Believe Me, Muslims are Not a Herd By Shahid Siddiqui February 5, 2012 Opportunistic politicians are projecting Muslims

as a monolithic vote bank,' wher eas the reality is of a diverse community divided along caste and theological li nes. The myth of the Muslim vote bank, though denied by sociologists and debunked by psephologists, refuses to die. It reasserts itself with new vigour at every elec tion. Even those well aware of the diversity within the community cannot resist building their arguments on this spurious claim. The vote bank theory has been convenient for labelling Muslims and shoving them into handy brackets. It was done in India to explain the political behaviour of Muslims across regional, linguistic, caste, class and social barriers. Today it is done globally to gloss over inconvenient and inconsistent behaviour: it is a one-size fits all formula that cuts across regions and rides over locational dif ferences and circumstances. Whether they are Thai, Chechen, Palestinian or Europ ean, Muslims are judged unfailingly by their faith and so-called beliefs. In thi s foretold story, everything is pre-decided: the crime, the culprit, the cause, the evidence and the punishment. The vote bank The idea that there is something called a Muslim vote bank, which behaves uniforml y across the board, suits equally the Muslim leadership and its right wing Hindu counterpart. Muslim leaders and middlemen can bargain with political parties on behalf of this collective vote, as if individual Muslims have no opinion of their own and can be herded together in a pre-determined direction for a price decide d mutually between the politicians and the community's self-appointed spokespers ons. The Muslim vote bank helps communal Hindu organisations to manufacture thei r own Hindu vote bank, and use the whipped up Muslim threat to achieve their ultim ate objective: a Hindu-Muslim electoral polarisation. The secular sections too h ave become unwitting participants in this game. Their intention is presumably to lift Muslims out of their sense of insecurity but the constant focus has only s erved to perpetuate the fear and victimhood that have been the bane of the commu nity. Experts on 24x7 TV channels habitually use the vote bank theory to offer p at explanations for Muslim behaviour and to reach pre-fabricated conclusions. I know I will be roundly attacked for these assertions for they question the ver y basis on which sectarian elements on both sides have built their arguments. Th e Muslim Ulema refuse to accept the ground reality of Islam in India which is as much mired in caste politics as any other Indian religion. The plain truth is t hat Muslim society is as divided as Hindu society and along the same caste and r egional lines. Caste is such a formidable Indian/Hindu institution that no ideol ogy can escape it: Islam, Christianity, Marxism, rationalism, modernism have all floundered on the bedrock of this hard reality. Islam became acceptable in medi eval Indian society as a caste group and not as a religious group. Mughals, Path ans, Turks, Sheikhs and Syeds were regarded as sub-castes, so much so that other Indian converts to Islam came to be conveniently regarded as outcasts. Diverse and complex It suited the Turk/Pathan/Mughal rulers to be treated as caste groups and not as a monolithic religion. Those who understand Western Uttar Pradesh Muslim societ y will vouch for the existence of castes such as Jhojhas, Ranghars, Gharhas whic h are peculiar to Muslims of this area. Then you have Muslims divided along Hind

u caste lines, among them Muslim Rajputs, Mode Jaat (Muslim Jat) and Khatri, Guj jar, Tyagi and Teli Muslims. Others such as Ansaris, Qureshis, Rayanis, Sulemani s and Saifis are as divided socially as any other caste groups. Add to this the Shia-Sunni and Deobandi-Barelvi divides and a dozen other divisions based on dif ferent school of thoughts, and you have a complex and diverse community. Before Independence these divisions were not as sharp as they are today, primari ly because the British had to be fought as a common enemy. However as electoral politics came to the fore, caste and sub-caste divisions got etched in bolder re lief. Caste divisions in Muslim society were never as sharp or as rigid as they are in Hindu society. With the coming of democracy they became distinct politica l groups, and more so since the Mandalisation of North Indian politics. Today, M uslims in rural India do not vote as a single religious group. Their caste rival ries are so strong that if, for example, the Qureshis vote for one party, the An saris will vote for another. And the beauty of this voting is that it is irrespe ctive of the candidate who could be Hindu or Muslim. To be sure, there does emer ge from time to time a temporary Muslim vote, when the community faces a common th reat like the Ram Mandir movement, or anti-Muslim pogroms as in Gujarat, Meerut or Bhagalpur. In fact it is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which by raising the bogey of the Muslim vote bank, that turns this fragmented vote into a formidabl e political entity. Muslim leaders in turn play the Indian Islam/Muslims are in d anger card in order to unite the community under one banner. Contrary to popular assumptions, the Muslim vote never goes en masse to a single party, be it the Co ngress, the Samajwadi Party or the Rashtriya Janata Dal. Before Independence , e ven the Muslim League could never get more than 50 per cent of the Muslim vote i n U.P. So analysts deliberately obfuscate the truth when they talk of Muslims vo ting for this or that party under the sway of one fatwa or another. The voting b ehaviour of Muslims is as varied as that of any other religious group, based on their socio-economic, rural-urban and caste-religion divides. Influence of global events In the last 40 years of my active journalistic life I have always been asked thi s question by my friends from the media: What will be the impact of Bangladesh or an India-Pakistan war or the situation in Iran or the death of Saddam Hussein o n Indian Muslim voting behaviour? Recently it was Salman Rushdie who was thought to be able to affect Muslim voting. My reply has always been that these issues do influence the minds of a section of Muslims but they do not influence their v oting behavior. They voted for Indira Gandhi despite her being responsible for t he break up of Pakistan. They voted for the Janata Party in 1977 despite the pre sence of the Jana Sangh in that camp. They went along with V.P. Singh despite hi s association with the BJP. They voted by and large with the Left Front in West Bengal but moved towards Mamata Banerjee as the general mood changed in that sta te. The point I am making is that Muslims don't generally vote against the trend in their State. Even when they vote for a particular party it is never as a single, undifferentiated block. The media and analysts should stop looking at Muslim vo ters through the prism of a vote bank and start treating them as individuals and g roups. The subconscious contempt we have for the other (read Muslims) leads us to believe that they somehow behave irrationally, as a herd led by their fanatic le aders. The legend of the Muslim vote bank is strong and will be used and reused in this election as in the previous ones. However, for a better understanding of Indian politics it is best that we think beyond the vote bank. Shahid Siddiqui is a former Member of Parliament, editor of Nai Duniya and curre ntly a member of the Samajwadi Party Source: The Hindu, New Delhi

URL: http://www.newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamCurrentAffairs_1.aspx?ArticleID=6562

COMMENTS@sadaf, what a childish feedback. Please give some reasoning rather tha n rattling like a child lost in the exhibition. Do you have one to justify the reversal of alimony give to a poor widow in the name of religion? When Muslim does not want to see the short coming of their society, so will the Hindus and you could see the same working well for Modi in Gujarat. Even the con gress does not want to hurt the Hindus sentiment like what they did for Shah Ban o. If you donor want to see the reality that is your choice and that of the Muslim community at large. You all the leaders are lighting the flag of bjp in every s tates. Best of Luck. If that is the will of Muslim, so be the will of god.

By satwa gunam - 2/7/2012 8:53:02 PM One more crap from you Mr. Satwa. Your following sentence is most beautiful at i ts ugliest best. You have written 'Irrespective of what the author has written i s a crap'. Read it again and rephrase it to mean what you wanted to say so that we can make out anything of it. Satwa, if you have to participate in a dialogue that has to have some meaning, even if not much impact, then at least you should improve your standard. I do not mean to demoralize you. I appreciate your effort to do your balidaan for your Shakha Prabandhak. But yo u know you are wasting your time here. Else tell me, do you really think anybody is going to change his mind with such crap that he doesn't even understand beca use of the simple reason that the crap is just a crap. It doesn't mean anything. If you have to change someone's mind at least communicate it properly. And I'll surely appreciate if you appreciate this unsolicited advice. You are right abou t arm twisting thing that you talked about Rajiv Gandhi and Supreme Court judgme nt but who cares. Muslims are like herds as you meant to say, if I am right in u nderstanding what you meant to say in your crap, and hence it will be futile to keep wasting your precious gems on them and their issues and their understanding of things. At least with such a handicap that you have Mr. Satwa By sadaf - 2/7/2012 1:04:31 PM Hindus vote to bjp. Where did hindu fundamentalism started, it is from the musli m vote bank politics and imam lending support to political leaders. They could arm twist rajiv gandhi to reverse supreme court judgement. Hindu fundamentalism actually grew at the blessing of the islamic fundamentalism in india and world wide. But hindus are yet to become as communal like muslims in pakistan and tha t is the reason the minority is growing at the expense of hindu majority. By satwa gunam - 2/7/2012 9:12:23 AM Vote banks and herd-like behavior exist in all communities but the BJP has been using the concept to denigrate Muslim voters exclusively. There is a distinct H indutva vote bank which almost always votes for the BJP. In the United States w hite Southern Baptists almost always vote for Republicans, whereas Blacks vote o verwhelmingly for Democrats. Should they be called herd-like vote banks? Or is i t typical human behaviour?

By Ghulam Mohiyuddin - 2/6/2012 2:44:06 PM The Muslims are not so much foolish as the leaders have thought about them. I fu lly agree with the views of the writer who has explained all situation with full details. The Muslims can not be considered a vote bank or a herd of sheep. By Raihan Nezami - 2/6/2012 1:21:12 PM