Columns | Opinion

Muslim-First Congress

Secularism needs to be inclusive and put India first

Minhaz Merchant | 26 Apr, 2024

Inside the Mind of the Indian Muslim Voter

THE CONGRESS MANIFESTO mentions “minorities” 48 times. It does not mention “Muslim” even once. Why so coy? Congress doesn’t hide its Muslim-first politics. It revels in it. But those who drafted the manifesto, led by P Chidambaram, are politically astute. They recognise that in today’s polarised environment, discretion is the better part of semantic valour.

“Minorities” is anyway code for Muslims who comprise over 15 per cent of the Indian population. Christians are 2.3 per cent, Sikhs 1.7 per cent, and Parsis 0.05 per cent. There’s electoral wisdom in downplaying the Congress’ Muslim-first bias.

Voters in Wayanad, from where Rahul Gandhi will contest, understand why the word Muslim is absent from the manifesto. When asked, they chuckle: “Rahul bhai doesn’t need to say it. We know why he left Amethi and came here.”

Why did he? Because Muslims and Christians form over 50 per cent of the Wayanad electorate. A safer seat for a Congress dynast would be hard to find.

The Congress manifesto is well written. It speaks to its audience with an English timbre. BJP’s manifesto is more earthy. It speaks to its audience with a Hindi timbre. The 2024 Lok Sabha election is a contest between two contrasting ideas of India. During campaigning, Congress and its allies have made four strategic errors.

First, doubling down on dynastic politics. An electorate numbed into normalising a Rabri Devi becoming chief minister when her husband is jailed, will quietly accept a Sunita Kejriwal becoming chief minister when her husband is jailed.

The second error Congress and its allies have made is deliberate falsification of the true meaning of secularism. For decades, India’s electorate has been spoon-fed the idea that if you codify Hindu personal law, you are secular. But if you codify Muslim personal law, you are communal.

Decades of minorityism led to the rise of majoritarianism. Congress, SP, RJD, NC and TMC used minorities to stay in power. When the counter-reaction came, it led to Hindu-first politics that swept BJP to power in 2014.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was, however, quick to realise that majoritarianism can only be delivered to the electorate in small doses. Secularism needs to be redefined as genuinely inclusive. It cannot be Muslim-first or Hindu-first. It has to be India-first.

The third error Congress and its allies made is allowing corruption to sideline development during their years in power. It drove Feroze Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi’s grandfather, to challenge father-in-law Jawaharlal Nehru in Lok Sabha in 1957 over corruption in the Mundhra-LIC case. The exposé of the scam by Feroze Gandhi (a Parsi who earlier used to spell his name Gandhy) led to the resignation of then Finance Minister TT Krishnamachari.

For decades, India’s electorate has been spoon-fed the idea that if you codify Hindu personal law, you are secular. But if you codify Muslim personal law, you are communal

Corruption wound itself like a poisonous snake around India’s development agenda. Defence deals were compromised and infrastructure projects stalled. Voters see the difference today. Despite inheriting a low-growth, high-inflation economy in May 2014 and losing two years to a devastating once-in-a-century pandemic, the last decade has been marked by unprecedented development.

The fourth strategic error Congress and its allies made is executing a timid foreign policy that compromised the national interest. On Nehru’s watch, India gifted China a veto-carrying seat in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Through the 1950s, India lost 38,000 sqkm of its territory in Aksai Chin to China. Nehru’s forward policy on the China border triggered the disastrous 1962 war. Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Pran Nath Thapar resigned on November 19, 1962 on health grounds one day before the war ended on November 20.

Indira Gandhi was forced by a refugee influx from East Pakistan to act decisively in 1971. To her credit, she left tactics and timings to the Indian Army led by General (later Field Marshal) Sam Manekshaw.

India’s assertive diplomacy with both the West (over Russia-Ukraine) and China (holding firm for four years along the LAC) contrasts with how the national interest was frequently sacrificed in the past at the altar of political expediency. After the November 2008 terror attack on Mumbai, the Manmohan Singh-Sonia Gandhi government did little except exchange dossiers with Pakistan for six years.

India’s Uri and Balakot strikes in 2016 and 2019 deep inside Pakistan signalled a paradigm shift in combatting terrorism. The Inder Kumar Gujral government had shut down India’s covert operations capability in 1997. It has taken over 20 years to revive that capability as recent events in Pakistan and elsewhere have shown.

electorate Hindu personal law Hindu-Muslim inclusive Muslim personal law secularism