By Aziz A Mubaraki,
The Right-wing parties have been portraying Muslims as ‘outsiders’, ‘invaders’ and ‘plunderers’, thereby causing hatred of Hindu citizens and alienation of Muslim community. Thispropaganda of ‘Desi Nazis’is also creating a fear psychosis in the majority community.
The Hindutva forces have been successful in their agenda of vilifying all minority welfare schemes as ‘appeasement of Muslims’ which has caused huge setback to the process of integration of the already backward community to the mainstream society in India. This willful campaign byHindutva-vadis has also forced the country’s policy makers to take a defensive and cautious positioning lest they be accused of indulging in vote-bank politics.
The ‘Bhagwa’ elements which have infiltrated in the entire system are trying to erase from the public memory the indispensable contribution by the Muslims in the freedom struggle of India. This has given a chance to the ‘pseudo-nationalists’ to question the patriotism and the loyalties of the Indian Muslims. Needless to say that any minority community, whose loyalties to the nation are under suspicion, cannot claim rights equal to those of the ‘patriotic’ majority community.
This sorry state of Indian politics of sidelining the Muslims goes back to the early days of our nationhood when an eyewash treatment was meted out to the great freedom fighter Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.The Muslims have often been handed out lollipops byhaving Muslim presidents and vice presidents, and even this symbolic gesture of appointment of Muslim presidents- which in no way brought any real benefit to the minority community, has been viewed as appeasement of Muslims by the Hindutva forces. The objective of the divisive campaign by the Hindutva forces is to cause further polarization in the society so that votes of the majority Hindu community can be consolidated. The hullabaloo over the special status to Kashmir, 1984 Sikh genocide, 2002 state-sponsored massacre of Muslims in Gujarat, portrayal of Sikhs (earlier) and now Muslims as traitors and terrorists, accusing the secular parties of indulging in ‘appeasement politics’, are all parts of the foul strategy of the Saffron forces to hamper the social and economic development of Muslims and nation as a whole. Their aim is to annihilate the political might of the Muslims and further marginalize them in the society.
Unless a Muslim is made the head of the state, the Indian Secularism cannot boast of coming of age. All the ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities should be made equal partners in the policy-making process of the country. Otherwise the claim that India is a great democracy will remain disputed. Appointing a Muslim as a PM nominee will be the best celebration of our secular ethos envisaged by the founding fathers of our constitution.
(Aziz A Mubaraki is a Member,Advisory Committee, Airport Authority of India (NSC), GOI. )