Muslims Are Made Sacrificial Lambs On The Altar Of Democracy In India
By
Syed Ali Mujtaba, New Age Islam
14 July
2023
It has
always been a complaint that where the Muslim population is more, their
population is shifted through the delimitation exercise to marginalize the
Muslim community of its electoral strength. This exercise is done through a
delimitation commission almost once in ten years to block Muslim representation
in the Parliament and state legislators in India.
Apart from
the shift of the population, the constituencies that have a Muslim majority
population are typically reserved for the Hindu Dalits to marginalize the
Muslim representation. As a result, such a constituency can never elect a
Muslim even if they are in the majority because there is no Dalit among the
Muslims in India.
When
Muslims are unable to become, MLAs and MPs then their voices are snuffed out
from the political process in the country. These are clever games played
against Muslims in the name of democracy in India. It is not difficult to guess
that those playing such games have a Hindu majoritarian mindset.
According
to the Census report, the population of Muslims in Karimganj (Telengana) is 56
percent and Dalits are 12 percent, but the seat is reserved for Dalits.
Similar is
the case of Nagina seat in Bijnor (UP) which has 43.04% Muslims, while the
number of Dalits is only 21%. Yet this seat is reserved for the Dalits. So is
the case of Gopalganj (Bihar) where Muslim population is more than 17 percent,
while Dalits here are only around 12 percent but this seat has been reserved
for Dalits.
In
Bulandshahr (UP), the population of Muslims is two percent more than that of
Dalits, but this is a Dalit-reserved seat.
The same is
the case of Kutch and Ahmedabad West constituencies which are Muslim majority
seats in Gujarat but reserved for the Dalits.
Bihar’s
Gopalganj, Telangana’s Karimganj, UP’s Nagina and Bulandshahr, Gujarat’s Kutch,
and Ahmedabad West are examples of six reserved seats for Dalits that have a
Muslim majority.
The idea of
reserving Muslim-dominated seats in the Dalit category is a clever game being
played by those in power. As a result, a large number of Muslims cannot reach
the Parliament or the state Legislature.
On the
contrary, in the constituencies where the population of Dalits is more, they
are put in the unreserved category. These constituencies are Aurangabad in
Bihar and Rae Bareli in UP. Aurangabad
has the largest number of Dalits but this seat is unreserved and any one can
contest. Similarly, Rae Bareli has 30 percent Dalit population but it is an
unreserved seat. Incidentally, this seat
is a pocket borough of the Gandhi family and at present, Sonia Gandhi is
elected from this seat as a Lok Sabah MP.
The Justice
Rajendra Sachar Committee constituted by the Central Government in 2005 and
later the report of the Ranganath Mishra Committee has recommended that
electoral seats for Muslims recommended to be reserved to increase their
presence in states and central legislature. It was also recommended that in the
seats where Dalit-Tribals and Muslims are in the majority, such seats should be
reserved for them. The Sachar Committee had also instructed to reserve Muslim
majority seats in the SC category through the delimitation election exercise.
However, even after many years of the Sachar Committee report’s
recommendations, the situation remains unchanged on the ground.
There are 9
Lok Sabha seats in Bengal, Assam, and Bihar where the Muslim population is more
than 50 percent but these seats are not reserved for Muslims.
In the
draft of the delimitation issued in Assam, the delimitation commission is being
accused of neglecting the Muslim majority seats. The Muslim community says that
if the delamination is implemented, then the political representation of
Muslims in the state will come down significantly. The population of Muslims in
Assam is more than 33 but there is little representation of the Muslims in the
legislature.
In Jammu
and Kashmir, recently, the delimitation commission recommended reserving 2
seats for the Kashmiri Pandits. There is
no reservation for Muslims on similar grounds.
The delimitation exercise done in Jammu Kashmir is done to give
supremacy to Hindu dominated region of Jammu over Muslim dominated region of
Kashmir.
The most
startling thing is that the Delimitation commission is a decision that cannot
be challenged in a court of law. It is clearly written in section 10(2) of the
Delimitation Act that the decision of the commission will be final. No court
can arbitrate the decision of the commission and that is binding.
In this
context, it would be apt to about the Muslims being rudderless in India. Since
independence, Muslim leaders who can voice the aspirations of the Muslim
community are not allowed to grow in India. They have been asked to do
managerial activities like fetching Muslim votes for the political parties but
do not speak on behalf of their community. It is left to the Hindu leadership
to speak on behalf of the Muslims. In this context, Mulayam Singh Yadav in UP
and Lalu Prasad Yadav in Bihar came to the center stage of politics as they
spoke on behalf of the Muslims of India.
As such
Muslim leadership was not nurtured among the secular elite of the country. It
was rather handed over to the Muslim clerics whose job is to do vote farming of
the Muslims and in lieu of getting protection from the ruling government.
This
vocabulary got changed by the BJP which invented the 80 vs 20 formula, where
Muslim votes do not matter at all in the electoral politics of India. In the BJP’s world view, Muslims or its
leadership have no political space in the country. The BJP can run the states
and the country on the basis of an 80 vs 20 formula sans Muslims. The BJP can
only tolerate Muslims as intermediaries who can fetch votes at the local level
without asking for any plum positions.
The BJP has
been successful in the marginalization of the old Muslim elite, cultivated by
the Congress since independence. It’s by sideling the Muslim elite, the
BJP saw to it that there is no one left
among the Muslims to negotiate or even to engage with them on behalf of the
Muslim community.
Meanwhile,
the BJP prop up the BC, OBC, Mahadalit, and Dalit converts from Hindu to Muslim
community and called them Pasmanda Muslims.
The saffron party is shedding crocodile tears for their underdevelopment
blaming the Muslim upper caste for pocketing all the benefits given by the
state to the Muslims
While they
are playing this vote game with the Muslims the BJP has not done the same with
the Hindu community. They have not tinkered with the Hindu upper caste elites
for the sake of the development of the lower caste group of the Hindu
community. This is a hypocritical game
played in India and there is no opposition to such mechanization of power politics.
In other
words, the BJP seeks that there is no conservation between the Hindu religious
faith and Islamic faith ever takes place. For all these reasons, a grand
bargain or even a thawing of relations between Muslims and the BJP appears to
be implausible. In such cases, it is harder for Muslims to get adjusted to the
new 80 vs 20 political paradigm
The
symptoms are obvious that democracy will be only for the majority community in
India where Muslims will not be treated as equal citizens. In such an eventuality,
what will be the status of Muslims' future in India? Muslims in India need to realize that what is
gone on their back is a sinister design to get them permanently marginalized in
their own country.
As things
stand, Muslims in India should be prepared to respond to such happenings. But
it appears that the Muslim community is in deep slumber dreaming of its
glorious past and harping on composite culture. It's high time Muslims take
stock of the situation and prepare to handle their future ahead or be prepared
for the worst.
------
Syed
Ali Mujtaba is a journalist based in Chennai.
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-politics/muslims-sacrificial-lambs-altar-democracy/d/130209
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism