I am of the view that BJP is a majoritarian party. There is an attempt for a majoritarian form of democracy over participatory form. It raises our anxieties because we have witnessed what happened in Sri Lanka, where the Sinhalas have put in place a majoritarian form of democracy.
Will Mr Modi rise to the occasion? He has been a pracharak of the RSS right from his youth. In his first speech in the Central Hall of Parliament, he referred to Deen Dayal Upadhyaya. What about his theory of integral humanism in which he said Muslims cannot be trusted? The RSS ideology is clearly divisive.
You judge a person by his past. Mr Modi during his campaign talked about the Gujarat model of development. Can one say development in Gujarat has been inclusive? Why is it that the Metro line has stopped just before Juhapura in Ahmedabad, dominated by Muslims? You have a gas pipeline which does not pass through Juhapura. Why is Mr Modi opposing pre-matric scholarship to minorities of Gujarat? Why did he bring in legislation making it mandatory for a person who wishes to change his religion to seek the government’s permission? The Governor did not give assent.
On the day the results were out, the Supreme Court exonerated all the boys implicated in the Akshardham case. The boys lost 11 precious years of their life, and the apex court criticised the non-application of mind by the home minister of Gujarat and the state government.
Doesn’t this raise anxiety? The boys said the Gujarat police had given them the option of choosing between the Haren Pandya murder case, Godhra and Akshardham. I don’t agree with the view that Atal Behari Vajpayee and L K Advani had reached out to the minorities. How can we forget what happened to Graham Staines? It was when Mr Vajpayee was Prime Minister and Mr Advani was home minister and Lok Sabha member from Gujarat that Gujarat witnessed the 2002 riots. Mr Vajpayee might have asked Mr Modi publicly to follow raj dharma but it was under his nose that everything happened. A draconian law like POTA which was passed during their tenure was used extensively against Muslims, Dalits and tribals.
It is up to the country to ponder why an Imran Masood makes an incendiary speech and loses the elections and Giriraj Singh says the same and wins. You don’t have a single Muslim MP in UP, which has 18 per cent Muslims. Why is it that in Tamil Nadu and Odisha, each of which has 10 per cent Muslims, the BJP is not doing well and in Assam where the Muslim population is 17 per cent the BJP is doing extremely well. Clearly it is because of the communal polarisation in Bihar, UP, West Bengal and Assam. Where the Muslim population is more than 15 to 16 per cent, BJP has made significant gains.
Of the 448 candidates of the BJP, not a single Muslim got elected. Poster boy Shah Nawaz Hussain lost from Bhagalpur which is 18 per cent Muslim. This time there are 21 Muslim MPs and they won not because of their party but because of the substantial presence of minorities in their constituencies. Look at the representation of Brahmins, Kshatriyas and OBCs. They have more representation than their population size.
In Karnataka, AP, including Telangana, and Maharashtra, which have 118 seats, I am the only Muslim MP. Clearly secular parties did not transfer their votes to Muslim candidates.
All Muslims should come under an umbrella of a single party which represents them and defends minority rights. Secular parties have failed to transfer their votes to Muslim candidates. Whether the Muslim League, MIM or AIUDF, it is time to have our own party. It is our responsibility to ensure that RSS ideology does not get ascendency. We are not the torchbearers of the movement for defeating the BJP. You cannot put the responsibility on me. I am not a coolie of secularism.
Mulayam Singh would not have won without the support of Muslims in Azamgarh, his daughter-in-law Dimple from Kannauj and Dharmendra Yadav, nephew, from Badaun. Let us become the masters of our destiny since all secular parties together have brought in a hardcore RSS pracharak as Prime Minister.
(The author is MP and president of All India Maj-lis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen)
