'Anyone but Modi': Many Indian Muslims fear the worst

Adam PLOWRIGHT, Annie BANERJI | AFP

AYODHYA, India: Some recoil at his name, while others still refuse to acknowledge his popularity. India's Muslims have watched the rise of election frontrunner Narendra Modi anxiously and are now united in their wariness.
Many of the worshippers at the Jama Masjid Terhi Bazaar mosque in Ayodhya, a kilometer from India's most notorious religious flashpoint, were too young to remember the 1992 riots which left more than 2,000 people dead.
Not Mohammad Sageer, a teenager at the time of India's worst post-independence violence.
"What could be worse than seeing Muslims being beaten up, cut up and burned to death?" he said in front of the small blue-coloured mosque bathed in harsh midday sunshine.
The dispute in Ayodhya, which boiled over when zealots tore down a mosque believed to have been built over the birthplace of the Hindu god Ram, left deep scars but vaulted Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to national prominence.
The enduring sensitivity can be judged by the police presence today. Each visitor negotiates five layers of security as they proceed under caged walkways topped by razor wire to the shrine at the centre.
From watchtowers and gathered in groups, paramilitary police keep guard, automatic weapons at the ready.
It is a potent reminder of the consequences when religious tensions in one of the world's most diverse countries, bound together by a secular and liberal constitution, are given vent.
Now wrapped up in India's famously inert legal system, the once-explosive dispute over ownership of the site has cooled in litigation.
"But if the BJP comes to power with a full fledged majority, then the atmosphere will become a bit tense here," warned Sageer, now aged 36.
For long a central plank of its agenda, the BJP manifesto still contains a pledge to construct a Ram temple on the site of the old Babri Masjid mosque.
Although largely overlooked due to his association with a more recent religious conflagration — riots in his home state of Gujarat in 2002 -- Modi has links to this struggle too.
The 63-year-old, tipped to become prime minister after elections starting April 7, was an organiser in Gujarat for BJP leader L. K. Advani who began a nationwide march to demand a temple for Ram in 1990.
Biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay said it was a role which enabled Modi "to burst onto the national political stage" as the huge agitation galvanised public support for the temple.
"The Muslim community is anxious about Modi," said Mujibur Rehman of the Centre for Minority Studies at Delhi's Jamia Millia Islamia university.
"What scares Muslims is essentially that they are convinced that this is a person who doesn't have much respect for them, for their lives and for their future."
Modi's background, and his lack of outreach to religious minorities even during campaigning, gives them reasons for concern, Rehman said.
The strict vegetarian, who does yoga every day, joined a grassroots nationalist group as a boy, entered the BJP at a time of deteriorating inter-religious ties, and is tainted by the 2002 riots.
In that spasm of violence, more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, died.
Modi had just become chief minister of Gujarat at the time and has been repeatedly investigated — and never found guilty — over suspicions he did too little to prevent the bloodshed.
A woman he later appointed as a cabinet minister was jailed for life for orchestrating some of the worst of the killing.
When his aide Amit Shah called for a Ram temple in Ayodhya while visiting last July, some worried that the dispute's embers could be reignited.
"Not Modi. I wouldn't want to see someone like Modi in my lifetime," says Haji Mahboob Ahmad, head of the group defending the right of Muslims to worship at the contested site in Ayodhya. "Anyone but him."
During campaigning, Modi has presented himself as a moderate nationalist focused on economic development and good governance.
"For me my religion is 'nation first, India first'," he has told rallies, adding that the constitution was his "only holy book" and that toilets should come first, "temple later".
He also came as close as ever to apologising for the 2002 riots, saying he felt "grief" and "misery".
But his decision to contest a seat from the Hindu holy city of Varanasi was a reminder to supporters that he had not forgotten his roots.
And he has also spoken about how "75 percent of people" in India — meaning Hindus — have been ignored by the Congress party, in power for the last decade.
Muslims account for around 13 percent of India's population.
Any Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) agenda he might seek to project in power would likely be limited by the compulsions of coalition politics.
A BJP parliamentary majority is highly unlikely, although some supporters still dream of what it could lead to.
"If a Hindu party wins a majority of votes then we will ask that a law be passed by parliament to free Ram's birthplace and it be given to the Hindu community," Sharad Sharma from the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP, World Hindu Council) told AFP in Ayodhya.
Around him, stone carvers chiseled away at pieces of an under-construction Ram temple overseen by the VHP which many hope will one day take form on the site of the former mosque.

Topics: India AAP BJP Rahul Sonia Modi

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The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) finds that many odds are stacked against it as it prepares itself for the next general elections. Several party members and allies of its coalition — the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) — have already signaled their opposition to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi being nominated as their prime ministerial candidate. The BJP camp is now divided into two — those who favor Modi for the key position and those who are against him. The anti-Modi group in the party wants senior leader L.K. Advani to be in prime ministerial race. And this is just a tip of a complicated dilemma affecting the BJP.
Also, there is a growing realization in the party, even among its hard-core extremist elements, that the party cannot exploit its communal card any more for parliamentary elections.
Therefore, the party has delegated a few of its senior leaders to woo Muslim celebrities to party’s fold, according to some sources. As a matter of fact, the BJP has some Muslim faces, but their political appeal is confined to a just few constituencies. Muslim leaders who joined this party after having been removed from the Congress party are not expected to be of much help in increasing party’s fortune in parliamentary elections. Internally, the BJP views them as “spent bullets.”
Also, secular credentials of both Advani and Modi are severely damaged by their past record. Both of them are accused of having promoted communal politics that alienated the country’s secular and Muslim voters. Advani played a key role in raking up the Ayodhya issue, which led to demolition of Babri Masjid at Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, on Dec. 6, 1992. The demolition was accompanied by nation-wide riots. The BJP’s commitment to build a temple at the controversial and disputed site in Ayodhya helped it gain politically and emerge as an important national party. However, when the party was confronted with the problem of seeking support of secular parties to lead a coalition government at the center, it had no other option but to remain silent on this communal issue.
The BJP, which won only two seats to Lok Sabha in 1984 elections, definitely came a long way in less than two decades. Yet, the party was not able to form the government on its own strength, because of which the first BJP government with Atal Behari Vajpayee as its prime minister lasted only for 13 days (May 16-31, 1996). Subsequently, for a brief period, Indian center witnessed instability, with non-Congress and non-BJP parties forming a United Front government. The BJP returned to power in 1998 and in 1999, not on its own strength, but with the help of its allies as part of a wider coalition.
Not surprisingly, the recently passed resolutions of BJP have remained silent on Ayodhya issue even though some party leaders assert that they still remain passionate and proud about their Ayodhya agitation. The party knows that a political commitment to Ayodhya issue can cost it secular allies in the NDA. The BJP cannot afford to take this risk.
The BJP is also well aware that had Gujarat-carnage (2002) not taken place, the NDA may have returned to power in 2004 elections.
Modi’s national and secular image still stands tainted by the Gujarat carnage. True, Modi’s success in Gujarat assembly elections cannot be overlooked. However, it cannot be missed that Gujarat is a two-party battleground — the BJP and Congress — where Muslim votes do not play a decisive role. Muslims constitute less than 10 percent of Gujarat’s population.
The picture is totally different at the national stage. Though Muslims form less than 20 percent of the country’s population, the importance of their vote has risen because of the emergence of numerous regional parties. This apparently explains the BJP’s attempt to woo Muslims to its camp. However, it is also not totally sure of whether this drive will help it in parliamentary elections or not.
The party is, however, well aware that Gujarat carnage remains a major obstacle to secular allies accepting Modi as party’s prime ministerial nominee. It is as yet too early to black out Gujarat carnage from Modi’s political record. To keep this dark chapter away from the public debate, the BJP is going overboard in publicizing development of Gujarat with Modi as the state chief minister. Yet, even this hype is now being punctured by various questions raised on the legitimacy of claims being made about Gujarat’s development.
Besides, even if the development claim stands true even to a certain degree, the anti-Modi front does not like him to be a prime ministerial candidate. It does not want Gujarat carnage to be repeated elsewhere in the country. There are also elements within the BJP who are wary of Modi’s authoritarian attitude. They are apprehensive that Modi’s style of politics may reduce their own importance within the party. The BJP is thus faced with a major dilemma. Modi is not as acceptable within the party and by its “secular” allies as it was earlier believed while Advani and his camp have not yet given up hopes.
Amid all this, the party realizes that prospects of it returning to power without support of Muslim votes and “secular” parties are practically non-existent. Against this backdrop, the billion-dollar political question confronting the BJP is how to win over Muslim voters?

nilofarsuhrawardy@hotmail.com

NILOFAR SUHRAWARDY
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) decided to postpone its proposed countrywide agitation against the failure of the ruling coalition at the eleventh hour. The BJP had planned to launch the weeklong protest from May 27, asking its activists and supporters to court arrest. However, the BJP backtracked on its plan following the Maoists’ attack on a Congress party convoy in Bastar, Chattisgarh, killing several top leaders of the state. The BJP condemned the attack and postponed its agitation.
Perhaps, the BJP had erred in assuming that its agitation would draw massive support, but when reality dawned on it, the party was compelled to fall back on Chattisgarh incident as an excuse and postpone its agitation.
The reason of this self-confidence in the BJP was based on in its perception that by creating the bogey of Muslim appeasement by the Congress-led UPA government, it has succeeded once again in polarizing the Hindu community in its favor.
The BJP has recently also targeted Uttar Pradesh (UP) government led by the Samajwadi Party (SP) on this issue. There is no denying that to attract Muslim vote, various parties have in the past repeatedly made false promises and assurances to the community. But if Muslims had really been appeased in India, the so-called secular parties would have been left without any political card to woo the country’s largest minority community. There would not have been any bias against the Muslim community in the country. They would not be considered as second-class citizens by Hindu hard-liners. Doubts and speculations would not have been there over their constitutional rights, including that of equality, the freedom of speech and pursuing their religious duties.
Of course, it would be incorrect to assume that each and every Indian Muslim is a victim to such prejudices and biases. It would be equally wrong to blame all Hindus for being biased against Muslims.
However, had the BJP leaders not started objecting to what they described as “Muslim appeasement” policy of the UPA government, the issue may not have been deliberated upon. True, the UPA government has promised to address certain grievances of the Muslim community. Now, the big question is whether the government has taken any action to remove and/or at least reduce the same? If some effort has genuinely been made, why should it be viewed as “Muslim appeasement”? 
It is surprising that several political leaders have raised objections to even considering and proposing action to mitigate sufferings of Indian Muslims. What does this indicate? Does not this imply that they do not want Muslims to prosper like any other community? It is indeed stunning that suggestions and proposals made to address challenges facing Muslims in secular-India should be viewed as a means to “appease” them. Well, if these problems are not seriously taken care of, it will prove to be a very dangerous, anti-secular approach of the federal and state governments. Ignoring the plight of the Muslim community or sometimes rather perpetuating it would imply that politicians in power are more concerned about appeasing anti-Muslim extremists. They are more concerned about not annoying them than addressing problems facing Muslims.
The Congress-led UPA government has recently proposed to take some corrective measures for the welfare of the Muslim community. These include providing justice to innocent Muslims who have been wrongfully detained as “terrorists.” So, if the government is considering setting up fast-track courts to look into these cases, why is the BJP agitated about it? Why the BJP leaders are calling it appeasement? Would the BJP prefer innocents Muslims to continue languishing in jails for no fault of theirs?
This policy cannot be described as that of appeasing Muslims. It aims to provide justice to them, which all citizens are constitutionally entitled to. The BJP is apparently bent on using this communal card with hope of winning support of the majority community. If parliamentary polls were not around the corner, the BJP would not have targeted a non-existent policy by trying to whip up communal passions.
NILOFAR SUHRAWARDY