When we termed Badruddin Ajmal’s Assam United Democratic Front (AUDF) a ‘Frankenstein’ not so long ago, we never imagined that it would replicate itself so quickly in the country’s largest state. The emergence of the Peoples’ Democratic Front (PDF) in Uttar Pradesh, sponsored by a variety of Islamic clerics, cannot but be perceived as a disquieting development in a state that has suffered the worst consequences of communal polarisation over the years.But the emergence of outfits catering to singular religious identities should surprise no one, considering the unfortunate legacy of major parties like the Congress and the BJP, which have consciously carved out spheres of influence based on religious identity. Worse, Left parties — which always swore by the secular label — have also emerged as successful practitioners of such cynical strategies, as was evident in the recent assembly elections. The United Left Front’s electoral triumph in those constituencies in Kerala, which had hitherto steadfastly voted for the Muslim League, indicates more than a mere shift in the mood of voters. It reveals a change in Left politics. By making deals with fundamentalist outfits like the Jamaat-e-Islami, which had a few years ago been termed ‘extremist’ by the Left’s own government in the state; by highlighting emotive issues like Iraq and Iran in its campaigns in Muslim-dominated constituencies, the CPI(M) has announced its arrival in the big league of minority votebank politics.But politics of this kind has always had consequences that the parties promoting them came to rue. Today the Samajwadi Party is discovering that its steadfast pandering to what it perceived as minority sentiments have now had the effect of creating the PDF, a political outfit that is more transparently Muslim-centric in its orientation. Remember how UP minister, Haji Mohammed Yakub Qureishi, was allowed to get away unchecked after making that astounding public offer of a Rs 51 crore bounty for the death of the offending Danish cartoonist? The PDF has now arrived on the stage as the SP’s political nemesis. But what should concern us here is not the fate of individual parties but what such developments portend for India, its politics and principles. Because, ultimately, Ajmal’s maths is all about subtraction, not addition.
