Verdict 2004 and the Muslim vote

In this case there was also the appeal of such prominent religious dignitaries as the Shahi Imam of the Jama Masjid of Delhi, who has exercised in the past considerable influence on the thinking of Muslims. He had publicly appealed to Muslims to respond to the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who, he said, had proved to be a better friend of Muslims than the leaders of the Congress. The former prime minister also took special care to enlist their support. He assured Muslims that the BJP had changed its approach to them and wished to make them real partners in development. He told them: “We are together in believing that there must be brotherly relations in India. We also share the conviction that justice should not only be done to Muslims but it should also be seen to be done. Muslims should remain secure. There should be no efforts to isolate them. And I also say it to my Muslim brothers and sisters that they too should not consider themselves as aloof and distant. We have to live together, our lives are interwoven, and our future is one… When Muslims are in such large numbers in India, how can our country progress by leaving them behind?”

From other sources in the BJP, winds of change were also noticed. Murli Manohar Joshi had helped the Urdu language a lot; he was also responsible for opening hundreds of computer centres in most places in the country to train Muslim youth. On the other hand, there were the old hands in the BJP who had retained their Muslim phobia. Advani’s rath yatra during the election campaign revived the anti-Muslim base of the BJP.

The results of the election indicate that none of the favourable factors had any effect on the mind of Muslims; these were not able to heal the wounds. There were two developments which had so hurt Muslims that they could not get over them and persuade themselves to extend any electoral help to the BJP. One was the destruction of Babri Masjid; the other was the genocide in Gujarat. Many Muslims had, no doubt, developed a soft corner for Vajpayee but they were not convinced that he would be able to get out of the aggressively communal clutches of some of the powerful elements in the BJP. The Hindutva slogan, with the utterances of Savarkar and Golwalkar, calling Muslims anti-national, were too fearsome to incline Muslims to trust the BJP.

This fear clinched the attitude of Muslims against that party and drew them towards the Congress, although they were not particularly happy with what the Congress had done for them during their 45 year rule. Their sins of omission and commission continued to disturb them. Moreover, the damage to their religious sentiments that P.V. Narasimha Rao, as the Congress prime minister, had done by deliberately not allowing the army to save the destruction of Babri Masjid; they were shocked when his own home minister, the late Shankarrao Chavan, confirmed that Narasimha Rao wanted the Babri Masjid to be demolished. This had largely alienated them from the Congress.

However it was Sonia Gandhi who revived their faith in the Congress by her bold stand against Hindu communal forces. She made no bones about her commitment to secularism and communal harmony. There was also fondness of many of the Muslims for the Nehru family, which has always stood by them through thick and thin; the role of Sonia Gandhi as a decisive factor in bringing Muslims back to the Congress fold; her record on the communal question in unblemished. Her outright cndemnation of the atrocities committed by Narendra Modi and his goons against the Muslims in Gujarat during those terrible days had also endeared her to the generality of Muslims.

These were some of the vital factors which moved them to vote for the Congress candidates and perhaps also in some places for those of the Leftist parties, whose fight against communalism is well-known and is also widely recognised.

The writer is the author of ‘Communal Rage In Secular India’