Mayawati is upset that Muslims did not vote for the Bahujan Samaj Party. Disappointed, she hints that she will have to think her strategy anew. What that change in her political stance will be she didn’t feel necessary to elaborate.
Mayawati, said that while Jatav Dalits “stood like a rock” by the party, Muslims took the “wrong decision” of voting for the Samajwadi Party. According to her this decision pushed the party’s Hindu voters to the BJP. “The upper-caste Hindus and OBCs thought that if the SP comes to power, it will be jungle raj once again, so they went to the BJP,” she explained.
Does she want us to believe that Hindus would have chosen her if they were sure that Muslims were in her fold? Did the Jatavs and other Scheduled Castes behave like the ‘upper’ caste Hindus, as they too seem to have voted for the BJP this time?
If we believe the post-poll statistics released by the CSDS, even Jatavs, the bedrock of the BSP moved away from their natural party. Around 12% of them have left it since 2017 and the major gainer has been the BJP. Similarly, the OBC communities and the other Dalit castes have also moved towards the BJP. Interestingly it is only the Jat voters who showed an increase in numbers and percentage in their support for the BSP.
So, why did the BSP chief single out Muslims for her poor show?
Note that the Congress party also didn’t get Muslim votes. The percentage of Muslims moving away from the Congress party this time equals the percentage that has left the BSP. The shift has been towards the Samajwadi Party. But the Congress has not complained. Mayawati has.
It is as if Muslims had an obligation to vote for her party. She has been consistent in her silence over the past years when Muslims were being killed and their dissent criminalised after the enactment of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. Even when they were being arrested. And when laws were being made and executive measures adopted to criminalise different aspects of Muslim life.
How does it matter that she remained still in such situations; didn’t she give tickets to a large number of Muslims in this election? If Muslims cannot respond to such a generous gesture why should she remain beholden to them?
From this argument are we to understand that fielding Muslim candidates is supposed to be way to lure Muslims? Tomorrow if the BJP manages to get a hundred Mukhtar Abbas Naqvis or Shahnawaz Alams, are Muslims expected to vote for it? Will they?
I know it is a simplification but is fielding Muslims good enough to expect Muslim votes?
Some scholars are also peeved by the fact that the Muslims of India don’t accept Dalits as their leaders. Have not the election results proved it?
The poll statistics reveal that the Muslims of Uttar Pradesh have gone with the Samajwadi Party. SP is regarded as a party representing the backward or other backward caste communities. It is not a Brahmanical party. The so called ‘high’ caste people have largely shunned it in this election too.
If the data represents reality then Muslims of all castes, Ashraf and Pasmanda, both voted for a party which is not a ‘high’ caste party. The charge that Muslims do not prefer a Dalit as their leader is wrong. The majority which helped Mayawati become the chief minister of UP in the past had a large share of Muslim votes.
BSP supremo Mayawati at the party office, where she pays tribute to party founder Kanshi Ram on his birth anniversary, in Lucknow, Tuesday, March 15, 2022. Photo: PTI
In adjoining Bihar, Lalu Yadav, a non-‘high’ caste Hindu has been a leader of Muslims. There were times when Ram Vilas Paswan, a Dalit, was also chosen by Muslims as his leader wherever he fought elections, before joining hands with the BJP.
Coming back to the 2022 results, we find that contrary to the attitude of the Muslims, Hindus of all kinds, including ‘upper’ caste, backward caste, OBCs and different caste groups which fall in the hold-all category of the Scheduled Caste, voted for the BJP.
The SCs themselves moved away from their party towards the BJP, which is considered and is a Brahmanical party. Also towards the SP, another social justice party. In 2017, 44% of the other SCs had voted for the BSP. This time it dropped to 27%. Why does Mayawati not complain that they are responsible for the victory of the BJP, knowing too well what another term of the BJP government will do to Muslims?
They, of course, don’t owe anything to Muslims. Why should they go against their political instinct to think about the interests of Muslims? Each community in India has its sectional interest in mind and bargains with various political parties for that. It is seen as legitimate.
What is the interest of Muslims which drives them as voters? Why do they vote for parties which take great care not to be seen in their company? Which never ever even utter the word ‘Muslim’?
Why have the Muslims of Delhi voted for the Aam Aadmi Party repeatedly? Even after it distanced itself from the Shaheen Bagh movement, which it later denigrated as a BJP conspiracy? Why will they vote for it again, ironically, if election to the Municipal bodies are held in Delhi? How do they decide which way to move?
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Mayawati implied that the preferences of Muslims alarmed Hindus and they went to the BJP. Muslims, though it might look paradoxical, keep an eye on the movement of Hindus. They choose the party which manages to gain maximum Hindu votes.
If we look at the elections, national and state, Muslims have voted for all parties: Congress, Left, socialists, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Lok Dal, Samajwadi Party. All leaders, including Janata Party and V.P. Singh have garnered Muslim votes.
As has been shown by the studies of the CSDS, Muslims never vote as a monolith. So, there is nothing like a ‘Muslim vote’ as such. There should not be.
But Muslims, cutting across castes within the community and class, are forced to act as Muslims because of an existential threat which would not spare neither a Sheikh nor an Ansari.
I was talking to a leader of the Congress party after an incident of anti-Muslim violence in Atali, Haryana in 2015. I asked him why does not his party visit the violence hit Muslims and comfort them. He gave an answer which sounded strange to me then. According to him, his party wanted to become number one in Delhi again. For that, it needed Muslim votes which had moved to AAP.
But Muslims would vote for the Congress only when they became sure that the Congress party has a decisive support from Hindus. But if the party is seen being sympathetic to Muslims, Hindus would distance themselves from it.
So, they have to avoid displaying proximity to Muslims if they want Hindus to come to them which alone can assure Muslims they have the winnable numbers and motivate them to vote for the party.
For the last three decades, the rise and rise of the BJP has become a cause of alarm for the Muslims. Not only for the Ashrafs but also for the Pasmandas. Scholars rue the ‘fact’ that the Hindu-Muslim binary hides the social divide among Muslims, which is the real issue.
People wait in queues to cast their votes at a polling booth, during the third phase of Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, in Hathras, Sunday, Feb. 20, 2022. Photo: PTI
The violence resulting out of this politics of Hindu-Muslim binary always hits Pehlu Khans or Afrazuls but the Ashrafs are not touched by it. Forgetting that Ehsan Jafri, an elite Muslim was actually butchered and burnt alive and Muslim judges were attacked in 2002 in Ahmedabad. The sight of the Gulberg Society, 20 years after the Gujarat pogrom tells you the story of those Muslims who are seen as Ashraf.
Professor J.S. Bandukwala has only recently left this world, totally heart broken. An Ashraf, he was not only not spared, he was threatened by a man who is now heading the country as prime minister as he had dared to speak out against the violence.
Yes, the son of Shahrukh Khan was not killed. But he had to remain in jail for weeks for being what he was: son of a Muslim.
The brutality Sharjeel Imam or Safoora Zargar or Umar Khalid are being subjected to, is not phoney. It is real.
The list is endless. The Muslims jailed after having being declared terrorists, include all sections of Muslim society.
The anti-Muslim violence and discrimination has declassed elite Muslims. They share the fate of the so called ‘lower caste’ and ‘lower class’ Muslims. In fact humiliation and persecution of the elite Muslims gives the RSS people extra pleasure.
We know many Muslims who would not like to live in a Muslim-only area. Yet they are forced to as they do not get houses where they want, for being what they are: Muslim. They are not asked about their caste. Their being Muslim is enough.
That is how a ‘Muslim’ concern or ‘Muslim’ cause has emerged. As Alishan Jafri points out, as opposed to the differentiated Hindu vote, Muslims cannot afford to go for diversity in their electoral choice. They do not vote for ‘ new welfarism’ which has now become a buzzword after the success of the Adityanath-led BJP in UP. They look for a government which can ensure security for them. Theirs is not an aspirational vote.
They do not look for leadership positions in the state or political system, what Owaisi has been asking for. That is why do not choose him despite agreeing with him.
This became clear to me when I talked to three young Muslims way back in 2014. They were university graduates in different disciplines. I asked them: what is that they want for themselves? Security, all three responded.
It should be a cause for shame for the political system of a country that all that a young person wants from it is security. Not even participation. He cannot even recite with the poet Raghuvir Sahay that I have a right to become the Prime Minister of India, since I am a voter. It is not only for Mayawati to think about this state of politics in India.
