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Business News/ Opinion / It’s tough being a Muslim in the time of elections
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It’s tough being a Muslim in the time of elections

Muslims in any constituency try to identify who among the non-BJP candidates is likely to secure them most non-Muslim votes

Muslim voters hold up their inked fingers after casting their vote for the Lok Sabha elections in Jehanabad on Thursday. Photo: PTI Premium
Muslim voters hold up their inked fingers after casting their vote for the Lok Sabha elections in Jehanabad on Thursday. Photo: PTI

Former journalist and social activist Ateeq Ansari, 57, has the swagger of a man who can nimbly slip out of one world to enter another. Dressed in denim trousers and a short-sleeved shirt, he has taken time out from campaigning in Varanasi’s labyrinthine locality of Pilli Kothi to profile the Muslim community to a journalist from Delhi. On coming across a gaggle of men, he abruptly turns to ask them: “Do you know what I like about Arvind Kejriwal?"

A dramatic pause later, Ansari says, “At Delhi’s Islamic Centre, Kejriwal was asked about his plans for Muslims." Once again, he pauses before saying, “Kejriwal said he has no plans for Muslims. He has plans only for aam aadmi, and a Muslim is aam aadmi. No politician has ever said that."

You can dismiss Ansari’s response as that of a man batting vigorously for his leader engaged in an epic battle with the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) Narendra Modi. Yet, you can’t but appreciate the transformative impact of democratic politics on popular consciousness when you hear Ansari say, “We Muslims always vote to defeat someone. Why don’t we develop the confidence to vote a candidate whom we wish to win?" Perhaps assuming his argument is lost on Varanasi’s legions of illiterate Muslim weavers, Ansari cites the example of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supporters: “When they first voted (for) their party, it won not a single seat. They voted for it again, the BSP won two, the third time it managed four. Thereafter, Mayawati became the chief minister thrice."

Ansari’s is an attempt to resolve the dilemma the Muslim community encounters countrywide. Apprehensive of the Sangh Parivar’s Hindutva politics, Muslims in any constituency try to identify who among the non-BJP candidates is likely to secure most non-Muslim votes, and then hoping to vote en bloc for him or her. In reality, though, Muslim consolidation behind one candidate is never complete, torn apart as the community is by political loyalties and personal affinities. More importantly, in the absence of any scientific surveys, it is impossible to judge in a large parliamentary constituency who the principal contender to the BJP’s candidate is. Patterns of voting can vary sharply between two areas of one constituency, conveying contrary impressions and eliciting contradictory voting responses, thereby fracturing the Muslim votes.

This dilemma has become acute among Varanasi’s Muslims, who recoil at the thought of Modi becoming prime minister. No doubt, Kejriwal has parachuted into the city to provide a spirited fight, but there is also Ajai Rai of the Congress, a local denizen, the announcement of whose candidature temporarily put a brake on the increasing Muslim consolidation behind Kejriwal. The reason? Since Rai, it is presumed, can attract Bhumihar votes, there are Muslims who believe their votes to him would substantially enhance his electoral fortunes. Over the six days I was in Varanasi last week, they speculated furiously about the percentage of Hindu votes Kejriwal could possibly muster, insisting in the same breath on their admiration for his audacity to challenge Modi in Gujarat.

But memory suddenly resurfaced to undermine the community’s mathematical certitudes. Last week, Rai toured the Muslim-dominated Madanpura, home to Haji Mukhtar Ahmad, the sardar (supremo) of 52 mohallas (neighbourhoods) of weavers. It is said he is sympathetic to the Congress, but to retain legitimacy a leader must appear non-partisan. Haji Mukhtar did the unexpected: he quizzed Rai about his alleged role in communally polarizing the 2009 elections. Rai denied it, but the Urdu daily Inquilab published the exchange verbatim, reopening old wounds and slowing his campaign overnight.

Rewind to 2009: pitted against the BJP’s Murli Manohar Joshi was Mukhtar Ansari, an underworld don who contested on the BSP ticket. Certain he would bag the Dalit votes, the Muslims rallied behind Ansari, turning out in large numbers on polling day. It prompted the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh to reportedly push out Hindu voters in the late afternoon to counter the possibility of “Mian (Muslim) winning". Rai, too, is alleged to have assisted in this reported counter-mobilization, largely because of his rivalry with Ansari, who is accused of killing Rai’s brother. A sudden surge of Hindu voters enabled Joshi to squeeze through, just about everyone, Hindu or Muslim, in Varanasi believes.

You’d think Muslims would be unforgiving of Rai, as they are of Modi. But the narrative is complicated, in contrast to the stereotypes spun about the community. They say Rai could fade away soon, for he simply lacks the stature to take on Modi. “But then, in case Muslims feel Kejriwal too can’t give a fight to Modi, then quite a few might vote (for) Rai. He comes to our weddings, consoles us in our grief. They would say, ‘why spoil our relationship with Rai’," said Wajuddin Ansari, a member of the kabina (cabinet) of Sardar Hashim, who heads a group of 12 mohallas.

Sardars, cabinet, mohallas? These social institutions date back nearly 300-400 years, created to administer weavers who lived in contiguous pockets in different parts of the city. As of now, Muslim voters are variously estimated to be a little over 300,000, of which 75% are weavers. There are principally three groups of 12, 18 and 22 mohallas, each headed by a sardar whose office is hereditary. At the apex is the sardar of 52 mohallas (12+18+22), styled as the final court of appeal. You also hear of a sardar of 34 mohallas, whose jurisdiction overlaps that of the sardars of 12 and 22. In addition, the weavers who migrated from Mau town, in Uttar Pradesh, to Varanasi have their own order, which is riven with factions. Those living in a sardar’s jurisdiction bring to him problems pertaining to family, craft and religion, and whose attempt at resolution involves discussions with his cabinet. Earlier, defiance of the sardar’s verdict could trigger punitive action such as social boycott.

Post-independence, the advent of democracy devolved on the sardars the responsibility of determining which among the parties is best suited for weavers, whether for reasons of trade, religion or social issues. Typically, the sardars seek to reach consensus on the party deserving of their votes, but they refrain from proclaiming it publicly to ensure they are not seen as partisan. Instead, their “tilt" is conveyed through their respective cabinet members.

The deepening of democracy, exposure to mass media and emphasis on the individual over group have diminished the sardar’s formidable clout. Sardar Hashim says his decision on voting would be acceptable to a maximum 20% of his followers. But 20% of 250,000 Muslim votes (on the electoral rolls, the population is higher) matters immensely to parties in a fragmented polity.

Certainly, nobody wants to incur the wrath of the sardars, for they have intermittently demonstrated their capacity to mobilize people on religious and industrial issues. For instance, in 2002, weavers struck work in protest against high excise duties. Again, in 2012, the sardars organized a massive protest against the controversial 14-minute video, Innocence of Muslims, uploaded on YouTube.

In this world of weavers, Ateeq Ansari is networked. He and others persuaded the sardars to organize a massive public meeting in 2008 to condemn terrorism, but also to warn the state against booking Muslims on trumped-up charges. Call it the modernization of medieval social structures. Yet, their transformation could have been even deeper had the BJP not stoked the community’s fears through its Hindutva politics, often expressed through the menacing tactics of Saffron foot soldiers.

It’s this paranoia of the BJP which will propel Varanasi’s Muslim notables to attempt, yet again, at consolidating the community votes. Among them would most likely be lawyer Jahangir Alam, 67, who bemoans the decline of socialism and secularism, the lost glory of Muslim culture, which he fears is threatened with assimilation. Sitting in Alam’s drawing room, I tossed at him Ansari’s proposition that Muslims should vote to win. “I have always wanted a Muslim party," Alam responded, his description of such an outfit suggesting a BSP variant which could mobilize lower classes-castes, but have as its leader a Muslim.

There are other aspects of Muslim heterogeneity. For instance, an influential cleric of Varanasi harps on the implausibility of uniting Muslims, divided as they are into sects and adhering to different schools of Islamic thought. “If Barelvis go one way, the Deobandis will go in another direction," he chuckled. Interestingly, one sardar of weavers expressed his disdain of clerics playing politics.

Over the decades, a change in the Muslim voting pattern is palpable. As Inquilab editor Salman Raghib said, “The older generation still votes the Congress for the Lok Sabha election. The younger generation is flexible, changing its decision last minute, often in favour of state-based parties, to defeat the BJP."

Before checking out of Varanasi, I asked a Muslim woman who works as a hotel receptionist whether she took the opinion of community leaders or family elders before deciding on her vote. “I discuss with my friends. We think Modi is good, Kejriwal is good. But I will vote Kejriwal." Why? “He isn’t a fake," she replied.

But then, it is possible you would dismiss her positive voting attitude to claim she is merely articulating her anti-BJP sentiment in an idiom rationally appealing to a Delhi journalist.

Isn’t it tough being Muslim in the time of elections?

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Published: 22 Apr 2014, 01:58 PM IST
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