Opinion A questionable apology
Out of touch and desperate,Mulayam seeks the Muslim vote again....
Most political pundits,in hindsight,called Mulayam Singh Yadavs tie-up with Kalyan Singh in the 2009 Lok Sabha battle a kiss of death. It was clear that after 20 years of rock-solid support,large sections of Muslims had jettisoned the Samajwadi Party in favour of the Congress and the BSP.
Out of the blue,15 months later,Mulayam Singh Yadav issued an absolute apology to the Muslims,setting off more speculation. But why and in whose interest was this alliance forged in the first instance?
The perpetuation of family interest (the desire to see his son Akhilesh Yadav at the helm in Uttar Pradesh) and Yadav loyalties was one of the reasons for the wrestler-turned-minority-messiah to seek this apology.
After a perilous drop in vote-share in the Domariyaganj by-elections,Yadav had to withdraw and regroup,and reinvent his strategy in the face of further impending marginalisation. The second reason was that an influential section of the Muslim clergy had begun flexing their ageing muscles on sensitive issues like Babri Masjid and trying to corner the Centre on Wakf amendments,reservations based on the Ranganath Mishra report and the Right to Education Acts impact on madrasahs.
Unable to reconcile with the demographic changes of a young India,some ulema are trying to spoil the secular fabric with irrelevant fatwas and other antics. Inept at nuanced dialogue,they resort to polemic,which fuels right-wing forces at the cost of the silent majority who have repeatedly shown the door to communal forces in the last two elections. These vocal few have always been Mulayams votaries and he hopes that they will redeliver the Muslim masses to him but,alas,the imponderables he has to contend with are just beginning.
Mulayam Singh and a section of clerics share a distaste for the English language and use of computers,which is at direct loggerheads with the aspirations of young minority students whose sole desire is to find suitable employment. Bereft of Muslim leaders who abandoned him because of the Kalyan Singh bear-hug,he is banking on rabble-rousers to drum up support,while the important fact he hasnt fathomed is that the IT/ ITES industry is the only sector which has over 12 per cent minority employment unlike all other sectors where minority employment is below 4 per cent.
Every mofussil Muslim mohalla and qasba has small English-medium schools coming up to cater to the increasing demand from the relatively poor artisans and small shopkeepers who want their wards to succeed unlike themselves.
Linked to all this is the impending decision of the special bench of the Allahabad high court on the Babri Masjid title suit. With the VHP and Bajrang Dal getting more strident as the final decision nears,the chance to play political havoc with tenuous Hindu-Muslim amity is something that Mulayam Singh is quite experienced at. The Sangh Parivar and its offshoots in all probability will relaunch the Ram Janmabhoomi movement in case of an adverse verdict. Although the national consensus since 1994 is for a solution through a judicial verdict,the emergence of self-appointed custodians on both sides is a pointer that an emotive pot-boiler will present itself soon.
The BJP,with its dwindling fortunes,will size up these developments as the media enlarges its coverage of the Hindu terror outfits. Mulayams fortunes have been always linked with the BJPs rising graph. Both excel at identity-based politics. Seeking to entice its core constituents once again,the Congress will have to make some deft political moves to avoid falling between two stools again.
As Lincoln said,You can fool all the people some of the time,and some of the people all the time,but you cannot fool all the people all the time. Narasimha Rao is gone,and Sonia and Rahul Gandhi cannot afford to let the secular vote slip away again. The majority of the nation will accept the judicial verdict whichever side it favours. Mulayam Singhs problems will get more acute as his English-educated engineer son,Akhilesh Yadav,knows that the 8 per cent Yadavs will need the 16 per cent Muslims if he is to ever sit in the UP chief ministers chair,therefore the apology. With few takers for his apology at present,Mulayam will have to go beyond his clan. At 70-plus years,this may be his last chance to revive his partys fortunes.
The writer is chairman of the editorial board at the Kanpur-based Urdu newspaper Daily Siyasat Jadid
express@expressindia.com
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