Indian elections: Muslim voters

Congress, which boasts of being a secular party, committed monumental errors of political dishonesty during the election campaigns to win Muslim voters in Uttar Pradesh. The only winners of the political practice of Congress are the Darul Uloom Deoband, which has been waging jihad against women's rights, and the Raza Academy, which issued a reward for Rs 100,000 to anyone who could throw a slipper on Salman Rushdie

The results of state elections in India indicate that the Indian voter has once again emerged as a critical thinker, arbitrating the constantly changing patterns of the country's conflicted politics and capable of resolving political and cultural quarrels in a meaningful manner. The victory of Mulayam Singh's Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh illustrates that people are in favor of those political parties whose political message encompasses all sections of society, whereas the defeat of Congress in spite of the star electioneering by Rahul Gandhi, the scion of Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, is doubly reassuring that the secular foundations of Indian republic are securely rooted in the country's politics.

This is not for the first time that the maturity of Indian voter has been demonstrated abundantly. Over the past few decades, elections in India have emerged as turning points, i.e. irreversibly guiding the country's politics on a positive course. The electoral defeat of Indira Gandhi-led Congress party after the Emergency rule in the 1970s and the ouster of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from power in Uttar Pradesh after the demolition of Babri Mosque by Hindu extremists in the 1990s marked the emergence of the Indian voter as an independent decision maker and as able to handle the country's political crises and steering the course of Indian politics in a positive direction.

The state election results of 2012 also indicate that the Indian voters are prepared to oust parties like the Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) of Miss Mayawati from power if they commit excesses of financial and political nature, and that a party like Congress whose cabinet ministers are being imprisoned for their role in corruption scandals worth billions of dollars must not act a political lunatic and nurse a hope to win popular mandate. The Congress, which boasts of being a secular party, committed monumental errors of political dishonesty during the election campaigns to win Muslim voters in Uttar Pradesh. Bent upon not learning from its past mistakes and desperate to win Muslim votes, the Congress advocated reservation in jobs for those whose religious faith was Islam, thereby encouraging Islamist forces in the country.

Congress leader Salman Khurshid – masquerading on the country's electoral stage as the sole spokesman of Indian Muslims – made religion-based demands. Much like Muhammad Ali Jinnah in the 1930s and 1940s who had demanded separate territory for those whose faith was Islam, Khurshid demanded separate quota in jobs for Muslims. Salman Khurshid thought that his advocacy of separate jobs quota for Muslims could revive the Congress party's fortunes in Uttar Pradesh, and saner elements in the country were left wondering if the secular fabric of India will be torn apart once again through the direct political role of an Indian Muslim leader. The Congress leadership should re-read the country's laws and re-learn that backward groups among Muslims already get reservation in jobs and educational institutions in India, without their faith being the criterion for such affirmative policies.

The Congress government in the state of Rajasthan too played a divisive politics that is bound to strengthen the Islamist organizations in India. Due to the religious politics fostered by the Congress government and use of the state police apparatus in Rajasthan for this purpose, future-Nobel Laureate of literature Salman Rushdie could not visit the Jaipur Literary Festival in January 2012. In fact, the Islamist politics patronized by Congress was implemented so robustly that Salman Rushdie was denied an opportunity to deliver his speech to the Jaipur Literary Festival even via a video address. The Congress leaders thought that these steps would help win Muslim votes in Uttar Pradesh and elsewhere. And the Congress has been rightly served with a nice slap in its face, electorally pushed to a miserable fourth place in Uttar Pradesh.

The only winners of the political practice of Congress are the Darul Uloom Deoband, which has been waging jihad against women's rights in India, and the Mumbai-based fundamentalist Barelvi group Raza Academy, which issued a reward for 100,000 Rupees to anyone who could throw a slipper on Salman Rushdie. It should be noted that as India prospers as an emerging Great Power ready to claim its role in international diplomacy and politics, the country's Islamist groups too are bracing themselves to push the Muslims of India into the era of 7^th century. The ideological assertions by Darul Uloom Deoband and the Raza Academy should not be seen in isolation. And the Congress party can help the Indian Muslims by not throwing them into religious politics, not once again.

During the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, the Congress leaders played active role in causing Hindu-Muslim riots to win elections. Also, one cannot forget a key decision by the Congress-led government in the 1980s to enact a law to appease Islamic clerics, thereby quashing a Supreme Court order granting alimony to Shah Bano, a Muslim destitute woman. That single decision by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, more than anything else in India's history, has done much harm to the secular character of Indian Republic and jeopardized the growth of Indian Muslims for long term. That decision not only strengthened the Islamist forces in India but also gave birth to a menacing upsurge of Hindu extremism and militancy that led to the demolition of Babri Mosque in 1992 and the Gujarat riots of 2002, besieging the Muslim psyche and throwing Indian Muslims into collective emotional chaos that successfully handicaps their ability till date to voluntarily reconstruct their economic and educational future in a positive way.

In future, the Congress party should aid Muslims by not using their religious faith for political gains and pro-Islamist leaders like Salman Khurshid be better prepared for a repeat of the electoral humiliations of 2012. Indian Muslims should also quit living in a minority syndrome, complaining and ruing their about their political misfortune. From the results of the elections in Uttar Pradesh and elsewhere, Muslims of India should also learn that their success lies only in those parties that can carry along all sections of Indian society because that is the only way India can develop socially, educationally and economically. Currently, India is the best Muslim country in terms of economic and educational prospects it offers to its citizens, and Indian Muslims can succeed only if India prospers economically and politically. They have a choice: fall prey to leaders like Salman Khurshid and others who appeal to their religious sensibility or elect leaders like Mulayam Singh who carry along all sections of Indian society together on the path of co-existence as should be the norm of all democratic states.