Author: Swapan Dasgupta
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: February 21, 2004
If you need a textbook illustration
of how secularist intervention can sow discord, you need only look at the
Uttar Pradesh Government's order last Thursday to declare Friday a half-day
in educational institutions. The order, modified after protests in the
Assembly the next day, was a shameless act of tokenism aimed at reinforcing
Muslim separateness and using them as communal fodder. It was an act of
provocation that may yet end up vitiating the atmosphere between Hindus
and Muslims.
The issue is not, and never was,
the right of Muslim students to offer Friday prayers. Like those Hindus
who privately observe a fast on Tuesdays, most Muslims have happily used
their lunch break to offer Friday namaz without that religious observance
becoming an issue of state policy. There are public holidays for special
occasions such as Id, Mohurrum and, following V P Singh's grandstanding
from Red Fort in 1990, the Prophet's birthday. Being a faith-driven country,
India has an exemplary record of readily accommodating the religious rites
of all its citizens.
Indeed, there was no real demand
from any quarter that teachers and students enjoy an extended weekend from
Friday noon. If there was any universal Muslim demand, it was that the
community should have more access to modern education so as to get over
its colossal economic backwardness.
Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav
enjoys a reputation of being uncompromisingly secular. In political terms,
it means he has the ability to mobilise large sections of Muslims on polling
day. This support has been built on the strength of his no-holds-barred
opposition to the BJP and his perceived advocacy of Muslim interests. Dating
back to his image as a doughty crusader against the Ram Janmabhoomi movement,
Mulayam even earned himself the sobriquet Maulana.
Yet this image has undeniably been
eroded in recent times. The Leftists and progressives who dominate the
chattering classes and exercise a disproportionate influence in the media,
have never forgiven Mulayam for his stubborn refusal to support Sonia Gandhi
as prime minister in 1999, after A B Vajpayee was brought down by a single
vote. Their impatience with Mulayam has increased with his continuing refusal
to ally with Sonia for the coming general election. Desperate to secure
the removal of Vajpayee and the NDA, it is the country's ultra-secularists
who have also put out the whisper that Mulayam has entered into a secret
understanding with the BJP. The intensity of the whispers has grown with
Mulayam becoming the darling of Mumbai's big businesses and simultaneously
wooing the Hindu middle classes.
There is a marked difference between
the secular politics of today's Mulayam and the secular activism practiced
by him a decade ago. The secularists sought to destroy the new Mulayam
and chipped away at his Muslim base with their whisper campaign. A nervous
CM sent the signal last Thursday that he can still be counted on to take
up Muslim causes.
Tragically, secularist politicians
have always chosen the route of separatist appeasement to court the Muslim
vote. Whether it is the Muslim personal laws or the bans on books by Salman
Rushdie or Tasleema Nasreen, secularists have always appealed to Muslims
as a religious community. They have either played on Muslim fears or pandered
to its most regressive sections.
Either way they have encouraged
the Muslim community to believe that their political clout lies in sticking
steadfast to the ghettos and wearing the badge of separateness. It is one
of the monumental contributions of secularist politics that Muslim self-interest
has been tied, not to better roads, better living conditions and better
education, but to the triple talaq, to beef and to holidays on Friday -
an agenda promoted to keep Muslims apart, backward and frightened.
Mulayam succumbed to this agenda
because this is the only path familiar to secularists. The onus is now
on the Muslims itself to show there is an alternative to secular fundamentalism.
