Nepali Times

One fallout of the victory of the BJP-led NDA in India’s parliamentary elections will be to strengthen the orthodox brigade among the country’s Muslim minority, and push its secular-liberals on the backfoot.

The community will predictably stereotype the Hindus – that they are anti-Muslim, unable to overcome their primordial passion in voting for a party and its leader, Narendra Modi, whose agenda they suspect is to reduce them to second-class status.

Forgotten will be the overlapping layers an electoral verdict always comprises. The Muslims will not make allowance for the pull Modi’s media-manufactured development agenda had on the people, nor will they factor in the erosion of UPA’s credibility, not even that the NDA’s victory is based on a majority of less than 50 per cent of votes cast.

The BJP has underscored the possibility of reducing Muslim voters to irrelevance. Indeed, Muslims have been effectively disenfranchised: for the first time in India’s history, the Lok Sabha election has been won without their contribution.

For over 20 years, the BJP countered pressure from its cadre to build the Ram Temple in Ayodhya and implement the Uniform Civil Code (UCC). It claimed these two contentious issues had to be ejected from its agenda because of the demands of coalition politics. This election has buried the argument. The BJP hardliners will demand their leaders implement the two political projects forthwith.

This logic was pointed out to me in many phone calls within hours of the BJP’s incredible victory. The Muslims feel their bargaining power has been lost, that to come out to protest in the streets at a future date on, say, the Ram Temple issue will only enhance the Hindu consolidation.

Yet, they won’t willingly concede to the BJP’s demand. Perhaps the BJP leaders, particularly Narendra Modi, will tread cautiously. After all, except in Uttar Pradesh, voters supported the BJP for its development agenda. But the BJP’s footsoldiers are likely to interpret the results as a licence to flex their muscles. Within hours of the BJP winning a majority, there were already demands from them that Muslims relinquish claim to the land where the Babri Mosque stands.

Muslims know that the Congress lacks the vigour for street agitation. Its leaders are accustomed to controlling the levers of power, not riding the passion of streets. And so, Muslims will wonder who will stand for them now. Their nervousness will strengthen orthodox political elements within the community. They will mock liberals for bestowing faith in the idea that Hindus are religiously eclectic and tolerant.  By fanning their insecurity they will seek to strengthen their control over the community, frighten the young and educated about the bleak future ahead, hoping they would relinquish their search for alternative politics, even lifestyles. All this will lead to ghettoisation, of the mind and living space.

Which is why it is important to analyse the impact of the defeat of AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal on Muslims. Varanasi was a case-study of the circumstances in which the community could break free from the shackles of the politics of identity, and that old idea which demanded they vote in favour of those who could assure them security and safety.

Yes, they admired Kejriwal for displaying the audacity in confronting Modi head-on. What excited them was AAP’s political rhetoric of ushering clean and responsive governance. They believed that all other social groups, particularly the oppressed, could not but support the AAP’s idea of politics.

When I was in college, my history professor was fond of referring to the mutiny. “1857 was a turning point for India, but India failed to turn,” he liked to say.

The Varanasi experience may prompt Muslims to say: “We were willing to change, but not the Hindus.” Who is to tell them that shifts in social plates are never permanent? Who is to explain that old style Congress politics has led to the assertion of the Hindu right? You just hope their search for alternative politics never ends.

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