Atir Khan

On his way back from Chandigarh Shams Khawaja decided to take an unusual route. As he drove on a wet road through a village, he heard the azaan for the evening prayers.Realizing it was time to pray he stopped near a temple, came out of his car with jainamaz, and began unfolding it to offer his prayer on a chabutra near the temple. He heard a voice coming from inside the temple- “Stop…What are you doing, Mister?”  

“What’s the problem, should I not be offering my prayers here?” Shams said. The stranger came towards Shams, a Delhi-based Supreme Court lawyer in his late 50s.

He was the temple priest. “Follow me,” he said. The priest ushered Shams into his small room in the temple premises. “It rained today and the floor is wet. You should offer your namaaz here,” he said and left Shams to pray. 

You will find many such examples, which will make you rethink whether India is a country where communal hatred has taken deep roots. Such examples make the Indian Muslims realize why their ancestors choose not to go to Pakistan at the time of the partition. 

Muslim leaders in Independent India like Abul Kalam Azad were in politics to serve all Indians at large and not specifically the Muslims. They abstained from politics based on religion and perhaps, religion was the last priority in their politics. 

However, in the reactionary politics of today, there is a tendency among a section of Muslims to believe they would be better off if they have their political party- controlled and run either by a Muslim leader or support of those leaders who appear to be sympathetic to the Muslims. They believe that siding with such players will make them a stakeholder in the government, which will, in turn, give them a feeling of safety, and bargaining power to improve their condition.

That’s why several local Muslim leaders are growing in stature, regional political parties, which appear to be having soft corners for Muslims are trying to derive political mileage and make the most of the Muslim support.

Such forces only wish to win the elections based on the religion card. But by siding with such leaders and parties Muslims are not doing any good for their community. They are leading the community to a confrontationist path rather than getting them justice. 

The community must ask itself whether such people have any road map for their development. When you reflect on this you will realize that these leaders do not think beyond the communal divide for their political gains. 

Some of them are even puppets in the hands of bigger political forces. Playing in their hands will get Muslims nothing. 

The so-called secular parties that have ruled for decades saw Muslims as a vote bank and paid no attention to their real issues. Otherwise, their condition would not have been so bad. They have also added to the insecurity of Muslims. 

Islam teaches that Allah sustains the universe and not just only the Muslims. Even the concept of zakat in Islam doesn’t distinguish on religious grounds, it says if you see a needy person, then the Muslims are duty-bound to give them charity irrespective of the recipient's religion.Similarly supporting a political party merely on religious grounds is against the basic tenants of Islam. Abdul Samad, a Delhi-based educational technologist, and media analyst believes there was never a time and there is no time for promoting a political party with a Muslim identity. 

The divisive stand is anathema to Islamic principles and the essence of the Muslim concept of self, which is a very inclusive concept, which when practiced by the Prophet Mohammad himself led to the formation of the first secular state in Medina.

It became an inspiration and role model for ulemas and their faithful Muslim followers in India for a composite nation, their historic and revolutionary rejection of Jinnah’s two-nation theory.

S Y Qureshi, former Chief Election Commissioner of India has similar views. He says it is a bad idea for Muslims even to think of promoting a party on religious grounds. He says they should rather be part of a secular party. The idea of a political party with a Muslim identity is not doable in India. At the most such party would get 10-15 percent vote share but it cannot form a government on its own. 

Muslims should support able leaders within their community or those who inspire confidence in them. 

The main challenge of a leader is to think beyond playing upon the basic insecurity of Muslims and work on improving their education and economic conditions. 

The leader needs to be tactful in representing the genuine issues of Muslims amongst the conflict which arises due to the sharing of resources and opportunities. 

Indian Union Muslim League has been in existence ever since the country's Independence. Most of its office-bearers and financial contributors are Muslims. What good has the party done for the Indian Muslims? Though it is identified as a party of Muslims it has not been able to even expand beyond Kerala, let alone become a national party. There are lessons to be learned in this. Supporting a political party merely based on religion will not take Muslims anywhere.

Muslims should be choosing a leader, who stays on the course of their development. Such visionary leaders may lose the elections but sooner or later they will play a significant role in the development of the community. 

When leaders like Maulana Azad, Hafiz Mohd Ibrahim, and Maulana Hifzur Rehman were there the majority of Hindus never felt alienated by their Islamic principles of integrity, humanism, and secularism. 

We must take a cue from history. In the famous byelections of 1937, Hafiz Mohd Ibrahim of Congress defeated the Muslim league rival with a handsome margin in Bijnaur, UP, in a system of separate electorates under British rule. In this election, M A Jinnah campaigned and begged the electorate to vote for the community and reject the candidature of Hafiz Mohd Ibrahim, even when he was a good individual because in his eyes Muslims were a separate nation and that was more important. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan brought his red shirts to rally behind the call of Hafiz Mohd Ibrahim for a united India. When the results were declared, the Muslim League had received a drubbing as Hafiz Mohd Ibrahim romped home with a huge margin.

This particular election result reverberated in the House of Commons in the UK where it was debated that the Muslims of India were not solely behind the Muslim League for the division of the country as was being claimed. 

Hafiz Ibrahim’s cousin Maulana Hifzur-Rehman was a member of the Constituent Assembly, a colleague of Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel, and a partner in Mahatma Gandhi’s Dandi March. He registered his objection to the partition of the country by raising his hand against the AICC resolution on the division of India. 

Unfortunately, with the demise of such great leaders and the hijacking of their agendas by pseudo-secular political parties, the Hindu reaction took an ultra-right turn. The Muslim appeasement policies of Congress didn’t do any good either. Instead, such outreach only damaged the prospects of the party. Muslims need to stick their neck out and assert their dissociation with Pakistan’s founder Jinnah and his ideology. Why is the community being dragged in this binary by the political parties? Muslims’ needs are no different from that of the other Indians.

Asaduddin Owaisi of the AIMIM recently said he would take on UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in the election and would surely win. He explained that people must vote with their hearts (emotions) and not their minds. 

Today UP elections are being contested on religion and casteism. Muslims are told that ito feel safer they have to defeat BJP. The elections are being projected as decisive for the existence of Muslims in India. 

However, the idea of strategic Muslim voting is all failure.Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Congress, AAP have given tickets to many Muslims. Plus, Asaduddin Owaisi seems to be wielding influence in at least 40 seats where SP, BSP, or Congress could have won maybe with slender margins. As things stand, Muslim votes are bound to be divided, especially in the constituencies with more than one Muslim candidate. This is simply common sense. The writing is on the wall is that BJP is sure to have smooth sailing in the elections. However, BJP’s victory could set another dangerous line of thought - Muslim votes are insignificant and the party need not care for the community. 

However, the Muslim attitude towards their vote must change, and only then the political parties will respond meaningfully to their problems. Otherwise, they will only remain as vote banks.

Muslims need to lay emphasis on education and promote NGOs working in the field of education and allow them to penetrate the community so that at least the next generation will take informed decisions and vote sensibly and not impulsively. 

Also Read: Tablighi Jamaat will have to do a tightrope walk ahead

A good leader need not even win elections; he could work on areas that prove more useful for the community than those who push the Muslim on the path of confrontationist with others. Sir Syed Ahmed Khan is one such example; he never won an election and yet brought in a revolution in the education of the Muslim community. He had a vision; stuck to his conviction took on the orthodox elements and also worked with those in power to create favourable environment for his work.