By Masood Siddiqui for Twocircles.net
The 21st century voter should have the capability to select leaders who generate ideas.These leaders shall fight each other with ideas as their weapons; the ideas which compete with each other should shed positive developments on the society. In this article I will try to present a pitch for competitive fight among leaders for taking up Muslim votes in order to develop the community as a whole. One side we shall have a “pseudo” secular face and on other side there shall be a “realist” pro Muslim face. I name this model as “Smart Muslim Vote Model (SMVM)” for developing dual leadership of Muslims.
History tells that India has been mainly governed by pseudo secular parties, but in between there are strong right-wing conservative governments. Important point to remember that right wing is always a very strong opposition that forces the pseudo secular parties to follow the lines of “Hindutva Agenda”. Irony of pseudo secular governments is that their tenures are weak and many a times a coalition, which does not have concrete agenda, thus opposition sets the pro Hindu agenda and the government just follows the narrative in order to secure the chair. Thereby the Muslim community has to vote only for one agenda that is “Security”. Pseudo secular parties are so fragile that they cannot take any stand for Equal Justice & Equal Development, and whatever minimal work they do is treated as “Appeasement”, and wherever these parties failMuslims have been crushed in all possible ways.
My question is that, what should be our strategy, so that the political parties shall be forced to work for our development without compromising security? The solution could be to adopt “Division of Labour” strategy, thereby we can make pseudo secular parties coming to power simultaneously have a strong opposition Muslim Party (Voice). Having a strong Muslim Party makes the “Demand” for Muslim votes, and we can make a good deal from pseudo secular parties, thereby increasing our tally in assemblies & parliament, and demanding for our share of development.
In actual terms, Muslim Party shall have at least 5-10 MLAs and 2-3MPs from each state, also making sure that the crediblesecular party wins and comes to power. Due to presence of the alternative Muslim Party, tally of Muslim representations in assemblies and parliaments will automatically go up in secular camps. This Muslim Party shall bail out the government in case of trust vote, if it arrives, in return it can take a big share from the cake of development for the community.
Above was the theory, let’s do the practical test. BJP with 280+ and NDA with 330+ has changed the entire equation of Indian politics. Modi has already placed the Hate agenda under the wrap of development. India is quickly turning into the undeclared Hindu Rashtra. Grand old party “Congress” as of now is not in a position to win single-handedly from any state with the exception of a state or two. So, the regional secular parties along with the Congress, like Mahagathbandhan of Bihar, are only the possible option. Regional parties do have secular faces but all are scattered and there’s a possibility that they may form alliance in order to defeat the BJP.
We have secular leaders in different states, such as Nitish-Lalu for Bihar, ArvindKejriwal for Delhi, K Chandrashekar Rao for Telengana, Siddaramaiah for Karnataka, Gogoi for Assam, Mamata for Bengal, Mayawati-Mulayam for Uttarpradesh, Rahul Gandhi at the centre and so on. Among these some are good but some are shrewd non-reliable players, accept it or not but it is the reality. Kejriwal& Nitish can aspire to be the national leaders and others shall be in supportive role. To keep these leaders under check we shall have Muslim players who can set the agenda for Muslims.
Smart Muslim VoteModel is actually working in 3 states, namely Kerala, Telengana (United Andhra) & Assam. In Kerala, IUML is doing fine along with Congress, regarding Assam the AIUDF of Badruddin Ajmal is a pressure mounting element on the ruling Congress, last but not the least Telangana (United Andhra) where the Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM is always a strong player which checks the issues of Muslims. Presently it has a tacit understanding with the secular TRS Party of Telangana. There are many other Muslim parties which may come on board in future.
Among these Muslim parties, AIMIM is the only party which is confident, ambitious, and have mass leader in the form of Asaduddin Owaisi. There may be some limitations in the organisation and in some leaders of that party, but overall it has a potential to play a big role. After its defeat in Seemanchal, it has got a setback, but its leadership is strong enough to accept the defeat. As said by Mr. Owaisi himself, he is going to work harder for setting up strong base for his party in Bihar and other North Indian states. Mr. AkhtarulIman has already made his image as a face of AIMIM in Bihar, and if he’s able to start a social cause for Seemanchal then he’s going to be a big player for the future. Age is on Owaisi’s side and he can make his presence felt in near elections of Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Already having had his presence felt in Maharashtra, he’s making all round efforts to fight all possible elections be it Assembly, Municipal or Panchayat. Owaisi has one thing very clear that he’s not going to be a minister, this has given him ample opportunity to develop local leadership for his party in all major states.
Mr. Owaisi should focus on major states like Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bengal, Bihar, Karnataka, Telangana& Andhra. If Owaisi is able to win 2-3 MLA seats in Uttar Pradesh & West Bengal then it will be a great achievement for him. In Next ten years, if he can make the local leadership in all these states and win couple of seats, then it will give Muslims a strong opposition voice. At the same time these states can have secular parties in power thereby we can achieve our mission. As a Muslim voter, we should be shrewd as the system and vote strategically as per the constituency, so that in each state we can elect 5 MLAs for our Muslim Party and in rest of the constituencies we should make secular candidate win. Thus, we can make our democracy stronger and more plural and it is going to be the greatest service we can do as a Nationalist or Patriot.
(The author is an Engineer and an alumni of IIT)