HVK Archives: Why was CM Ibrahim supping with the 'enemy'?
Why was CM Ibrahim supping with the 'enemy'? - The Pioneer
Javed Anand
()
6 August 1996
Title : Why was CM Ibrahim supping with the `enemy'?
Author : Javed Anand
Publication : The Pioneer
Date : August 6, 1996
On the face of it, Mr CM Ibrahim's supping with the
"enemy' makes no sense. He is, after all, Union Minister
in a United Front Government which owes its very
existence to the declared allegiance to secularism of
virtually every party in the country barring the BJP and
the Shiv Sena. Besides, his mentor, the Prime Minister,
Mr HD Deve Gowda, seems determined to project him as the
tallest politician among Indian Muslims. Why then should
Mr Deve Gowda's Man Friday cozy up with the Shiv Sena
chief? And that too at precisely the same moment when
constituents of the UF and its ally, the Congress, in
Maharashtra have latched on to several allegations of
extortion against Mr Bal Thackeray's son and nephew,
Udhav and Raj, and turn the beat on the Shiv Sena-BJP?
For those who missed the news which has generated much
excitement among Muslims in Bombay, here is the gist. Mr
Ibrahim arrives in the metropolis last Monday to lead the
traditional Khilafat Committee-organised procession in
the city to mark the birth anniversary of Prophet
Mohammed. Later, the same evening, prominent Muslims
from the metropolis gather at a dinner hosted by the
Khilafat Committee in the Minister's honour. But the
chief guest has no stomach for such meat. The chosen
ones from the Umma wait, but in vain, for their new
political messiah-in-the-making. Patience turns to anger
when the assembly discovers that the person responsible
for igniting the fire in their belly is merrily breaking
bread with the very man who prides himself with having
taught Muslims 'a lesson'.
A curious coincidence, that before his Monday rendezvous
with the Sena Chief, Mr Ibrahim had spent several hours
on the procession route in the company of politician-cum-
Islamic scholar and the chairman of the Khilafat
committee, Dr Rafiq Zakaria, who himself had invited
Muslim wrath in March 1995 for trying to keep the Muslim-
baiting Tiger in good humour? The decision of Dr Zakaria
and a small group of Muslims to take a peace petition to
Mr Thackeray within days of the Sena-BJP Government being
installed had greatly agitated Bombay's Muslims who felt
that by "prostrating themselves before Thackeray", the
delegation had robbed the community of the only thing it
had after the Sena-orchestrated pogrom of 1993-dignity
and self-esteem.
True, Maharashtra under Senashahi is no concentration
camp for Muslims. Barring a few incidents, there has
been no major communal flare-up in the State since the
saffron coalition assumed power 17 months ago. But
through a series of legislative moves, policy
announcement and sainik postures, votaries of Hindutva
have frequently made it clear they could not care less
about Muslim sentiments. Mr Thackeray's declaration that
the "only way" for Bombay's Muslims to prove their
loyalty to the nation was to "hunt out" and hand over
"infiltrators" to the police, the State Government's
scrapping of the State Minorities Commission, disbanding
the Srikrishna Commission appointed to probe into the
riots of 1992-1993, passing a law banning the slaughter
of all progeny of cows, passing a bill prohibiting bigamy
without even the pretence of any debate on the subject,
and Sena mouthpiece Saamna's continuing vitriol against
Muslims are just a few examples of saffron affront.
The inevitable outcome
The Urdu Times has reported that a delegation of Muslims
from Bombay led by Mr Ibrahim met the Chief Minister, Mr
Manohar Joshi, before the procession last Monday to raise
demands like extra FSI for over crowded mosques and
release of innocent Muslims who have been in jail since
the Bombay riots. The delegation members reportedly
declined Mr Joshi's advise that they present themselves
in Mr Thackeray's durbar for the redressal of their
grievances. Mr Ibrahim, too, is said to have been
cautioned against the idea. Why did the Union Minister
pay to no heed to the sentiments of Muslims who were part
of the delegation? Did he or did he not seek the advice
of Dr Zakaria later during the precession?
The explanation that Mr Ibrahim was merely making a
courtesy call is an obvious hogwash. One hypothesis is
that Mr Gowda's Man Friday was returning Mr Thackeray's
unexpected tribute to the Prime Minister. That may well
be true considering that Mr Ibrahim owes far more to Mr
Deve Gowda than to Bombay's Muslims. But a more
interesting line of enquiry will begin with the question
whether, while acting as his mentor's ambassador, Mr
Ibrahim was also pursuing an "ingenious" two-pronged
Muslim gameplan to resolve the problem of the growing
communal divide in the country. In some Muslim quarters,
two complimentary perspectives are emerging to meet the
growing challenge of Hindutva: One, strengthen regional,
sons-of-the-soil parties to neutralise Hindutva's attempt
to unite Hindus on a national platform; two, since the
secular Hindu is vanishing, security for Muslims lies in
talking directly with the 'enemy".
In this writer's knowledge, the most articulate proponent
of the first perspective, so far, is Haji Abdul Rauf
Chowdhary, Minister for Environment, Science and
Technology in the recently formed AGP-led Government in
Assam. Haji Chowdhary told the Bombay-based daily,
Inquilab, in an interview in early June: "The State unit
of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind should cooperate with the Shiv
Sena in Maharashtra and regional parties in other states
just like the Jamiat Ulema-a-Hind is part of the
coalition Government in Assam. We should not trust
national parties like the Congress and the BJP." Applying
his this thesis in Maharashtra's context, Haji Chowdhary
expounded that during the earlier Congress Government
Bombay's Muslims had lots of problems concerning Friday
prayers on streets, use of loudspeakers in mosques and
communal riots, but "all these problems disappeared with
the Shiv Sena's coming to power". Blaming the Congress
for having pursued a policy of divide and rule in Assam,
he praised the new AGP Government which had accommodated
four Muslims in the Cabinet.
Though he did not say it so many words, Haji Chowdhary
presumably implied that since the Shiv Sena's primary
concern was power, Muslims could wean him away from
Hindutva by offering their political allegiance. What Mr
Thackeray, the "Hinduhridaysamrat "(Emperor of Hindu
hearts), thinks of this would be interesting to find out.
Soon after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the late
Girilal Jain had unambiguously argued that the debate
over secularism and the nature of the Indian state was an
"in house" debate among Hindus in which Indian Muslims
had no role to play. The inevitable outcome of the new
Muslim perspective for peace would be a legitimistaion of
this core Hindutva logic. Could that be the real motive
behind Mr Ibrahim's dinner diplomacy? If that were the
case, those from Karnataka familiar with Mr Ibrahim's
political trajectory would not at all be surprised. For,
they would argue that shorn of appearances and obvious
differences of religion, Mr Thackeray and Mr Ibrahim
share a common political culture. Neither can stand the
idea of a free Press, and if Mr Thackeray's incitement of
co-religionists for political purposes is common
knowledge, Mr Ibrahim enjoys a similar reputation in
Karnataka.
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