BJP peddling concoction of Islamophobia, falsehoods as Opposition remains silent

First Prime Minister Narendra Modi and now UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath. The past three days have witnessed the two pre-eminent mascots of muscular Hindutva brazenly denigrate Indian Muslims, peddling a concoction of Islamophobia and falsehoods while trying to woo an already-polarised electorate to vote the BJP to power for a third consecutive term.

Addressing a rally at Rajasthan’s tribal-dominated Banswara on April 20, Modi likened Indian Muslims to “ghuspaithiye” (infiltrators) while misrepresenting a nearly 18-year-old comment by his predecessor, Dr Manmohan Singh and misleading voters about the Congress’s manifesto. A day later, addressing another rally in UP’s Aligarh, home to a substantial Muslim population and the iconic Aligarh Muslim University, the Prime Minister spared the minority community his vitriol and even made an attempt to woo “Muslim mothers and sisters” though still continuing to lie about the contents of the Congress manifesto, which he claimed included poll promises that would take away the ‘mangalsutra” of married Hindu women if the Congress was voted to power.

On April 23, while Modi reverted to his Banswara avatar at a rally in Rajasthan’s Jaipur, alleging that the Congress wanted to accommodate Muslims in the reservation system by depriving Dalits their quota, Adityanath contributed his share of spreading Islamophobia by alleging at a rally in UP’s Amroha that the Grand Old Party “will implement Sharia law in the country” if voted to power.

Only Left Front unequivocally counters Islamophobia

To many, the toxic rhetoric peddled by Modi and Yogi, with the Election Commission predictably turning a Nelson’s Eye and a deaf ear, is par for the course in poll season as is the considerable opprobrium it has triggered from all quarters opposed to the BJP’s communal pitch. Yet, the uproar, particularly against Modi’s abhorrent outburst, has also exposed another disturbing reality of India’s current political landscape – the inability of a supposedly secular Opposition, with the possible exception of Left Front leaders, to stand up and unequivocally counter Islamophobia and Muslim-bashing.

The Congress, its allies in the INDIA bloc as well as sections of the media were quick to rebut Modi’s lies with the truth of what Dr Singh had said back in 2006 – that all Dalits, tribals and religious minorities must collectively have the first claim on the country’s resources – while condemning the Prime Minister for his bigoted rhetoric. The Congress has filed a complaint with the EC accusing the PM of violating the Model Code of Conduct yet again and the CPM has been trying, though in vain, to get a case of hate speech registered against Modi.

Sundry other constituents of the Opposition’s INDIA bloc – the Samajwadi Party, the RJD, the JMM, the Trinamool Congress, among others – have also slammed Modi for touching a new low in political discourse and claimed that the PM’s repugnant outburst betrayed his confident assertions of the BJP-led NDA coalition returning to power with a 400+ seat mandate in June.

As valid and justified as these charges by the Opposition may be, it is difficult to ignore the one thing, arguably the most important thing, which is conspicuous by its absence in these otherwise robust rebuttals. None of the constituents of the INDIA bloc, with the notable exception of the Left Front constituents, have made half an effort to directly address, assuage, and reassure the Muslim community – the collective subject of the PM and the UP chief minister’s bile and scorn. There is yet to come an unequivocal assertion from the Opposition’s side of its solidarity with the Muslims or its concern against the demonisation and de-humanisation of the community.

Inadequate response from Congress, RJD, SP

The Congress, which has been an equal recipient of the PM’s tirade, has displayed more concern about the misrepresentation of Dr Singh’s statement and over the manner in which Modi has sought to turn the holy mangalsutra as a new weapon for polarisation. Though Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge was prompt in dubbing Modi’s Banswara blitz as “hate speech”, neither he nor any other Congress leader of consequence, including “Mohabbat ki Dukaan” proprietor Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, have publicly decried Modi for calling 15 per cent of India’s population infiltrators.

In fact, when Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi briefed the media after complaining to the EC about the PM’s hateful outburst, he repeatedly asserted that distasteful remarks were made against “ek samudaay” (one community), refraining to even identify that community as the Muslims. On April 23, while campaigning in Karnataka, though Priyanka launched a blistering counterattack on Modi, she skirted the PM’s anti-Muslim rant, merely calling it a “diversionary tactic” and instead chose to play up her family legacy.

With Modi repeatedly claiming that the Congress wanted to “take away the mangalsutra” of Hindu women, Priyanka referred to the assassination of her father, former PM Rajiv Gandhi, and said that her mother (Sonia Gandhi) had “sacrificed her mangalsutra for the country” while her late grandmother (former PM Indira Gandhi) had “donated her jewellery to the country” when a cash-strapped India was at war with China in 1962. Priyanka also asked the PM “where were you when women had to mortgage their mangalsutra during demonetisation, farmers’ wives had to give away their mangalsutra to pay off debt, and women in Manipur were being paraded naked”.

RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav too have evaded a direct condemnation of Modi’s vilification of Muslims while variously slamming him for “trying to polarise the election”, “divert attention from real issues” and “speaking out of desperation after sensing that the BJP has performed poorly in the first phase of Lok Sabha polling (on April 19)”.

‘Invisibilisation of Muslims’

Off the record, leaders across the INDIA bloc concede that this invisibilisation of Muslims even by the Opposition, despite many of its constituents depending heavily on Muslim votes for electoral triumphs, though “unfortunate” and “disturbing” is “tactical” given the new realities of a political landscape that has “become more communally-polarised than ever before in the past decade of Modi’s rule”.

A senior Muslim leader of the Congress told The Federal that though the Opposition’s “inability to stand up and explicitly say that it will not tolerate such attacks on the Muslims is disconcerting, it is perhaps the price we have to pay if we think doing so could aid the BJP’s defeat”.

Another Muslim leader of the Congress, a former Union minister, shares a slightly contrarian view. “Rahul Gandhi got dragged to court and convicted for criminal defamation because he asked if all people with a Modi surname are thieves but today, when Modi says Muslims are infiltrators, why can’t a Muslim politician move court citing the judgement in that Modi surname case against Rahul and file a criminal defamation case against Modi?”

The former minister added, “Most of us in the Opposition have accepted that this is the new normal, that it is best to leave Muslims to fend for themselves... do you see the Congress or any other Opposition party pushing Muslims into important roles in their respective organisations or government; when BJP does something that is against any particular community – be it Dalit, adivasi, Jats, people from the northeast, or even women, the Congress immediately gets a leader from that community to address a press conference or sit in protest to slam Modi but did you see Salman Khurshid or even Imran Pratapgarhi hold a press conference, forget staging a protest, after Modi called all Muslims infiltrators?”

Being electorally pragmatic

Sources in the INDIA bloc maintain that “past experience shows that any attempt to strongly counter Modi on his attacks against the minority community only helps the BJP because it deepens consolidation of Hindus behind the BJP”.

“We have to be very careful in how we phrase our criticism. We can, as most of us have, accuse Modi of plummeting to new lows of political discourse or of diverting attention from the failure of his government or even say that he is afraid of an imminent defeat but to tell him flatly that he cannot use such language for Muslims or that the Opposition will stand guard against any attack on the community is just not electorally pragmatic any more. It is unfortunate, but this is the harsh reality of politics today and I think the Muslim community too understands this by now,” said an RJD leader, whose party chief Lalu Yadav is still remembered for having LK Advani arrested when the BJP stalwart entered Bihar on his Ram Rath Yatra in October 1990.

A leader of the Samajwadi Party, another Opposition outfit highly reliant on Muslims for its poll victories and one that gained its political muscle from M-Y (Muslim-Yadav) consolidation in UP, said, “The days when a Mulayam Singh (the late SP founder) or Lalu Yadav could proudly fight for the Muslims are long gone... Modi has mastered communal polarisation and Yogi is doing the same and we have seen this working in the BJP’s favour for the past 10 years; we in the Opposition cannot ignore these ground realities. Today, if Akhilesh Yadav slammed Modi for calling Muslims “ghuspaithiye” and staged a protest, he would be immediately dubbed anti-Hindu and I need not explain what would happen to the SP in the elections”.

Interestingly, the SP’s poll pitch for the Lok Sabha elections is PDA versus NDA – that is the SP’s coalition of backward castes (Pichhda), Dalits, and Alpsankhyak (religious minorities) against the BJP’s NDA coalition.

Veteran journalist Faraz Ahmed says Modi raking up the Muslim bogey during polls is a “deliberate provocation to bait the Opposition into giving a strong condemnation so that the electorate can be polarised further on communal lines to the BJP’s advantage”.

“It is a tried, tested, and now perfected practice of Modi, and the Opposition is right to not fall for it this time... morally, it may be wrong, but politically it is crucial for the INDIA bloc which is already facing BJP’s attack of being anti-Hindu due to comments made by some Opposition leaders against Sanatan Dharma,” said Ahmed.

Who will speak up for Muslims?

While this silence of the Opposition may be justified as being “tactical”, it still raises the questions – who will then speak up for the Muslims, is the community that is pushed against the wall by an aggressively unsparing BJP being invisibilised, and whether self-proclaimed secular parties are, through their calculated silence, ultimately aiding and abetting a majoritarian politics?

Political commentator Rakesh Achal believes that the Opposition is “fooling itself if it thinks that by not speaking up for Muslims, it is winning favour with the Hindu electorate or denying Modi a chance to polarise the election”.

“The electorate that subscribes to the BJP’s ideology or is not necessarily pro-BJP but thinks the Opposition doesn’t have a better alternative to Modi is not going to suddenly vote for the INDIA parties because they aren’t speaking up for Muslims. But Muslims and secular Hindus may definitely feel so alienated from today’s politics that they might just stay at home instead of participating in the election... has the Opposition ever thought who would benefit electorally if this happens,” wonders Achal.