By Balraj Puri,
The outcome of recently concluded election to the Lok Sabha has been hailed as triumph of secular forces. Significantly it also marked the decline of Muslims representation from 34 in the previous Lok Sabha to 28 this time, including four from Jammu and Kashmir State.
It is true that a secular Hindu can serve the cause of Muslims much better than a member of the community can do. But it gets a better psychological satisfaction if its representative also belongs to it.
Muslims like any other community nursed many grievances. Some of them were highlighted by the Sachar committee. Many Muslims were detained in recent times for their suspected hand in series of blasts in various parts of India, which all their co-religionists did not believe to be true. Two trains carrying Muslims from Azamgarh area, called Ulema express, came to Delhi to protest against what they felt were unfair actions of the government. The protest coincided with a terrorist attack in Batla House area near Jamia University after which local Muslims complained of harassment.
Muslims of the UP, has the largest Muslim population in the country. Their leader often act as spokespersons of the grievances of all Muslims elsewhere. They are particularly unhappy over the neglect of Urdu language in the State which is its real home. They were disillusioned with the main secular parties of the State. The BSP put up largest number of candidatesover 500within and outside the State. It had become too unwieldy and ambitions thus did not inspite many of its former supporters. By equating the Congress and the BJP, like other members of the third front, it lost the confidence of Muslims.
Samajwadi Party, the leader of which was at one time called Maulana Mulayam Singh lost the goodwill of the Muslims by enlisting the support Kalyan Singh. For he was held responsible for the demolition of the Babri Masjid as it happened when he was the Chief Minister of the UP.
Thus by a process of elimination many Muslims switched over their support to the Congress and thus contributed to its revival. But the fatal error some leaders of them committed and which was responsible for decline in their representation in the Lok Sabha, was to form a Muslim party under the name of Ulema Council in protest against what they called being treated Muslims as vote bank by secular parties. The Council put up candidates in many places in the UP and some States out of it.
Ulema Council along with some non-descript parties and independents, in all estimated to have put up 780 candidates in the election. But except those who contested as candidates of secular parties or in alliance with them, lost and merely succeeded in dividing secular votes and victory of the BJP. Thus not a single Muslim candidate won in States like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pardesh, Rajasthan and Orissa. But they added to the tally of the BJP. In Gujarat, for instance, a veteran Congress leader, Shankar Singh Waghela lost to its BJP rival by around 2000 votes and Muslim candidate, who too lost, got more than this deficit.
Ulema Council did not win a single seat in the UP, in its headquarter. Not that it was wholly unaware of the consequences of its desperate game. But as its candidates from Azamgarh, Dr. Javed Akhtara Muslim majority constituencysaid, it is not our job to defeat BJP or play the sole protector of secularism. Not only he was defeated but the community did not gain in terms of seats or political power by this strategy.
The lesson of this experience is clear. No party of a religious community has a chance of success unless it aligns with a secular party. If a party of the Hindus, the majority community had to change from Hindu Maha Sabha, to Bhartiya (Indian) Jana Sangh and Bhartiya Janata Party, open to non-Hindus, succeeded in coming to power after aligning with Muslim leaders from Kashmir, Christians leaders from North East, a Sikh party in Punjab and Tamils under the name of NDA with a socialist, George Fernades, as its convenor, how can a party of much smaller community ever succeed in an election.
Even Akali Dal, a party of the Sikhs, learnt this reality of Indian politics when before the assembly election of 2007, it opened its doors to non Sikhs and gave party ticket in some constituencies to Hindus. It got a majority in the assembly after it formed an alliance with the BJP.
Muslims have shown their alout in States like West Bengal where they were a major factor in demolishing the leftist citadel but only after they aligned with CongressTrimamool Congress front and won seven seatsas many as UP Muslims, where number of the community is far larger got. It also scored victories under the banner of Indian Union Muslim League as an ally of the Congress in Kerala and won three seats.
Indian Muslims are the second largest Muslim community in the worldafter Indonesia. Their contribution in field like theology, music, art, literature, sports and films is universally acknowledged. Not because they are Muslims but because they excelled in the respective fields. In politics, they must learn the tricks of party system and understand and represent the aspirations of different classes, castes, regions and other diversities also apart from their own communitywhich itself is far from being homogeneous.
In frustration after their recent experience, some Muslim parties are demanding proportional representation based on reservation for their community. As Salman Khurshid, the minister for Minority Affairs, has pointed out, this may provoke jealousy and hostility of the majority community and thus be self-defeating. Sachar Committee dealt with this problem in a very rational way. It recommended inclusion of Muslims in the category of OBC and Scheduled castes. Nothing would serve the interest of the community better.
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Balraj Puri is director of Institute of Jammu and Kashmir Affairs.