Strategic
electoral politics by Muslims encouraging
Monday March 12, 2012 08:21:15 PM,
Kaleem Kawaja
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The basis of an equitable democracy
is that the various communities - ethnic and religious - get
representation in the political decision making process. In a
non-equitable democracy like India where intimidation and
influence peddling on the basis of religious and ethnic origin
often happens and is compounded by the fact that there are over a
dozen major linguistic and ethnic communities, a multiplicity of
castes and over half a dozen religious communities, it is
difficult to build an equitable, enlightened and secular
democracy.
More than any other community the Muslims who are at least 15% of
the population and who have significant concentration in about
half a dozen states have suffered much lack of representation in
the political process. Even as the lower caste HIndu OBC and Hindu
Dalit communities formed successful parties and ruled in north
India, Muslims with sizeable population in several states remained
as the vote bank of other parties who promised them only
protection from gory large scale violence. But these parties did
nothing more for Muslims and as in the last twenty years the
globalization of India's economy brought jobs and better standards
of living to other erstwhile backward communities, Muslims
remained in the lowest socioeconomic basket of the nation. The
Scahar Committee's well documented 2007 report laid it bare for
all to see.
Year after year the Muslim voters remained the vote banks of
otherwise secular parties and remained afraid of demanding
equitable development for their community. But starting in 2010
the Muslim voters in the four north Indian states of Assam, West
Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh where about 47% of the Muslims of
India live, adopted a pattern of strategic voting. In each state
depending on the situation, they decided which party was likely to
give them equitable treatment and voted for it. Other than BJP
that is a self- pronounced anti-Muslim party they are willing to
look at all parties.
Thus secular parties like Congress, Communists, Samajwadi party,
Bahujan Samaj party that had made a habit of loudly proclaiming
their Muslim-friendly credentials have been put to tests by Muslim
voters. Muslim voters have decided that neither any of them is
their messiah nor enemy; they each had to prove what they are for
Muslims. The election results in these four states in the last 18
months of 2010-2012 are an eye opener.
Assam: 31% Muslim population; 32 MLAs in the state Assembly of 126
or 25% representation
Bihar 15% Muslim population: 19 MLAs in the state Assembly of 203
or 10% representation
West Bengal: 25% Muslim population: 59 MLAs in the state Assembly
of 294 or 20%
UP: 18% of Muslim population: 69 MLAs in the Assembly of 402 or
17% representation
This proportion of Muslim MLAs in various states is in proportion
to their population in those states. And that is fair. Muslims of
India are not trying to demand excessive representation either in
politics or in socioeconomic arena. Just their fair share which
has been denied to them in the last 65 years. Let us hope that in
the 2014 parliament elections the number of Muslim MPs in Lok
Sabha will rise to about 70 to 75, about 15% - their proportion in
the population
In Assam Muslims were not reluctant to vote for Congress, but in
UP they favoured a better choice in SP. In West Bengal after
decades of promises only from the Communists Muslims were willing
to give a chance to Trinamool Congress. In Bihar after long years
of no development from Laloo's RJD they took a risk with Nitish
Kumar's JD. Muslims' voting pattern in four major states over the
last 18 months shows that they are not averse to any party (except
BJP) but in each case they make strategic decisions as to which
party to vote for.
In each of these states the various secular parties that earlier
gave tickets to only very few Muslim candidates despite their
significant numbers have now started giving their tickets to many
more Muslims and many more of them are now winning. Muslims want
their community represented by their own people; they are not
willing to accept the dictum that a secular Hindu is a good enough
representative of Muslims. Because they learned the hard way that
even for secular Hindus their own community came first and Muslims
were only second priority
The problem of just a few years ago when many Muslim candidates
and one Hindu candidate contested for the same seat resulting in
the Hindu candidate winning, largely did not happen in the above
cited election. The reason being that Muslim voters are now not
willing to vote for a non-viable candidate just because he/she is
a Muslim.
In all of these states the previously well entrenched parties lost
out since Muslim voters chose to assert themselves strategically.
A party claiming decades of secular credentials but very little
help in the socioeconomic development of the Muslims was relegated
to a lower preference.
However in all of these states it remains to be seen if this
larger number of Muslim MLAs will actually result in these MLAs
emphasizing with the bosses of their parties that they give
equitable attention to socioeconomic development in Muslim
communities at par with development in other communities.
Major parties like Congress that claim to be secular and equitable
need to rethink their basic operating methods. They need to turn
much more honest and sensitive to the critical needs of Muslims,
not just propaganda or playing communal promises. It will be their
actual record on ground not grandiose promises from scions of big
political families.
If Muslims continue to play such strategic electoral politics as
they have demonstrated in the last 18 months, they have nothing to
fear from BJP. They can force BJP to change its basic thinking and
policies or get reduced to a fringe party that they used to be.
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