Look beyond Asaduddin Owaisi’s Beard and Skullcap
By
Nizam Pasha
December
22, 2020
There has
been much disquiet in the “liberal” circles over Asaduddin Owaisi’s rise in
national politics as the face of India’s Muslims. There is great indignation
over how he is cutting the Congress-Mahagathbandhan vote share and directly
benefitting the Sangh Parivar.
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Also Read: Sultan Shahin, Not Owaisi, Represents
India’s Muslims
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Writing
about the Congress’s landslide victory in the 1937 provincial elections in
Bihar, Maulana Azad in his book India Wins Freedom wrote that the general
secretary of the AICC, Syed Mehmud, was the natural candidate for the position
of chief minister of the first autonomous provincial government in Bihar. But
voices within the Congress, led by Rajendra Prasad, felt that a Muslim chief
minister would alienate the majority and so Krishna Sinha was called from the
Upper House of the Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi and groomed for chief
ministership: “One has to admit with regret that the nationalism of the
Congress had not then reached a stage where it could ignore communal
considerations and select leaders based on merit without regard to majority and
minority.” This extract was part of the portions that Maulana Azad had left out
of the original text of his book and willed that they be released 30 years
after his death, as he felt India was not yet ready for it when he was writing.
Azad died in 1958, and these portions were released in a revised edition only
after a court order in 1988. Maulana Azad, however, made a gross error of
judgement in his assessment. India would still not be ready for this insight 30
years after his death.
Eighty-three
years after the election of the first autonomous provincial government in
Bihar, nothing seems to have changed. While a Muslim chief minister is no
longer even a distant dream, the “secular” intellectuals of our country are now
complaining that Owaisi even contesting the elections in Bihar led to the
polarisation of the electorate. It is a strange animal, this electorate of
their imagination. It was not polarised by the demolition of the Babri Masjid
or by the riots in Mumbai and elsewhere that followed, nor by the riots in
Gujarat in 2002 or North-East Delhi in February 2020. The electorate is not polarised
by mob lynchings of Muslims on the suspicion of cow slaughter, or by the
attempts in the shape of legislation passed by both Houses of Parliament to
make religion a ground for granting citizenship, nor by a law in Uttar Pradesh
that effectively criminalises marriages between Muslims and non-Muslims. The
electorate of their imagination only gets polarised when a Muslim with a beard
and a skullcap contests an election.
The
indignant and entitled expectation is that the least a Muslim can do to help
“us” defeat the saffron juggernaut is to not have political ambitions of his or
her own. Owaisi’s stated belief is that the parties that claim to be secular
have failed to adequately represent Muslim interests since Independence. In
this belief, he may be right or be wrong. But what cannot be denied is that
this is a moment of introspection where inclusive politics needs to reinvent
itself and try to understand where it has failed. We all hope that something
more meaningful, more inclusive and more lasting will emerge from this
introspection. But those who do not have any solution of their own to offer are
still convinced that the alternative Owaisi suggests, that of a Muslim party
representing Muslims, is not the right one. As it is, the sad reality of this country
is that despite being a London-educated barrister and experienced politician
having the right politics and speaking the language only of nationalism and
inclusion, Owaisi can never come to represent Indians at large.
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Also Read: Left-Cong Combine, Not AIMIM, Will Play the Role of
Vote-Cutters in Bengal Assembly Elections
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His
best-case scenario will always be to represent Muslims, not because he is a
bigot of any colour, but because he is too Muslim. And yet, the expectation
from him is to leave aside his political ambition and let others more qualified
to represent the larger national interest (read someone, anyone, who is not Muslim)
lead us in this battle against right-wing nationalism. Owaisi may have managed
the feat of obtaining a foothold in the legislative assemblies of four states
and taken the AIMIM from the status of a regional to a national party in just
two years, something Kejriwal has been aspiring to do but is nowhere near
achieving for AAP, but he is still looked upon simply as someone cutting into
the anti-BJP vote share.
Oddly
enough, the solution that occurs to everyone is that Owaisi should gracefully
fade into the background and let the Mahagathbandhan fight the battle for the
secular soul of India. The option of letting a Muslim represent Muslims and
giving him a seat at the Mahagathbandhan table instead of whining about his
taking away from their vote share does not seem to have occurred to anyone.
Depending upon the viewpoint from which you approach the question, Owaisi is
cutting into the Mahagathbandhan’s vote share or the Mahagathbandhan is cutting
into Owaisi’s vote share by not inviting him to the alliance and instead of
fielding its candidates against him in the few constituencies he chooses to
fight in.
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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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The truth
is that the “liberal” world is no less wary of beards and skullcaps than the
Sangh Parivar. Liberalism was born in Europe as a movement against the temporal
power of the Church and it still hasn’t found its peace and balance with
religion. There is a big difference between being religious and being communal.
We need to understand that Yogi Adityanath’s failing is not that he wears
saffron, it is his exclusionary policies. And likewise, we need to look beyond
Asad Owaisi’s beard and skullcap at his politics before we decide if he is
liberal enough for our tastes.
Meanwhile,
the alternatives presented to the Muslims of India is to either let the tide of
communalism wash them away or to please step back and let others fight on their
behalf. As another Asad, Asadullah Khan Ghalib said:
Gham-E-Hasti
Ka ‘Asad’ Kis Se Ho Juz Marg Ilaaj/
Shamma
Har Rang Me Jalti Hai Sahar Hone Tak
(There is
no cure for the sorrow that is your existence, Asad
like a
lamp, you are destined to burn in every circumstance until dawn appears.)
-----
Nizam
Pasha is a Delhi-based lawyer
Original
Headline: The myth of Owaisi’s polarisation
Source: The Indian Express
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-politics/look-asaduddin-owaisi’s-beard-skullcap/d/123850
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