Chhattisgarh: Will BJP’s Sanatana Dharma pitch stop Akbar’s ‘reign’ in Hindutva lab Kawardha?

Why a Muslim won in Hindutva laboratory

Akbar had defeated the BJP’s Ashok Sahu by a margin of 59,284 votes – the highest lead secured by any candidate in the 2018 Chhattisgarh polls; avenging his narrow defeat from the seat in the previous election. He had become the only Muslim MLA to be elected to the Chhattisgarh Vidhan Sabha in 2018 and was inducted into Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel’s first cabinet as the minister for forests and environment.

What made Akbar’s victory all the more significant was that Kawardha, the native town of former chief minister Raman Singh, is touted as the BJP-RSS combine’s Hindutva laboratory in the state. Akbar’s victory margin of nearly 60,000 votes in a constituency which comprises an estimated 70 per cent Hindu backward castes and just 2 per cent Muslim electorate unambiguously indicated the bipartisan support he had secured of all caste and religious groups in Kawardha.

Yet, five years later as Akbar seeks re-election from Kawardha – he is also the only Muslim candidate fielded by the Congress in Chhattisgarh – he does so against a communally polarising and vitriolic campaign directed at him by the BJP and its candidate, Vijay Sharma, one of the prime accused in the October 2021 Kawardha Hindu-Muslim riots case.

As the campaign in Kawardha picks momentum for the November 7 polls, Akbar is being built up by the BJP as a symbol of all that which in the Sangh Pariwar's bigoted view threatens the Hindus – their faith and culture, their numerical, socio-political and economic domination.

That Muslims constitute less than 2 per cent of Kawardha's population or fewer than 4 per cent of Chhattisgarh's total population matters little in this narrative. Of little consequence also is Akbar's own public persona of a Muslim political leader who regularly visits Hindu temples, sponsors Hindu festive celebrations and had also been famously instrumental in the construction of a Hindu temple in Raipur rural, a constituency where he contested and lost his first election from, on the request of local labourers.

Populist pitches vs Sanatani tropes

The BJP has pitched the Kawardha contest as a crusade to protect Sanatana Dharma and its followers from "outsiders". The choice of Vijay Sharma as the BJP's candidate against Akbar is a reinforcement of this pitch. A local BJP leader known for stirring up communal trouble, Sharma was one of the key accused in the cases lodged by the Chhattisgarh police in connection with the Hindu-Muslim clashes that broke out in Kawardha in October 2021 after RSS cadres, wielding swords and lathis, marched through Muslim localities raising incendiary slogans. His co-accused was Abhishek Singh, former BJP MP and Raman Singh's son.

The poll campaigns of the two rivals also underscore their respective priorities. Akbar, almost always trailed by hundreds of supporters, goes door-to-door urging people to vote for "gareebon, kisanon ki sarkar (government of the poor and of farmers)" and for "progress and social harmony". He thanks voters for having voted for him five years ago when he had "nothing but promises to offer" and then asserts that he is now "back at your door step to give an account of the promises I have fulfilled and those I still have to".

Sharma, in contrast, draws heavily on the tropes of "Sanatan ke dushman (enemies of Sanatana Dharm)", "love jihad" and "Hindu khatre mei hain (Hindus are in danger", while "cautioning" Kawardha's predominantly Hindu voters to be wary of "Babur/Akbar ki aulaadein (children of Babur and Akbar)".

Sharma's campaign is also liberally peppered with sweeping claims of "nothing has been done for Kawardha" in the past five years and allegations of "massive corruption by the Congress government". Akbar, on the other hand, talks about the welfare schemes of the Baghel government and the various measures taken by him as forest minister to "ensure a balance between Kawardha's development, the conservation of its forest areas and the protection of the rights of forest dwellers".

BJP’s polarising narrative gets an edge

However, defying logic as only elections can, it’s the polarising narrative of the BJP that is fast gaining traction in Kawardha as well as its neighbouring constituencies of Pandariya and Bemetara, the latter of which has in the poll fray a BJP candidate whose son was killed in a communal incident earlier this year that had also claimed the lives of two Muslim youth. Akbar’s candidature from Kawardha has become a talking point in Pandariya and Bemetara too.

Last week, while campaigning for the BJP in Chhattisgarh, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had reserved his most vicious attacks for Akbar. Sarma claimed that 2014 onwards Prime Minister Narendra Modi had "finished all Baburs" and it was now time for Chhattisgarh to "ensure all Akbars are also sent away" because "if you allow one Akbar, 100 more Akbars will come". The Congress immediately filed a complaint against Sarma's "hate speech" with the Election Commission but the poll panel is yet to take any action against the Assam chief minister, who has defiantly reiterated his comments several times since.

Akbar bhai still popular, but BJP makes voters re-think

That Akbar still enjoys mass support across Kawardha is evident from the crowds that he attracts while campaigning in the constituency. However, the polarising narrative has made locals wary of voting for him this time round.

"Akbar bhai is a good man. He has done a lot for Kawardha... he is not a local (Akbar is from Raipur, about 120 km from Kawardha) but he is always available for the people here if they need his help. He visits regularly and is always willing to help if he gets to know that someone here has a problem but this election if different... dange se mahaul kharaab hua hai (the situation has been made tense since the riots), he may still win but the contest will be very close," says Pradip Sahu, a Kawardha local.

For Atul Raghuvanshi of Kawardha's Bhagutola village, voting for Akbar is a "dangerous proposition" this time. "The Congress should have fielded a Hindu candidate and shifted Akbar bhai to some other seat. If we vote for him, BJP people will make things difficult for us after the election," says Raghuvanshi.

Akbar bhai, as the forest minister is popularly called across Kawardha, is not unaware of the challenge that his current election campaign presents but he hopes the people will "judge me for my work and not for my religion or what the BJP is saying about me". "When I go to campaign, I don’t ask people for their vote. I just tell them that when they gave me their blessing in 2018, I had nothing to show for my work and had only made them the promise of working hard for them. After five years, I just tell them that now you have seen what I have done for you and my fate is now in your hands again. If you are happy, bless me again but if you have a complaint, punish me. Ultimately, it is the people's blessings that will matter in the election," Akbar tells The Federal.

“I know that the BJP is spreading communal propaganda but there is nothing I can do about it. Kawardha is the place of Kabir's teachings, of Bhoramdeo but it is also a place of Hindu-Muslim bhaichara (brotherhood), otherwise Akbar bhai would not have won here with 60,000 votes. If I question my chances of victory, I am questioning the historic syncretism of Kawardha and the wisdom of its people," he adds.