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The UP Assembly elections results (Feb 2012) gave a clear mandate
to the Samajvadi Party of Mulayam Singh. Congress was claiming
that the results of UP will be a shocker, meaning a surprisingly
better performance of Congress. As results came through Congress
was nowhere close the claims it made or the results it expected
were nowhere close to the expectation. Prior to the elections the
main leaders of UP Congress with Rahul Gandhi in the lead,
campaigned vigorously. The carrot of reservations for Muslims was
dangled and the Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s tears on Batla
house encounter were on display, but it seems the Muslim voters in
particular were not impressed. So far Congress had a very safe
equation with the Muslim voters, also called ‘Muslim vote bank’ by
its critics. The understanding was that since Muslims know that
communal BJP is not the option where will they go except voting
for the ‘secular’ Congress.
Where do matters stand? It is true that large section of Muslims
realize the BJP can never be the option for Muslims as BJP is the
epitome of Communal politics, it is the political child of RSS,
which is working for the agenda of Hindu Rashtra through its
multiple progeny like VHP, Bajrang Dal, Vanvasis Kalyan Ashram and
myriad other organizations. In communal violence while the
Congress has played despicable role in anti Sikh riots of 1984, it
has also been the mute witness to the series of anti Muslim riots
and pogrom against Muslims. The justice to the victims of violence
has not been actively pursued by the Congress, wherever it has
been the ruling formation, Mumbai violence of 1992-93 being the
worst example of ignoring and marginalizing the victims of
carnage.
The Muslims have also suffered at the hands of Congress
ruled Governments in the aftermath of acts of terror, particularly
those of Mecca Masjid, Malegaon, Ajmer and Samjhauta express
blasts. In the aftermath of the blasts Muslim youth were arrested,
tortured, their carriers as young men crushed and later they
released for the lack of any credible evidence whatsoever.
Still despite all these lapses Muslim community has realized that
Congress is a lesser evil, more particularly after the Gujarat
anti Muslim pogrom under the leadership of Narendra Modi, where
the transformation of a democratic set up to a semi fascist Hindu
rashtra is more than visible. They have also seen that the real
culprits of bomb blasts mentioned above belonged to the RSS
pantheon, for which BJP made all the efforts to shield them.
This distinction between Congress and BJP seems to be more or less
clear and when one reflects on the acts of commission and omission
of NDA Government at the centre between 1998 and 2004. Having kept
aside the BJP as an electoral option what happens to Congress
claim to be a secular party or the one committed to interests of
minorities. There is a mixed bag here. On one side Congress has
instituted Sachar Committee and Rangnath Misra Commission, which
have given the true picture of the plight of Muslims.
At the same
time the implementation of the recommendations of these reports is
too slow, if at all. The intimidated Muslim minority is looking
for policies which can lift it up from the stifling atmosphere of
ghettoes in which they have been forced to live due to the massive
communal violence and the preceding and accompanying demonization
of the community in the social space. A large section of community
wants quotas, but putting it as an electoral promise cannot fool
the community, which is seeing the dismal fate of Sachar Committee
and Rangnath Misra Commission.
The Batla House encounter, the refusal of the UPA II Government to
institute a proper inquiry into it and the accompanying
demonization of Muslim youth was a big blow to the community which
is struggling against odds to come out of ghettoization and wishes
to embrace modern education and take advantage of opportunities to
the best of its capabilities, which at present are not adequate to
pull it out of the morass in which it is trapped. This Batla House
encounter and the negative attitude of the Congress for a proper
inquiry committee showed that Congress does not have courage to
take up the issue of security of Muslims in the right earnest.
Mere tears don’t protect you. The event in the neighboring
Rajasthan, where the police entered the mosque and opened the fire
to kill those inside was also something which cannot be pardoned
at all.
Congress seems be a mixed platform and a pragmatic party as far as
the principles of secularism are concerned. It will go this far
and refuse to take the decisive steps for principled
democratic-secular values. One knows that the state apparatus has
also been heavily communalized and it takes a strong will power to
take up principled secular stand and to live up to that. In UP it
seems the Muslim voters had the choice between Mulayam Singh and
Congress. Mulayam had also temporarily allied with Kalyan Singh,
who had presided over the demolition of Babri mosque, but that was
a brief alliance. Riots in Mau and other places had erupted during
the Mulayam regime. Here surely Mulayam must have sounded like the
lesser evil vis a vis BJP or Congress.
Is this the same Congress, which had the glorious tradition of
Mahatma Gandhi and Pundit Nehru, who staked their all for
preservation of secular values? With the present dithering
attitude of the Congress leadership such claims are nowhere close
to acceptable. Many a Congress youth are also much communalized.
One does not know whether this grand old party, is making its
workers know about what secularism is, what is the truth behind
the prevalent biases against minorities; how Gandhi (Mohandas) had
ensured the Hindu-Muslim unity by staking his life and how
Jawaharlal stood like a rock supporting the edifice of plural
values. A party is made by the workers and their mindset. While
leadership dithers on such issues the workers, by and large have
no clue as to how to take up the issues of Muslim minorities,
battered by the onslaught of communal violence and communal
politics.
UP Assembly election results apart
from other things are a pointer for the party to take up the
legacy of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, if it wants to make
a positive contribution to Indian democracy.
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