Dwindling Muslim Voices in India’s Parliament

It is said that “the true measure of a democracy is the way it treats its minorities.” India may be the largest democracy in terms of the quantum of voters, but the quality of its democracy turns out to be quite questionable once we analyze the representation of its religious minorities especially its Muslim community in its legislative bodies.

Take the latest general elections to the lower house of India’s Parliament. Of the 543 seats that were contested, only 24 Muslim candidates won the elections. There were 26 Muslim MPs in the previous Lok Sabha. Thus, the current percentage of Muslim representation in Lok Sabha stands at 4.41%. Compared to the 14.2% official Muslim population in India (as per the last 2011 Census), this sub 5% number of Muslim MPs in Parliament is grossly inadequate.

Looking at the table of Muslim MPs (in the current Parliament) and their political affiliation, the biggest anomaly remains zero representation of Muslims within the ruling NDA dispensation.

The split of Muslim MPs representing the INDIA bloc is as follows: Congress – 7, Samajwadi Party (SP) – 4, Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) – 3, and National Conference (NC) – 2.

Another cause of concern is the number of Muslim candidates fielded in the 2024 elections by mainstream parties. For example, Congress, TMC, SP, RJD, NCP and CPI(M) fielded 78 Muslim candidates in 2024 compared to 115 in the 2019 elections. The following Table gives you party-wise ticket distribution for Lok Sabha to Muslims in 2024 and 2019:

Following the BJP’s rise to power, there has been a steady decline in the number of Muslim MPs and MLAs. This is linked to the reluctance of most mainstream parties to nominate Muslim candidates, due to concerns about creating an opportunity for the BJP to prove that they are “Muslim-centric” and appease minorities by neglecting the majority Hindu community. It seems the slogan coined by RSS (the ideological mentor of the BJP) that “jo Hindu hitt ki baatkarega, wohideshmeinraajkarega” (whoever talks of Hindu interests, only they can rule the country) has subconsciously permeated into the psyche of these parties.

The peculiar result is that although Muslim voters are a decisive factor in each election season, representation for the community remains low, even in States where it forms a sizeable percentage of the population. Chairperson of J&K National Conference, Omar Abdullah made a very interesting observation in a tweet saying, “It’s not just the BJP, the NDA is Muslim mukth, Christian mukth, Buddhist mukth, Sikh mukth and yet the government will claim to represent 140 crore Indians.”

Christophe Jaffrelot and Gilles Verniers have studied the issue of dwindling Muslim voices in India’s Parliament. Their research reveals: “In 2009, the BJP fielded four Muslim candidates or 0.48% of the total, and only one got elected. In 2014, it fielded seven Muslim candidates out of 428 (less than 2%), and none were elected. For the first time in India’s history, the winning party in the general elections had no Muslim in its parliamentary group in Lok Sabha (2014-2019). For the first time also, in UP, where Muslims make up over 18%of the population and where the BJP won 71 out of 80 seats, not a single Muslim MP got elected (compared to 6 in 2009 and 10 in 2004), until the recent by-election in Kairana.”

The underrepresentation of Muslims in the Lok Sabha could lead to significant policy implications, as highlighted by political researcher and computer scientist Saloni Bhogale. After analyzing a dataset of 276,000 parliamentary questions from 1999 to 2017, Bhogale discovered that Muslim representatives were more inclined to raise issues that were of particular concern to the Muslim community, such as violence against Muslims and the treatment of Muslim prisoners. Bhogale also emphasized that the disproportionately low number of Muslim women in the Lok Sabha, accounting for less than 1% of its members, means that the concerns of this segment are particularly unlikely to be addressed.

Countering the above theory that Muslim lawmakers are more likely to plead for Muslim causes and cases, political scientist Hilal Ahmed says that there is an impression that given the chance, Muslim voters will tend to support a Muslim candidate at the local level. The elected Muslim representatives are then expected to advocate for the specific concerns of the Muslim community in the legislative bodies.

According to this line of thinking, a natural connection between Muslim leaders and the Muslim population is consistently formed. However, Hilal feels that the falsity of this assumption can be proved through the example of the anti-Muslim violence that took place in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradeshin 2012. The violence took place despite the UP assembly having a sizeable number of Muslim MLAs.

Hilal asserts, “The failure of political efficacy in UP illustrates an important aspect of our political system. Muslim MLAs and Muslim MP of Muzaffarnagar did not claim to represent the riot-effected Muslims of the district. Nor did they campaign for any kind of counter-mobilisation of Muslim electorates in later elections. On the contrary, they continued to follow the instructions given to them by their respective political parties.”

Indirectly corroborating Hilal Ahmed, the Vice President of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, Malik Moatasim Khan was asked by the media in a press conference, about the trend of declining Muslim MPs in Parliament. He said, “It is also important to note how much freedom political parties give to their Muslim MPs to express their opinion or criticize the government. For example, BSP’s Kunwar Danish Ali was suspended by his party for speaking his mind. Representation is important, but it should be of good quality. Even when the number of Muslim MPs was at its peak, no great milestone was achieved for the Indian Muslim community.”

Undeniably, the quality of democracy in India will always be called into question if a significant portion of its population remains underrepresented and voiceless in its legislative processes. Addressing this imbalance is crucial for India to transform itself into “Viksit Bharat” and remain true to its quest for “sab ka saath, sab ka vikas and sab ka vishwas”.