If this summer’s election sees Muslims casting their vote instead of exercising their veto, then Narendra Modi can claim to have turned yet another conventional political belief on its head Veteran journalist and noted author MJ Akbar joining the BJP may not have gladdened bleeding heart left-liberals but it has surely come as a boost for the party and its Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi.
It could be argued that Akbar is just another opportunist jumping on to the Modi bandwagon as much as others who joined the party in recent days. Everybody, after all, loves to be on the winning side — barring those who see virtue in defeat and seek victimhood.
It would, however, be unfair to call Akbar an opportunist. The shift in his politics, as reflected in his writing, has been gradual, gathering speed over the past couple of years. He turned against the Congress long ago; he embraced the BJP a week ago. In between he grappled with the question that even truly secular Muslims who have an identity beyond their name and faith are confronted with: Should they dare the community by breaking ranksIJ In the end, Akbar decided to do so.
The timing of Akbar joining the BJP is at best coincidental though the message is all the more powerful because of it. The spectacular collapse of the Congress would have perhaps not mattered had the JD(U), the SP and the BSP, all of whose leaders believe they alone have the right to the Muslim vote, held their ground in the Hindi belt. Fortunately for the BJP (and unfortunately for these parties and their sanctimonious supporters among the left-liberal intelligentsia and the commentariat that dominates our ‘national’ mainstream media) the Modi Wave has flattened the hopes of these contenders and pretenders to power.
In a sense, the Muslim voter today is confused. This summer’s election, irrespective of the results, has already shattered many conventional beliefs in politics, among them the unshakeable faith that the Muslim in India casts his (or her) veto, and not vote, on polling day. This stems from the long-held notion that Muslims vote to a pre-decided pattern, tactically voting not for the party that will best serve their interest but that which can defeat the BJP. The vote, therefore, is not necessarily symbolic of reposing trust in the party of their choice but a veto to block the BJP.
Muslim fears of the BJP as a monster that will devour them were reinforced, and understandably so, after the ghastly rioting in Gujarat in 2002. Amplification by media, especially 24x7 news television channels which brought the riots into posh drawing rooms and the subsequent campaign to pin the responsibility on Modi served to strengthen these fears. An equally devious role was played by foreign-funded NGOs and ‘human rights’ activists who discovered the 2002 violence could be milked for money — maligning Modi and defaming the BJP formed the foundation of a profitable business model. A closure by way of swift prosecution of those guilty of murder and arson was prevented by taking recourse to frivolous but long-drawn litigation. Jaundiced stories did the rest.
In the cacophonous din of activists and journalists who wear their secularism on their sleeves, facts were sought to be buried. Thousands killed, hundreds raped, wombs of pregnant women ripped open were some of the template descriptions of the riots. That all this and more was fiction, that the death toll was 1,044, including 790 Muslims and 250 Hindus, that the rioting followed the grisly burning of coach S-9 of Sabarmati Express in which 48 Hindus returning from Ayodhya were killed, that Gujarat had for long been a tinder box of communal violence with riots erupting over the most insignificant of disputes, that far worse had happened in Congress-ruled States, found few takers among Muslims.
It took a decade for perceptions to change. Modi’s amazing record of governance, Gujarat’s stunning economic growth and development, the communal peace that has been maintained for more than 10 years now and the prosperity of Muslims in that State have coalesced to trigger rethinking. The start to 2002 was without doubt ominous. Twelve years later, 2014 has begun on more than new hope — there is new expectation and aspiration among Gujarat’s Muslims. The Gujarat Story has been carried far and wide: Muslims elsewhere now have the urge to be at par with their co-religionists in Gujarat. Wallowing in poverty is no longer the preferred option and many young Muslims would hesitate to indulge in manufactured victimhood.
News television is a strange beast — it calibrates news and formulates views in a manner so as to best push ratings and grab eyeballs. With Modi’s popularity rising by the day, they hitched their fortunes to the man against whom they had run a campaign of hate and calumny. Newspapers, which take their cue from news television, have begun to sing a different tune. True, the odd opeditorial berating Modi and questioning his proven track record still surfaces. It is equally true that news television lapses into Modi-baiting whenever the opportunity arises. But there is no denying that Modi is now looked at differently, almost reverentially. The establishment wallahs know the tricks of survival and those who live on the crumbs from Delhi’s high table usually manage to land on their feet no matter who comes to power.
Meanwhile, Teesta Setalvad, the ‘human rights’ activist who led the most ferocious campaign against Modi, now stands exposed as a fraud and a trickster. Victims whose interests she claimed she was protecting have turned against her, charging her with feathering her nest at the cost of their misery. The Special Investigation Team set up by the Supreme Court has absolved Modi of all charges leveled against him (and hence it has been slammed by those who profited from the ‘Hate Modi Industry’). Representatives of self-righteous foreign Governments that had ‘boycotted’ Modi are now tripping over each other to get his darshan and for a photo-op while shaking hands with him.
Times have changed. So have Muslim perceptions. This is not to say Muslims will stop exercising their veto instead of casting their vote, but to underscore the fact that more and more Muslims are now clamouring for what Modi has delivered in Gujarat: Peace and prosperity. The response to Modi’s reach-out to the Muslim community when he undertook the Sadbhavana fast was tentative; it is now firm and palpable. Akbar endorsing Modi and joining the BJP both highlights this point and sends out this message.
It is immaterial whom Muslims vote for (though BJP would obviously like them to vote for the party’s nominees) in this election. So long as they do not exercise their veto, and so long as they demand prosperity while shunning poverty in the guise of faux safety, Modi can claim that he has won and his detractors have lost.
(The writer is a Delhi-based senior journalist)