Call to disenfranchise Indian Muslims is absurd
Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut has done no good to his party's image by suggesting that Indian Muslims should be disenfranchised. His argument stands on the ground that the minority community is often used for vote-bank politics. While this point is well taken, the solution that Mr Raut offers to the problem of appeasement politics has no place in the Constitution of India.
Simply put, two wrongs do not make a right. Mr Raut's views have been rightly criticised by all sections of the political establishment, including the Shiv Sena's allies. The BJP, which leads the coalition Governments at the Centre and in Maharashtra, of which the Shiv Sena is a member, has also distanced itself from Mr Raut's views, which were expressed in the Monday edition of his party's mouthpiece newspaper. Even senior Shiv Sena leaders are struggling to do damage control by issuing clarifications and seeking to put the remarks ‘in context'.
However, even a cursory reading of Mr Raut's article makes it amply clear that he did indeed call for snatching voting rights from Indian Muslims. That the demand came on the eve of Ambedkar Jayanti is sad and ironic. BR Ambedkar guided the framing of a Constitution that has been praised all over the world for giving citizens equal rights, irrespective of their religion, caste, creed and gender. At the time of independence, when an overwhelming majority of Indian citizens were poor and illiterate, many leaders had expressed genuine concern if universal adult franchise would hurt free India's ability to emerge as a strong and stable republic.
However, at that time Ambedkar and a few others leaders kept their faith in the people — and the rest, as they say, is history. That today, some politicians are even suggesting that the core elements of the Constitution of India, which have stood the country in good stead for over six decades, need to be tweaked, is worrisome.
But the issue of minority appeasement that the Shiv Sena leader has raised is a valid one. Since independence, Muslims especially have been mollycoddled by different parties brandishing their supposedly secular credentials, in the quest for secure vote-banks. The All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen is a good example of this kind of politics, which has only led to a vicious cycle of state-sponsored entitlements that have not brought any significant benefit to the minority community.
The AIMIM kind of politics has also threatend the country’s social fabric. Religion-specific sops have only perpetuated poverty and social backwardness. This trend must stop — not by taking the vote away from Indian Muslims but through better governance and cleaner politics. Gradually, Indian Muslims, especially the younger voters, are also coming to the realisation that their votes are being misused. As a result, the voters, new and traditional, are breaking away from the old electoral patterns. The resultant changes are slowly becoming evident, as the 2014 lok Sabha election result stands proof.