Collective Identity

THE MOST CONSEQUENTIAL polls in years for the Maharashtra Assembly can further cement the love-fest between Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena and the large Muslim minority in the state. For, while Muslims have remained steadfast in their religious beliefs, and their bold avowal both in public and private, it is the Hindu ‘Hardaya Samrat’s’ worthy son, Uddhav, who is now at pains to forsake that legacy and try and emerge as a veritable Muslim Hardaya Samrat. The other day, Uddhav was mobbed by a large group of Muslims as he alighted from his car with slogans of ‘Naar-e-Takbiir Allah o Akbar Allahu Akbar’ (Allah is the greatest. There is no deity worthy of worship except Allah), renting the air. As someone noted wryly, Balasaheb Thackeray, dressed in trademark orange with a large beaded rudraksha necklace around his neck, felt pumped up when greeted by fawning followers with the hearty cries of ‘Jai Bhawani’ and ‘Jai Shivaji’.

The old Thackeray did not mince words, spewing venom against Muslims, wanting to disenfranchise them, or make them leave India if they could not be loyal to this country. His son now seems keen to endear himself to Muslims, wooing them for the sake of the consolidated 12 per cent vote which alone may win a respectable number of seats for him to claim leadership of the three-party Maha Vikas Aghadi. In 40-odd seats, Muslims voting as a single bloc can make the difference between winning and losing. Which is why Uddhav feels obliged to distance himself from his ideological past.

No other group, religious or otherwise, is known to so very thoroughly set aside inter and intra-community differences to assert its collective identity through the ballot box like Muslims. On the other hand, despite repeated efforts to make them a single voting bloc, it is next to impossible to unite Hindus behind a single slogan or flag. Which in many ways denotes the abiding strength of Hinduism. When it comes to Muslims, especially Indian Muslims, they unitedly rally around an emotive issue, say, the matter of Shah Bano’s meagre maintenance payment, or a political cause.

A moment’s reflection at the results of the recent Lok Sabha polls will further buttress the point. So complete was the consolidation of Muslims against the ruling Mahayuti alliance that it lost more than a dozen seats due to the en bloc Muslim vote. For example, of the six Assembly segments in the Dhule Lok Sabha constituency, the BJP candidate led by nearly 90,000 votes in five of them, but in the lone Malegaon Assembly which has 60 per cent Muslim vote, the Congress candidate not only wiped out the deficit in the other five Assembly segments but gained a lead of 3,000-odd votes to emerge as winner.

It is this power of the Muslim vote bank which sees Uddhav Thackeray supplicating before it. Precisely because there is no fear of Hindus consolidating as a bloc in favour of or against a single party, Thackeray feels encouraged to take them for granted. Stark opportunism is rarely punished. Therefore, the Hindutva renegade still thrives.

Maybe it is to counter the Maharashtra Muslim consolidation that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and a popular Hindu mascot Yogi Adityanath coined the slogan: ‘Batengay to Katengay’. There is no mention of any community there, but the message is clear. The majority community is encouraged to craft an electoral strategy to counter the Muslim consolidation. Of course, it is not as innocent as the familiar slogan, ‘United We Stand, Divided We Fall’. But Yogi’s sharp coinage has a verifiable context which ought to be worrying for all democrats. Because the urban ostrich-like elite remains blind to the increasing assertiveness of Muslims in the social sphere. To call out Muslim communalism may not be kosher in polite society, but it is there for anyone who has not shut his eyes to the ground reality of a widening religious schism in our society. And it is not a post-Modi phenomenon. It has been there all along, subdued after Partition, but in recent years, more bold and assertive due to their rising numbers, the impact of petro-dollars, and the need of the so-called secular parties to woo them for their votes.

Meanwhile, it was a compliment Indian Muslims could well have done without. On a recent trip to Pakistan, the controversial television preacher and fugitive from Indian law, Zakir Naik, found his pre-Stone Age views on women so obnoxious that he was virtually booed at public events. Various television shows poured scorn on him. Surprised, he protested that Indian Muslims treat him like a king, showering him with love, affection and money, whereas he, a state guest in Pakistan, was greeted with open abuse for his Talibanesque views on women.

Assembly elections 2024MaharashtraMuslim voterspoliticsShiv SenaUddhav Thackeray