Muslims saw through Cong poll promises - By Iftekhar Gilani - DNA, Daily English Newspaper, Mumbai

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Muslims saw through Cong poll promises

Era of tokenism is over, minority community punished Cong for its double game, say community leaders

Iftikhar Gilani l New Delhi

Muslim representation has shot up to the highest-ever figure of 66 in the Uttar Pradesh (UP) assembly, with the community believed to have gone all out in favour of the winner, Samajwadi Party (SP). As many as 41 Muslims have got elected on the SP ticket, followed by 15 from Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). Just 4 Muslim candidates could make up on the Congress ticket, 3 from Peace Party, 2 from Qaumi Ekta Dal and one from Ittehade Millat Council.

As for the Congress, it’s not just in UP that Muslims rejected it, even in the Muslim majority seat of Malerkotla in Punjab they preferred to go with Akali Dal. In UP, the Congress’s magic mantra of ‘quota within quota’ clearly flopped, so much so that Union law minister Salman Khurshid’s wife Louise Khurshid trailed fifth from the Farrukhabad constituency. Salman Khurshid had risked the Election Commission wrath for enhancing this quota during aggressive campaigning.

While the outgoing assembly had 55 Muslim legislators — the highest since independence — the minority is no longer so in the newly-elected assembly, which has a record 66 legislators. Political analysts believe that Muslims overturned results in as many as 136 seats, with the main contenders — the SP and the BSP — fielding 85 Muslims each, while the Congress giving tickets to 59 Muslims. The BJP had fielded a lone Muslim candidate, Shakeel Alam from Sahaswan in Badaun district, who had to forfeit his deposit.

The 2012 results are being seen as en-masse endorsement of the SP and a rejection of Congress and small ‘Muslim’ parties by the Muslims in the state.

The Peace Party has won just four seats, while Rashtriya Ulema Council has drawn a blank. Shazil Islam Ansari, the lone winner from Ittehad Millat Council, was the wakf minister in the Mayawati ministry but denied a ticket by the BSP.

Secretary general of Welfare Party Dr SQR Ilyas told DNA that the Muslim vote played a crucial role in SP’s overwhelming victory. Explaining reasons for this shift, Dr Ilyas said the Muslim youth were being targeted in the Congress-ruled states even as Mayawati let loose a wave harassment. Also, Muslims have rejected the caste-based politics propagated by smaller Muslim political parties and instead exhibited unity by voting for SP en masse.

While professor and political analyst Dr Zahid Ali Khan of the Aligarh Muslim University said it was for the first time that the community overwhelmingly supported a single party, general secretary of All-India Milli Council Dr Manzoor Alam said the results were a warning for the Congress “The BSP neglected Muslims in a planned way in all spheres. Like other parties, it wanted to win over Muslims just on security issue,” said Alam

As for the reasons why Muslims rejected the Congress, Alam said it was mainly because the party continued targeting Muslim youth in terror charges.

“The Congress played a double game, it must appreciate that era of tokenism is over,” he added.

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State secularism in the land of religions and mythologies - By Ghulam Muhammed

Monday, October 11, 2010

State secularism in the land of religions and mythologies

Javed Akhtar, the well-known Bollywood lyricist, a self professed atheist with a Muslim name given by his Muslim parents, and a committed ‘secularist’, finds it increasingly difficult to balance himself sitting on his two-legged chair perched on a political tight-rope. His appearances of TV channel debates register his acute dilemma.

‘Lord’ Meghnad Desai in his Sunday Indian Express column quoted Javed Akhtar saying: as a Muslim he cannot be secular. (One wonders why then he is the presiding deity at a 3-man paper organization: Muslim for Secular Democracy (MSD); which is so quotable favorite of India’s English media’s Leftist journos.) To add insult to injury, Lord Desai suggested that Javed Akhtar should have added, it is not for people to prove their secularism, but leaders of political parties.

What comes out of this short exchange of views is that the Indian State should be secular, as per our constitution, though people need not be secular. In Indian context, all citizens may belong to any religion or creed or no creed, as long as in matters of state, they confirm to secularism. (Reminds me of old Henry Ford dictum: People can have Model T car in any color, as long as it is black!) So far so good. But what can be done when a miniscule minority of 3% Macaulay Brahmins, impose their will, their religious symbolism and their so called Hindu culture, on rest of the 97% non-Brahmins and get away with it.

Imagine, though Muslim kings and nawabs ruled all over India, for over 1000 years, they did not impose Islamic Sharia on the non-Muslim masses in any permanent manner or continuity. Some of the Kings may have used ‘Jaziya’ for some of the time, but only as reaction to some rebellious groups’ resistance to their rule. Many of the Muslim rulers were pioneer in creating a multi-cultural ethos widely known as Ganga-Jamni culture, for their adopted country. Except for a few exceptions and that too in the annals of communalized history, nobody can blame them for being Islamicists.

While during the watch of the ‘Macaulay Brahmin’ dominated Indian National Congress, in a short time span of mere 63 years, India has got so entrenched in Hindutva lore and culture, that the State is merely giving lip service to its Constitution, when it comes to observing ‘secularism’ in its governance and guidelines.

Creeping erosion of India’s constitutional secularism has come to such a state that even judiciary has become immune or as some may say, contemptuous to its existence.

The naked example of the erosion of our constitutional secularism is the monumental Allahabad High Court verdict on Babri Masjid title suit, after its state-supported demolition watched live by the entire world.

India must correct its course.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai

ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com

<http://www.ghulammuhammed.blogspot.com>