By Sushil Kutty
With the Winter Session of Parliament due to begin its session on November 25, there is mounting panic in secular parties and in the Muslim community, which never votes for the BJP. Today, 78 years after India’s independence, Muslims are afraid they’re losing their special status and it galls them no end. It makes them feel unwanted, it angers them that the secular parties aren’t able to defeat the “communal” BJP and send Prime Minister Narendra Modi packing.
Top of that, there is a monk driving them nuts with Islamophobic slogans that sound great to Hindu ears. Today, there is consolidation of Hindu votes. And there is talk against “Vote-Jihad”. There is also talk about “Dharma yuddha”. And AIMIM Chief Asaduddin Owaisi has gotten into a flap with Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.
Owaisi told Fadnavis that his (Owaisi’s) ancestors did ‘Jihad’ against Britishers and Fadnavis returned the compliment, saying he didn’t want to talk to ‘Razakars’ and Owaisi bragging that nobody, neither Prime Minister Narendra Modi nor Amit Shah or Fadnavis can defeat him in a debate!
The truth is, the Hindu-Muslim debate is in full swing as Maharashtra is set to vote and everybody has a stake. What’s more, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister has roiled the election waters with his slogan ‘Batenge toh katenge’, which had rolled across Maharashtra and Jharkhand after making a killing in Punjab. The Yogi’s slogan is incendiary to the Opposition and Muslims while it’s an unalloyed attraction to the “Hindu votebank”.
Leaders are losing control over their tongues and some are even challenging law and order in the country with inflammatory speeches with dialogues ranging from the deranged to the completely out of control. For Muslims, more than ‘Batenge toh katenge’, the clear and present danger is the Waqf Board Amendment Bill 2024.
‘Batenge toh katenge’ cannot break Muslim vote consolidation, but what to do with the Waqf Board Amendment Bill? Muslim leaders are increasingly losing control as the date for the Winter Session of Parliament approaches. The Modi government is bent on picking up the Bill all over again. And chances are the Bill will be passed. Muslims dread the moment.
Like Muslim leader Tauqeer Raza who told a congregation of Muslim leaders and their followers gathered in Jaipur that those out to cut Muslims to size did not know the “power of Muslim youth.” Raza, who is used to losing control over his tongue, was unstoppable as he went on a rant against the Modi government for even thinking of amending the Waqf Board Act.
The Muslim meeting asked Muslims to be ready for a march on Delhi. “I can barely control my boys,” Raza said as fellow Muslim leaders and Muslim organizations let off steam speculating about the changes being sought in the Waqf Board to “target Muslim properties.” A section of Muslims were agitated that non-Muslims would be inducted into Waqf boards.
The bill would legitimize the dispossession of Muslims from their lands and could lead to non-Muslims overseeing Waqf boards. The Waqf Amendment Bill 2024 threatens Muslim properties across India. Saharanpur’s Congress MP and JPC member, Imran Masood, said that Muslims would lose their properties—such as mosques, shrines, and Idgahs. Masood called it a “design to make Muslims landless.”
Among the Muslim organizations that landed up in Jaipur were Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, Milli Council of India and All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), which warned that Muslim protests would escalate if the Bill was not withdrawn. The AIMPLB labelled the Bill a direct assault on Muslims and has been orchestrated by the BJP.
The Modi government forgets that Muslims living in India have a superiority complex, which makes it hard for them to accept diktats such as the Waqf Amendment Bill 2024, especially if such Acts threaten the Muslim stake in India. One of the leaders at the Muslim meet warned that the Muslim population was growing and Prime Minister Narendra Modi shouldn’t forget this!
The crux of the matter is, Muslims have woken up, both to their strengths and to their weaknesses as well. Before 2014, they were not in a hurry. But with Modi covering the distance between Gandhinagar and New Delhi in 2014 and then consolidating the BJP’s hold on power in 2019, Muslims have been living in constant fear of losing the momentum, which hadn’t ebbed in more than 60 years of secular-Hindu rule over them.
Muslims of India have always lived on “special offerings”, such as the Places of Worship Act, the Waqf Board Act and other concessions made especially for Muslims. The BJP called it the “Minority Appeasement” of the Congress and used it as a plank to win elections but the Congress refused to stop its so-called minority appeasement.
Not when the BJP did its own version of “Muslim appeasement”. The Congress feels as threatened as the Muslims living under Modi rule. Today, unseating Modi has become the top priority of both the Congress and the Muslim vote banks of secular parties. The Waqf Amendment Bill 2024 and Yogi Adityanath’s ‘Batenge toh katenge’ have joined forces to aid Modi’s “designs.”
The Waqf Amendment Bill 2024 and the Yogi’s ‘Batenge toh katenge’ slogan have become the biggest challenges for secular political parties in general and to Muslims in particular. The BJP’s Punjab victory was the final straw on the camel’s back for both secular parties and to the Muslims.
Now, there is a demand for Muslim-specific guarantees. Muslims have allegedly struck a deal with the Maha Vikas Aghadi. The All India Ulema Board has written to the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party, placing 17 demands before the MVA. Nobody should be surprised, least of all the Congress and the NCP (Sharad Pawar). Top of the 17 demands are 10% reservation in jobs and education for Muslims; rollback of the Waqf Amendment Bill, 2024; ban on the RSS; a Rs 1000 crore corpus for the Maharashtra State Waqf Board.
For the 17 demands to fructify the MVA has to win and there lies the rub. Several of the demands can be fulfilled only if the Opposition comes to power at the Centre. For that to happen, both TDP and JD(U) should withdraw support to the Modi government. For that to happen, the Muslim vote-banks of TDP and JD(U) should succeed in convincing both these parties to fall in line.
Important thing is, the Muslim vote-banks of secular parties have come out in the open and are asserting their authority. They were destined to take their destiny into their own hands at some point of time, but they’ve been forced to advance the date. They apprehend that there is a concerted move to change the character of the Muslim identity in a country they claimed they chose over a decidedly Islamic nation; for which they crave special rights. (IPA Service)
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