HVK Archives: Raising the value of "Muslim Indians" in politics
Raising the value of "Muslim Indians" in politics - Organiser
M V Kamath
()
13 July 1997
Title: Raising the value of "Muslim Indians" in politics
Author: M V Kamath
Publication: Organiser
Date: July 13, 1997
Why asks the editor of Muslim India, Syed Shahabuddin, is there hardly any
Muslim Indian figuring in the power game that is being currently played in
Delhi? And the answer that he himself provides is that perhaps the stakes
are too high and only those communities which command a high value in the
political market place and their representatives who are fully skilled in
the game can survive and play it effectively. That is not much of an
answer. There is no reason why even if the stakes are too high, a Muslim
politician should not get into the' act. Nobody is stopping him. But the
fact is that there just is no Muslim politician on the national scene. Not
even Sikandar Bhakt of the BJP is to be seen competing at the topmost
level. A Muslim may be elected President of the country but nobody has been
elected as Prime Minister. And to think that India has the second largest
Muslim population in the world, next only to Indonesia! Why is it so?
Several answers are available, apart from Syed Shahabuddin's own prognosis.
One answer, of course is that most of the Muslim leaders who might have
risen to the Prime Ministership migrated to Pakistan, beating second and
third rate leaders behind. But the question may well be asked: Can a
Muslim ever become a Prime Minister in India given the fact that Hindus are
in a majority? It is a valid question that calls for an answer. According
to Syed Shahabuddin the Muslim Indians have to overcome all vestiges of
alienation and engage themselves in all the national, State and regional
movements and agitations-whether directed at systemic change or electoral
reforms, at reorganisation of States or decentralisation. of powers, for
human rights or linguistic or cultural rights, for universalisation of
welfare measures or for reservation for backward classes, for elimination
of corruption and criminality, for rights of kisans and mazdoors, for
controlling inflation and maintaining law and order. But will he? All these
years the Muslim either has withdrawn into his cell or has agitated for
what he considers exclusively Muslim rights. He has seldom, if ever,
become part of the national scene. Urdu may be a language shared both by
Hindus and Muslims but when Muslims in Uttar Pradesh, for example, sought
to make it a second official language, the impression left was that they
considered it their language. Even now many Muslims pretend that Urdu is
their mother tongue when it should have been Marathi, Tamil or Kannada.
Almost consistently, Muslims have isolated themselves from the majority
community and shunned their concerns. They have thus allowed themselves to
be marginalised. They have lived in Muslim ghettoes in township after
township. Seldom have they participated in the feasts and festivals of the
majority community. In dress and deportment they have stuck to
stereotypes. In sum they have desisted from participating in mainstream
activity. After all they are Muslims, aren't they? How, then, can they
join in Diwali festivities? Or even in 'secular' festivities such as
ushering in spring?
Rather than be part and parcel of the majority concerns, Muslims would fain
have reservations so that the Hindu-Muslim divide can be perpetuated, and
they, could stay comfortably in their cocoons. The Muslim seems to deny his
essential Indian culture preferring to be more Arabic, or Turkish or
Iranian in social concourse, For the Hindu that becomes an almost
insurmountable barrier. A Roman Catholic bishop could say with conviction
that by, culture he is a Hindu, by religion a Christian and by nationality
an Indian but how many Muslims would admit even tangentially, that his
culture is Hindu? That automatically puts him outside the Pale-and there's
the rub. The first hurdle that a Muslim has to cross is in the matter of
establishing his residence. Being a meat-eater it would be very difficult
for him indeed to find habitation in a predominantly Hindu locality, even
should it happen that the Hindu may be a meat-cater, too. Then there is
the matter of prayers and the call for them. It would be difficult for a
Hindu to consider the possibility of having a masjid in his locality and to
have to hear every now and then the call for prayers. That being the case,
the question of largescale intermixing of Hindus and Muslims just does not
arise. In the circumstances the chances of Muslims getting elected from a
predominantly Hindu constituency or Hindus getting elected from
predominantly Muslim constituencies. does not arise either. In the Mumbai
municipal elections held recently the so-called secular Samajwadi Party had
to field only Muslims as its candidates in Muslim-majority wards, making a
mockery of secularism. And what is true of Mumbai's municipal elections
would be true of elections to any body, anywhere in India. It is very,
very rare that a Muslim would be elected from a Hindu majority area or a
Hindu from a Muslim majority area.
What then is the answer to this dilemma? Syed Shahabuddin has his pet
answers. For one, he says, Muslim Indians have to invest in education and
self-enterprise to overcome the neglect and to function as a player in
Indian society and economy. Also, he says. they have to embark on social
reforms, not under external pressure, not by deviation from Islam, in order
to utilise their full potential as human beings and as citizens of a modern
state. Furthermore, he asserts, Muslim Indians have also to build channels
of communication with the non-Muslim majority in social intercourse through
fraternisation, in academic melieu through dialogue, in the mass media
through accurate intervention and in the educational system through
improvement of textbooks and reform of curricula. All more easily said
than done. Will the mullahs let go of their hold on the faithful? Will
more emphasis be laid on the learning of English than on the learning of
Urdu or Arabic? Can Muslims change their food habits so that they can
invite their vegetarian Hindu friends home for a meal? Are they capable of
participating in Hindu festivities to make it easier for Hindus to
participate in their celebrations? Primarily, will Muslims accept their
Hindu past and Vedic culture and stop denigrating what is commonly
described as Hindutva? These are questions for the Muslims to ask of
themselves and not for Hindus to press on them. Syed Shahabuddin has
raised some pertinent questions. Muslims in India, several million strong,
should learn to make the necessary adjustments and might find that on their
part Hindus too would come half way to meet them. Then, and then alone,
would it be possible for a Muslim to get elected as a Prime Minister
without anyone bothering to know his religious affiliations. It is a
contingency that should be devoutly desired. But it is possible only when
a Muslim thinks of himself as an Indian first, last and always and never
the other way round.
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