HVK Archives: Muslims and the BJP
Muslims and the BJP - The Free Press Journal
M.V. Kamath
()
27 June 1996
Title : Muslim and the BJP - Security of the Muslims lies
in the hands of Hindus and not 'secularists'
Author : M.V. Kamath
Publication : The Free Press Journal
Date : June 27, 1996
Misled and badly advised by the likes of Vishwanath
Pratap Singh and Mulayam Singh Yadav, the Muslims of
India are once again being let into a trap from which
they may find it very difficult to escape in the coming
decades. At issue is the future of the Ram Janmabhoonii.
If Minister of State for Home, Taslimuddin will have his
way, the entire disputed area would be declared as quanu
milkiat (national property) and be sealed. Neither mosque
nor temple would be allowed to be raised on the property.
Muslim leadership apparently believes that thereby the
problem would be resolved. It should be warned in
advance. The problem will not be solved. On the other
hand it would be exacerbated to the point of no return.
Taslimuddin should give up his idea.
The blame for setting up Muslim leadership against the
BJP lies squarely in the camp of the Janata Dal and the
Third Front. The Third Front would do anything to prevent
a temple to Shri Ram rising on the Ram Janmabhoomi
site. Such an eventuality can only mean letting the BJP
ride to power which the Third Front is sworn to prevent.
It would rather pitch Muslims against the BJP on the plea
of safe-guarding the nation's secularism when what is at
issue is not secularism but the political future both of
the Third Front and the Congress. Muslims should see
through this dastardly game. The Ram Janmabhoomi issue
would not have arisen had the Muslim community file grace
to be more accommodative towards Hindu sentiment. By now
the Muslim community should know how deep and strong are
Hindu feelings in this matter. Had it conceded the right
of the Hindus to build a temple on the Janmabhoomi site
it would have won the undying gratitude of file Hindu
community leading to greater and stronger Hindu Muslim
amity. That opportunity was lost. The Muslim leadership
decided to opt for confrontation and not cooperation.
largely, one suspects, on the advice of Third Front
leaders obsessed with the success of the BJP. The
inevitable happened. The Babri Masjid was torn down
(when the Vishwa Hindu Parishad had promised to relocate
it reverentially, brick by brick at another place and
that was to lead to the bomb outrage in Mumbai. Some
people will never learn.
The security of the Muslims lies not in the hands of the
so-called secularists but in the hands of the Hindus,
call them communal or whatever. Muslims must give by
treating the BJP as the enemy with which no business can
be transacted. It is the BJP and BJP alone that can
guarantee to the Muslims their rightful place under the
sun. How have the Muslims benefitted by aligning
themselves with the Congress, the SP, the BSP and the
Left Front? Consider the position of Muslim MPs in the
eleventh Parliament. In this Parliament the number of
Muslim MPs is the least in 50 years. There are no Muslim
MPs from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Not a single
Muslim has been elected from these states. Take Uttar
Pradesh. As many as sixty Muslims contested from this
state, the largest in the country. Only six could
succeed. The BSP had given the highest number of tickets
to Muslims, but to what avail? It gave 23 tickets to
Muslims of whom only three could get elected. What
Idoes it say of BSP patronage? How long are the Muslims
going to let themselves be fooled by their self-appointed
protectors?
Then take other statistics. The highest number of Muslims
in the 11th Lok Sabha are from Congress: eight. From the
Janata Dal and the Samajwadi Party there are four each.
The highest number of Muslim MPs - six - are from Uttar
Pradesh. There are two form Andhra Pradesh, one from
Karnataka, two from Kerala, three from West Bengal and
one form Lakshadweep, one from Maharashtra, one from
Assam and four from Bihar. How come that Muslims are so
poorly represented in Parliament?
To say that Muslims lie scattered in all states and
cannot possibly get elected on their own strength is not
to face the truth. Ale truth is that (a) there is no
Muslim middle class leadership and (b) such leadership
that exists has gone into its shell suspicious of the
Hindus. When a people decline to work side by side with
their Hindu compatriots, then it should come as no
surprise that they are ignored. Placing faith in
political parties which claim to be secular is making
matters worse. The Hindu voter is not going to be taken
in by Congress or Third Front pretensions.
One would have thought that the Muslim by now would know
where his true friends are. They are not in the Congress
or the Janata Dal or in the Saimajwadi Party or the
Bahujan Samaj Party, least of all in the Left parties Of
whatever hue. Just a quick look at statistics would show
this. There were 19 Muslim MPs in 1957, 20 in 1962, 28
in 1967, 28 again in 1971, 31 in 1977, 27 in 1989 and 25
in 1991. This number has been further reduced to 21 in
1996. At the same time the strength of the BJP has risen
from nil to 160. Does this carry any message to Muslims? =
The word 'secular' is one of the most misused words in
the English vocabulary. It has been used by all parties
to fool the Muslims into thinking that the BJP is
'communal' and therefore inimical to Muslim interests.
Nothing could be further away from truth. The Hindus have
nothing to fear from Muslims. Ergo, Muslims should have
nothing to fear from Hindus. The Ram Janmabhoomi affair
should not be seen as 'communal' but rather as strong -
if unfortunate - Hindu response to historical
humiliation. Understood that way, the Muslim can rise to
the occasion and make his peace with his Hindu fellow
citizen. It won't be a matter of shame if Muslims
voluntarily and graciously concede to the Hindus their
desire to build a temple to Shri Ram on the Babri Masjid
site.
It shouldn't ever be considered as something of
capitulation to Hindu fundamentalists. It cannot be
anything of that kind. Conceding that deeply felt wish is
washing off at one stroke the hostility of centuries.
Surely Muslims - if not Muslims leadership - are capable
of rising to the occasion?
Writing in The Times of India (22 June) a Muslim
intellectual, Jawid Laiq made a significant point. He
wants the BJP to say: "Hinidu-pride was revitalised on
December 6, 1992 with the clearance of the offending
structure
from Ram's birthplace at Ayodhya. It is now time for
Hindus in the BJP and the Sangh Parivar to set a dynamic,
forward-looking agenda which now must not be weighed down
by memories of Muslim oppression during medieval times or
by the pin-pricks of a petty, moth-eaten state that is
Pakistan".
Laiq, of course, wants the BJP to think oil these lines,
and well it might, but shouldn't Muslims do some re-
thinking themselves? Suppose for example, Muslims were to
say: "Whatever excuse we may have to give for Muslim
intolerance in centuries past, Hindus have a point. Let
us meet the Hindus halfway. Let us concede their right to
build a Ram Mandir on the Babri Masjid site willingly and
voluntarily. Let us tell them we want to live as fireds
in future". Can one imagine what that would mean for the
future not just of Hindu-Muslim relations but for the
country as a whole?
The Muslims have been misled by the Congress; but even
more they have been grievously misled by the Samajwadi
Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Janata Dal. These
are not parties that truly mean well by the Muslims. They
only want their votes. And they hant the mantra of
secularism to inveigle the Muslims into their folds. The
results of the just concluded elections should
convincingly show to the Muslims that their loyalties are
misplaced.
The ultimate salvation of the Muslims lie with the Hindus
as Hindus, and not as Congressmen or BSP-wallahs. As
long as Muslims are not. with them, the Hindu capitalists
(and let the truth be faced, they are largely with the
BJP) are not likely to look with favour on Muslim
aspirants to economic power. There are no Muslims among
the country's top 200 industrialists and in the highest
level of government administration. According to Laiq,
only 3 percent of the IAS officers are Muslims. Laiq
quotes data based on the National Sample Surveys (1988)
to prove that only 3.7 percent of all those who received
industrial loans from the government were Muslims. In the
educational sphere just 1.6 percent of all, graduates
were Muslims and a mere 4 percent of those who received
High School education were Muslims. Are Muslims going to
blame the BJP for that? And are they going to side with
the Congress, the SP, the BSP and the Janata Dal to
redress these grievances?
The Hate-BJP tirade in which the non- BJP parties have so
far indulged has not helped the Muslims. It won't work
and if the Muslims have not learnt this by now, they will
never learn. According to Asghar Ali Engineer, "the BJP,
with its Hindutva philosophy" and its stress on cultural
nationalism, can never win over minorities and dalits".
Engineer should know that the losers will be the
minorities, not the BJP. The BJP can do without
minorities. Whether minorities can do without the BJP is
a point that Engineer and those who think like him,
should seriously ponder upon.
Hate doesn't take anybody anywhere, except to self-
destruction. Cultural nationalism is not the poison that
the minorities have been led to believe. It is a unifying
factor. By refusing to understand it and go with, it the
minorities, especially the Muslims are sending a message
that they do not want to part of the life of the
majority. Such a decision is for them alone to take but
then they can hardly blame the BJP for their isolation.
The non-BJP parties are living in a dream world in which
not they but the BJP stands isolated. They, too, are
welcome to entertain their illusions. The BJP can afford
to ignore them.
In the last elections. the non-BJP parties tried to use
secular card but failed. In the next elections their
failure will be even more pronounced. The Muslim
electorate must think over this when next it goes to the
polls.
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