The ruling BJP has not a single Muslim representative in parliament, and in the central Cabinet.
The politics of the “nationalists” over the last decade especially, both at the centre and in the states they rule has been solidly rooted in Hindu consolidation.
Prominent leaders of the party, such as Suvendu Adhikari in West Bengal have been heard to voice the sentiment that the party does not need Muslims, and should not work for their interests so long as they do not vote for the BJP.
Quite the other day, a minister in Madhya Pradesh was pleased to dub Colonel Sofia Qureshi as “their sister”, meaning that of the terrorists lodged in Pakistan.
The party has not touched him yet; only a court has taken suo motu cognisance.
On June 1, the redoubtable Home Minister, Amit Shah, who declaims rather than speaks like his superior, Narendra Modi, told a rally in West Bengal that Mamata Banerjee, the Trinamool Congress leader and chief minister of the fraught state, did not support operation Sindoor because she was catering to her vote bank; inference: that Muslims were not in favour of the military action against Pakistan.
When the Modi-Shah regime understood that Muslims were needed in the delegations sent abroad
And yet, when it came to persuading countries worldwide of the justice of India’s case against Pakistan, the Modi-Shah regime understood that Muslims were needed to be part of the delegations sent abroad.
Not having any of their own, barring Gulam Ali Khatana, a nominated member, they thought nothing of drafting ten Muslim members from opposition parties to plead the Indian case.
This is what is called Chanakya ki neeti.
Being asked, these perfectly patriotic Indians could not have refused the task, although their parties felt justly hurt by not being given the democratic privilege of nominating their members for this onerous responsibility.
Whether it was right or wrong for the opposition members to side-step party prerogative in the matter will no doubt surface as an inner-party issue in the days to come.
But here is the point: The majoritarian rulers of the day swallowed the necessity that Muslim participation was required in the delegations to be sent to argue the Indian case, especially in the rather crushing absence of any suo motu declarations of support from even such countries as may have been expected to come forth without equivocation.
So, not having any of their own, the BJP did not shirk the move to call upon Muslim leaders from other parties, including, perish the thought, the remarkable Asaduddin Owaisi who has repeatedly found himself reviled by right wing social media trolls as a Pakistani lover.
Kudos to him that he set aside what must be his infuriating hurts from the mouths of the bigots on the right, to speak with eloquence for the republic and its conditional values in stark contrast to the “failed state” of Pakistan.
Now, the million dollar poser: can the nation expect that just as the ruling right wingers woke up to the necessity of owning Muslims in the matter of sending delegations abroad, they will likewise acknowledge the weighty truth that Hindu-Muslim togetherness is even more sharply needed internally if the realm is to achieve its many rosy goals of advancement?
Will that realisation lead to any substantive and far-reaching rethink in the driving think tanks that have shaped the politics of the sectarian right wing ever since the establishment of the RSS a century ago?
The question is poignant given that the chief of that organisation has only the other day yet again called for: Hindu unity, and designated “Hindu Rashtra” as the “eternal truth of this land.
The different standards of the BJP at home and abroad
Equally interesting will be what intercessions may now be made into that conundrum by the ten Muslims leaders who went along so cheerily with the official delegations to speak for an India that continues to treat Muslims badly.
And, why will not the BJP send similar delegations all over India to replicate the unity that has been engineered to present a patriotic face abroad?
Will leaders who were drafted from opposition parties, Muslims especially, demand this of Modi and Shah, and, if they do, on what grounds may such a suggestion be denied at home?
So laudable has been the role played by the drafted leaders of the opposition that in some of their interventions they have merrily contradicted what they have said on record before on such issues as formed the agenda of their case-building, all, no doubt , in the national interest.
Would this not have been a watershed moment if those that sent them abroad now took due lessons from their pleading for secular reconstruction here at home?
(This piece by Badri Raina, who taught at Delhi University, was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here.)
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