a K Antony’s remark that the Congress should mobilize the majority Hindu community to defeat the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the minority “not enough in this fight“underlines a serious crisis of ideas. Although Antony remained apprehensive about the term ‘soft Hindutva’, his speech contained a critical acknowledgment of the BJP’s politics of Hindu oppression.
Antony’s advice to have a clearly ‘Hindu spirit’ highlights the Congress’s uneasiness in dealing with non-Hindu communities, especially Muslims, as legitimate political stakeholders. Also, these comments destabilize the intellectual claim made by senior Congress leaders that the Bharat Jodo Yatra led by Rahul Gandhi will produce an alternative vision of politics.
Does this mean that the Congress has finally accepted the Hindutva criticism that it has always been involved in ‘Muslim appeasement’? Or does it mean that the politics of Muslim appeasement has to be replaced by the equally effective politics of ‘Hindu appeasement’?
Antony’s statement is based on three fallacious assumptions:
- There is a need to contact Hindu voters only by being Hindu, only to take care of their religious sentiments.
- A ‘pro-Muslim’ tag would naturally anger Hindus. So Congress should not be seen as Muslim or minority friendly party.
- Muslims should understand that the Hindutva approach of the Congress is logically beneficial for them to defeat their natural enemy, the BJP.
These notions are accepted by virtually all non-BJP parties as staunch political facts. The BJP is believed to have successfully used these arguments to create and nurture a Hindutva constituency of its voters.
But these widely held beliefs are anything but ‘facts’.
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BJP’s Hindu-ness, Congress’s pro-Muslim image
Lokniti-CSDS Survey has shown that the BJP’s success in post-2014 India cannot be reduced entirely to ‘religious sentiments of Hindus’. Of course, Hindutva-inspired nationalism has been an important electoral agenda for the BJP. Nevertheless, the party never neglected other ideological views.
BJP has redefined The nature of welfarism in a significant way to establish a link between pro-poor schemes and national pride. In other words, Hindu voters are not always approached as Hindus by the BJP establishment. Instead, Hindu-ness is defined in relation to everyday issues such as poverty and lack of development.
The claim that the pro-Muslim image of the Congress will ultimately upset Hindus is also wrong. A recent study by the Pew Research CenterReligion in India: Tolerance and Separation‘ is relevant in this regard.
‘Respecting religious diversity’ is one of the most striking findings of the report. The vast majority of Indians believe that India belongs to all religious groups. Respondents claim that showing respect for all Indian religions is a basic moral requirement to be recognized as a ‘true Indian’. It simply means that Hindus and Muslims do not consider themselves as enemies. it’s really a problem of the political class that adheres to communal identity and conservatism in the electoral arena.
This brings us to the third assumption: the future success of the Congress will help Muslims to get rid of the BJP. This is a tricky formulation. It is true that BJP does not directly show any interest in Muslim voters. But, the party’s recent attempt to reach out to Pasmanda Muslims is a subtle strategy played delicately. Meanwhile, the BJP has effectively established that Muslims have always been given an unfair advantage by secular parties to the detriment of Hindu interests.
No one can deny the fact that the Congress appeased the Muslim elite to create electoral balance in the name of secularism. However, this ‘elite appeasement’ had no impact on the everyday lives of poor and marginalized Muslims.
This is the reason why the voting pattern of Muslims in India has always been highly diverse. they did not do Even shy away from voting for BJP. Of course, Muslims do not participate in electoral politics only to defeat the BJP; On the contrary, they claim their identity as secular voters in the electoral fray without giving up their religious belief.
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Subaltern Muslims and grassroots India
In my view, there is a need to acknowledge two aspects of contemporary Indian Muslim identity.
- Muslimism as a hypothetical discourse treats Muslims as a homogeneous community that can be pitted against an equally hypothetical homogeneous Hindu community.
- Muslimism as a living identity Various contexts determine the daily existence of Muslims and turn them into a highly heterogeneous religious group.
Our public discourse revolves around only one aspect of Muslimness. Political parties treat all Muslims as members of a closed homogeneous social group, either to protect them as a ‘religious minority’ or to project them as an anti-Hindu force. A.K. This limitation is clearly reflected in Antony’s argument. He could not think of Muslims outside this given essential framework of minority and majority.
Meanwhile, Muslimness, on the other hand, as a living identity, is not an abstract formulation. It is formed in real-life situations at the grassroots level where Muslims participate as citizens and voters. Beautiful pictures of Muslims from Bharat Jodo Yatra really underline this solid Muslimness.
Bharat Jodo Yatra is a good opportunity for Congress to redefine its approach towards Muslims. If the party stuck to an elitist vision of Muslimism, it would not be possible for its leaders to go beyond AK Antony’s thesis.
However, if Muslimness is recognized as a lived experience as much as an intellectual resource, a creative, secular, subaltern, inclusive and non-conflict idea of India can eventually emerge.
After all, Bharat Jodo Yatra is about grassroots India.
Hilal Ahmad is a scholar of Political Islam and Associate Professor at the Center for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), New Delhi. He tweets @Ahmed1Hilal. Thoughts are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)