,
are losing to an absolute nobody, whereas people who are terror accused are
going to make laws for the country soon. Coupled with this is the spurt in the
market sentiment, which has gone up by 4000 points. All this points to the
common thread, the hatred for Muslims and Pakistan, a large dose of which was
used by the current dispensation during its election campaign and it actually
translated into real votes for them.
In reality, the un-educated, lumpen elements have been supporters of the
vitriolic, fascistic Hindutva thought since 1992. These elements got emboldened
when nothing happened to the destroyers of Babri masjid and the secular fabric
of India. All the perpetrators of the mosque attack were freed by the courts,
though they were left behind by the current dispensation along the road is
another story.
Coming back to the first point, the Indian Muslims need to think logically and
impassionedly about the choices available to them, and also introspect what had
led to the current situation.
Muslims need to understand that in spite of being the largest minority and close
to 17 million in numbers, they are the largest ignored group in the country,
whatever the political dispensation has been in the last 71 years.
After 1947, it took approximately 20 years for the Indian Muslims to get their act
together and regain their breath from the aftershocks of the partition.
Unfortunately during that time, they also lost tall leaders like Maulana Abul
Kalaam Azad, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai and others, and it indeed made them
rudderless. The leaders who took the place of the leaders like Azad and Kidwai,
were pygmies and second class leaders with very little mass base and in order to
survive, most of them became cronies of the so called largest nationalist party
and its pseudo-secular policies.
By mid 60s the Muslims were able to get their act together somehow, and in this
they were helped by the job boom in the Middle East. The growth in business,
finances and education was quite considerable. But one area that they neglected
was education, which was the ultimate route to business growth and increasing
their share in the administrative process of the country. In addition, the space,
which was vacated by the absence of any tall political leader, was taken over by
the religious leaders of the community and the other political also helped to prop
them up, as it fulfilled their policy of pseudo-secularism and paying lip services
to the demands and aspirations of the community.
Now to come out of this abyss, the process of introspection should start in
earnest by the Muslims themselves. They should realise that divisions amongst
themselves is not going to give any benefit to anyone, the ultimate losers will be
all. The community has to realise that intra-religious divides should be ignored,
its financial and educational resources should be utilised to the maximum by
being inclusive and it should try to increase its share in the administrative setup
and process of the country. It will have to choose its own leaders with a clear
vision for them and the country and not get bogged down by any divisive forces
and harmful elements both within and outside.
