Asaduddin Owaisi’s Attempts to Organise Muslims Electorally, May Lead to a National Disorientation and Gradual Disaster
By
Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd
December
14, 2020
The All
India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) leader Asaduddin Owaisi is poised to
become a national leader of the Muslim community. Apart from Hyderabad, his
electoral base has now spread to Maharashtra and Bihar, where the AIMIM has won
both assembly and municipal seats. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, AIMIM won a
seat in Maharashtra, apart from Hyderabad. The rise of AIMIM is in the backdrop
of the RSS and the BJP’s politics, which has been steadily isolating the Muslim
community in India. According to the 2011 census, Muslims constitute 14.2 per
cent of the Indian population. In certain urban pockets, AIMIM could win seats
on its own, if the Muslims vote as a bloc.
Asaduddin Owaisi
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Asaduddin’s
father, Salahuddin Owaisi (1931-2008), was also an MP, representing Hyderabad
constituency, but he was not a modern Muslim leader with a national image. But
Asaduddin Owaisi is educated in England, and trained as a barrister, with a
deep conviction that democracy is a necessary political system for Muslim
well-being in India. He broke away from the UPA in 2012, which gave a boost to
his national ambitions. It also turned him into a Muslim face that the BJP/RSS
has constantly attacked and targeted.
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Also Read: Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM Plays Spoilsport By Making A Dent
Into Muslim Votes In Bihar Elections
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AIMIM’s
spread has serious implications for the BJP and Congress. His success in
carving out a Muslim constituency will benefit the BJP and bleed the Congress.
If Muslims move away from the Congress, the BJP’s winning possibilities in
every state will increase. Some of the regional parties like the Samajwadi
Party and the RJD also stand to lose. So Owaisi’s rise as a visibly Muslim
leader is as much BJP’s need as the AIMIM’s.
However,
this may have another implication for Muslim life in India. Since a large chunk
of the Muslim populace is concentrated in urban areas, their political
organisational mobilities will increase and a religious-ideological leadership
will emerge. By and large, Muslim masses are also unhappy with secularism,
which traps them in a majority-minority discourse in which their Muslim
identity is lost.
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Also
Read: Sultan Shahin, Not Owaisi, Represents India’s Muslims
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The old
slogan of SC/ST/OBC minority unity is also likely to go for a toss now. Though
he talks about Dalit-Muslim unity, Owaisi has no language to address the
Shudras or OBCs. The RSS-BJP combine wants to expand their base in a state like
Telangana by militantly opposing Owaisi. They made inroads in the Hyderabad
city by mainly mobilising OBCs against Muslims, as is clear in the recent
municipal elections — a politics that they will now take to rural Telangana.
Since AIMIM has a history of asking for an independent Nizam state (what they
called South Pakistan during Kasim Razvi’s Razakar movement in the 1940s),
Hindutva forces conveniently labelled the old city as Pakistan and Owaisi its
Jinnah.
In many
cities with a significant Muslim population, as in Hyderabad, the Shudra/OBC
population have no intimate relations with Muslims. The OBCs are meat-eaters,
but many do not consume beef. The RSS/BJP networks want to use these
differences and organise Shudra/OBC masses against Muslims. Owaisi’s entry into
caste language is recent and his more militant brother treats all OBCs as
Hindus.
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In fact, no
Muslim leader and intellectual has studied the fault line of caste adequately.
Their focus has always been the Hindu-Muslim divide. Their understanding of
caste contradictions is limited to Alberuni’s Al-Hind. But India has had too
long a history of caste oppression from the days of the Vedic civilisation,
which predated the beginning of Muslim rule in the 11th century.
The
Hindutva nationalism forged by RSS-BJP has challenged the idea of secularism,
under which Muslim leaders had a place. Under Owaisi, the AIMIM, too, speaks a
Muslim nationalist language. Since Owaisi’s ancestors refused to leave
Hyderabad for Pakistan, the AIMIM leaders use their Indian-Muslim nationalism
as a weapon against the BJP-RSS’s attempt to brand Muslims as foreign or
Pakistani. That is also why Muslims across India may gravitate towards him. But
the RSS mode of targeting Muslims as the permanent enemy, and Owaisi’s attempts
to organise Muslims electorally, may lead to a national disorientation and
gradual disaster.
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Kancha
Ilaiah Shepherdis a political theorist, with an upcoming new book The Shudras —
Vision for a New Path co-edited with Karthik Raja Karuppusamy (Penguin)
Original
Headline: Asaduddin Owaisi’s success in carving out a Muslim constituency will
benefit BJP and bleed the Congress
Source: The Indian Express
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-politics/asaduddin-owaisi’s-attempts-organise-muslims/d/123750
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