Modi and Muslims

M K Dhar
After declaring himself as India’s next Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi behaves like a one-man Army capable of turning the country around all by himself. He has also convinced himself that he is the most popular leader ‘of the minorities and will win their votes in his favour. The RSS, which projected him over the heads of other hopefuls in the BJP, is boosting his morale by sending to his public meetings hundreds of people donning skullcaps and burqas supplied to them. It is also spreading rumours that the Third Front protagonists are already in panic and Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and others will support him for Prime Minister lost when it comes to numbers!
Mr Modi tries to project himself as a Backward when it suits him, an ardent Hindutva proponent when appealing to the Hindu upper castes and a great achiever and facilitator when it comes to firming up support of the corporate, which have come to believe that they will get incredible concessions and opportunities to expand their empires under his leadership and have loosened their purse string to ensure a steady flow of cash for his campaigning. Having eliminated all his rivals in the BJP, with RSS support, he is concentrating on self projection, discreetly distancing himself from the BJP whose governance record does not have much to speak about.
Even the hidden traits in him are gradually coming into full public view. He is made to believe that the country needs an authoritarian leader and will overwhelmingly vote for him because he will demolish all barriers to development and make every Indian rich fast. Without a day’s experience of governance at the Centre, he thinks he is eminently qualified for the post after decimating all opposition by whatever means. As the bulk of the BJP rank and file sulks, some of his corporate-backed supporters and vested interests beat his drum to announce that he alone can usher in Ram Rajya. Party veterans like L.K.Advani are gradually giving up the effort to save their souls and succumbing to the herd complex. Not only are they afraid to speak what they feel, they dutifully bow to him, heeding the RSS warning that all dissenters will be severely punished, regardless of their standing.
His governance record is confined to just one state which was already industrialised before he arrived on the scene, but he makes bold to take credit for all the progress made by Gujarat since Independence. Some other Chief Ministers, including those from the BJP have better records in more difficult conditions of poverty and backwardness, but he refuses to believe it. He indulges in vituperative and most personal attacks on leaders in the Congress Party and misrepresents facts to suit his purpose. Having been branded a divisive leader, he now tries to correct his image with full knowledge that a better-than-expected performance of the BJP depends on how he confronts the twin challenges: try to win over Muslims without diluting his Hindustva agenda and to lure back the erstwhile NDA constituents which walked out of the fold after the alliance lost power at the Centre following communal riots in Gujarat.
Team Modi has planned a series of rallies across the states with sizeable Muslim populations, upstaging the Congress in the election campaign to woo the minorities, arguing that his insistence on being a nationalist should not be branded as communal. He gets himself photographed receiving birthday greetings from a group of persons donning skull caps and burqas to prove that he is very popular with the Muslims who whole-heartedly support him.
Parties opposed to the BJP have alleged that part of the RSS’s secret strategy is to foment communal riots in areas where Muslims form a sizeable section of the population in order to demolish the pro-Muslim image of the parties ruling these states and also take the frightened minorities into its fold as guarantor of their safety and security. The campaign has started with Muzaffarnagar in UP and will spread to other districts and non-BJP ruled states. In Muzaffarnagar, the BJP is trying to woo the Jats, who constitute 17 per cent of the population in 12 western UP districts electing 18 members to the Lok Sabha. Muslims constitute 33 per cent of the population in this area and had won 26 of the 77 Assembly constituencies in the 2012 elections. A Jat-Muslim combination has always helped the Rashtriya Lok Dal win a major portion of these seats, but Bahujan Samaj Party is also their favourite in uran areas where Jats are in small numbers and give a tough fight to the BJP.
The Samajwadi Party is also trying to make inroads in the area while fiercely protecting its Muslim vote base in other parts of UP. A Government job for a family, free treatment, adequate monetary compensation and funds to rebuild homes have already been promised for the riot victims, most of whom are Muslims. Team Modi thinks that Western UP is witnessing a sort of polarisation among the electorate triggered by the riots and that Jat dissatisfaction with the ruling party in the state and the Centre could change the electoral matrix in favour of the BJP, which did very poorly in the last Lok Sabha elections. It feels that erosion of Jats from the ranks of the RLD, SP and the Congress will lead to a split in the Jat-Muslim vote bank. Although the large social alliance of MAJGAR — Muslims, Ahirs, Jats, Gujjars and Yadavs — stitched together by the late Charan Singh got fragmented following the ascension Mulayam Singh and Mayawati, the recent riots have resulted in the collapse of the Jat-Muslim alliance in rural areas. But the trend is restricted to Western UP where OBCs and Yadav are in scanty numbers.
Visualising the best-care scenario, BJP leaders assert that upper castes and OBCs would stand by Modi in eastern and central UP. Even a section of the Scheduled Castes would vote for him. Uttar Pradesh is crucial for increasing the BJP’s tally in 2014, because it won just 9 seats in the 2009 elections, its worst performance in decades. But these hopes are questioned by BJP’s opponents who say Modi’s image builders may offer free skull caps and burqas to augment the minority components of gatherings at his public meetings but no Muslim, or indeed member of other minority communities will be fooled by such gestures. Most of the Muslims will pocket the freebies and vote according to their conscience Minorities would vote for a party which can check Mr Modi from becoming Prime Minister.

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