The tradition to arrest Muslims is continuing. Nearly all the accused were freed for lack of evidence but only after spending a decade in jail.
#Indian national congress and muslim league series
The recent plight of the community started in the aftermath of 9/11 when thousands of Muslims boys were rounded up following a series of blasts in Indian cities. We need to note that the BJP was not in power in UP or nationally in 2013,” said Zafar.
I met women who were gang raped but their cases were not registered on time by the police. “In 2013, I went to Muzaffarnagar (in UP) where a massive riot took place, killing scores. Thus, AIMIM is attacked as a “B or C team” of the BJP or as a party “receiving financial benefits from the Hindu nationalists”, an allegation the party has denied.īut – perhaps for the first time – Muslims do not care as Professor Alam pointed out the reason is believed to be the failure of the secularists.Ību Zafar, a Delhi-based journalist, cited an example to illustrate why Muslims are making a beeline for Muslim parties. Such plans unnerved Congress or other regional parties as traditionally Muslim parties eat into the votes of the secular parties benefitting the Hindu right. Despite having a fractured alliance with another party, AIMIM cut the votes of secular-nationalists in the 2019 Maharashtra election, facilitating victory of Hindu right in about a dozen seats.īuoyed by his success, the chief of AIMIM, a Lincoln’s Inn-bred barrister Asaduddin Owaishi recently said that he “will fight in West Bengal, UP and every election in the country.” The blow was severe enough for Congress to negotiate with AIUDF in 2020.ĪIMIM, a party founded in 1927, bagged five seats recently in Bihar and steadily grew in Maharashtra. “Congress consistently undermined the AIUDF, pushing it to contest independently which resulted in BJP’s victory,” said an AIUDF insider. It cut Congress Party's vote share to ensure the BJP’s victory. The AIUDF in Assam, a state with nearly 35 percent Muslim votes, made a significant difference in 2016 elections as it emerged as the key party for the Bengali Muslims. Secular parties also replaced Muslim candidates,” Prof Alam said. “But yet the BJP continued to win, reducing relevance of Muslim votes as the society got deeply polarized. In 2019 too the BJP had no Muslim representative. The number of Muslim members in Indian Parliament dropped to 23 (4 percent), lowest since 1962, and the ruling party had no Muslim member in the Parliament. The BJP’s victory in the 2014 election changed that equation. The 200 million strong Indian Muslims – highest outside the Muslim majority countries – have largely voted for Indian National Congress or other secularist and centrist-nationalist parties to block the Hindu nationalists, led by the BJP. The demolition of historic Babri Mosque by Hindu nationalists in 1992 shaped the political discourse of India to an extent that secular parties became reluctant to embrace the country's Muslim minorities. Other than Muslim majority Kashmir, in five other provinces – Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Bihar – Muslim population is between 17 and 35 percent with a countrywide average of about 15 percent, making the Muslims an election influencer in pockets.
However IUML was “always a mainstream political party owing to Muslims’ access to resources in Kerala,” said Gauridasan Nair, a senior editor of Kerala. The key ones are Hyderabad based All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) and Assam based All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), a young cleric Abbas Siddiqui in West Bengal – who may join hands with AIMIM in 2021 Bengal provincial poll – and Indian Union of Muslim League (IUML) in Kerala. Muslims are voting for parties founded and run by the Muslims,” said Professor Alam, the head of political science department of Maulana Azad National Urdu University in Hyderabad.Ī series of provincial elections in India indicate rise of few predominantly Muslim parties since 2014 when Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stormed to power. “The fear about the Hindu nationalists is dissipating. Taking a deep breath Professor Afroz Alam, a political scientist, said “it was in the making and it has happened.”
They are now gravitating toward Muslim parties, even though it's helping the Hindu right. India's Muslims are fed up of being used as pawns for elections by secular parties like Congress.
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