The prevalent view is that India’s over 200-million-strong Muslim community has suffered since Narendra Modi came to power in May 2014. In particular, the community’s political significance has been reduced to a great extent. There hasalso been a worrisome rise in violence and discrimination against Muslims on all fronts, with mob lynchings tragically becoming the norm.
It is no secret that the community has long been underrepresented in the police, military, and administrative spheres. But here, we will try to concentrate on their fast-dwindling representation in both the provincial legislative assemblies and Parliament in the last ten years.
For the first time since Independence, not a single Muslim minister in the Union Cabinet, nor is there a single Muslim member on the ruling party’s list of MPs. Out of 27 states, 15 states don’t have any Muslims as ministers, while 10 state governments have Muslim ministers but with insignificant portfolios. There is no Muslim chief minister in any of the Indian states.
In the two houses of Parliament and the combined assembly of all the States and Union Territories, India has 4,908 seats overall. The Rajya Sabha has 245 seats, the Lok Sabha has 543, and the legislative bodies of the states and Union Territories have the remaining 4,120. However, the ruling BJP, which calls itself the “biggest political party in the world,” has no Muslim MPs in the Rajya Sabha or Lok Sabha. Across all states, the BJP has almost 1,000 MLAs; not a single one of them is Muslim.
The party, which frequently invokes its slogan of “Sabka saath, sabkavikas” (‘support and development for everyone’), is currently in a majority in the Lok Sabha as well as in 17 states and Union Territories. Consequently, the lack of any representation from the Muslim community reflects particularly poorly on the party. The exclusion of Muslims from the ruling party is deliberate rather than coincidental.
There are a host of factors at work in marginalizing the community in the political sphere. But the rise of Hindutva forces andthe radicalization of society are among them. French political scientist and Indologist Christophe Jaffrelot underlined in his book “Majoritarian State: How Hindu Nationalism Is Changing India” that the BJP’s rise has meant a shrinking number of Muslim lawmakers in India.
According to the book, “Between 1980 and 2014, the number of Muslim MPs in the lower house of the Indian parliament – and hence their percentage – diminished by more than half. This evolution is all the more significant as the share of Muslims in the Indian population rose during the same period. Consequently, the gap between their proportion of the population (which rose from 11.1 to 14.2%) and that of their elected representatives in the Lok Sabha (which dropped from 9 to 3.7%) increased fivefold, jumping from two to ten percentage points. Responsibility for this trend lies primarily with the BJP, which has only ever endorsed very few Muslim candidates, and this in constituencies where the party had a slim chance of winning, even as its group in parliament continued to increase in numbers.”
In the 7th Lok Sabha election in 1980, as many as 49 Muslims got elected to the Lower House, which is the highest Muslim representation to date. Afterward, however, with the rise of the BJP,Muslim representation began a steady decline. In the 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, Muslim representation plummeted from 17.1% in 2012 to 5.9%.
Tracing the roots of political marginalization and invisibilization of Muslims, Dr Zafarul-Islam Khan, Editor of the Milli Gazette and ex-Chairman of Delhi Minorities Commission, said, “It started even before Independence when, during the self-rule period, the Congress refused to concede any ground to the Muslim League. This policy took concrete shape after Independence, when Muslim reservations were abolished. Urdu was unseated as the official language at lower administration levels, and Urdu media government schools were abolished. Non-Muslims migrating to India after Independence were welcomed as “refugees,” while Muslims returning to India were treated as “evacuees” who required special permits to come to India. Muslims in areas bordering West Pakistan were killed or forced to flee to the neighboring country. Reservations for Muslim and Christian Dalits were denied by a sleight of hand through the unconstitutional Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order of 1950. Muslim representation in Parliament and legislatures has been barely one-third of their entitlement all these past decades. Muslims have been ensnared in mostly fake terror cases these past three decades, disturbing their normal lives. Recruitment of Indian Muslims in government jobs across the board fell to one-fourth or even less of their ratio in the population. All this led the Sachar Committee to discover in 2006 that Muslims have fallen even below SC/ST levels in some fields.”
It is a historic fact that, in terms of representation, the Congress was likewise not any different. In 1947, out of 1,000 AICC members nationwide, just 3 percent were Muslims. When the Muslim League of that era said that the Congress was a “Hindu party,” they were right. In the 1980s and 1990s, the BJP adopted such a pattern.
Speaking with Radiance, Dr. Khan pointed out that the situation has only worsened under the BJP rule since 2014. If earlier governments followed a tacit policy of marginalizing Indian Muslims, Hindutva openly believes and advocates the relegation of Indian Muslims (and Christians) to second-class citizens.
“Now this is the unabashed policy at the center and in states ruled by the BJP. For the first time in free India, the ruling party does not have even a token Muslim minister or MP. Schemes started by earlier governments benefiting Muslims are being slowly abolished. Muslim personal laws are being gradually eroded. Madrasas are being abolished, as in Uttarakhand, Assam, and now in UP. Mosques, mazars, and madrasas are being pulled down in several areas. Vilification by pro-government media is a daily affair. Taking out protests, a democratic right of every Indian, has become exceedingly difficult for Muslims. Those exercising their democratic rights get arrested, and their houses and shops are routinely bulldozed,” he added.
The weakening of Mandal politics also played an important role in north Indian states such as UP, Bihar, and Jharkhand. A journalist based in Türkiye, Iftikhar Gilani, said the middle and lower castes of Hindus, who used to vote with the Muslims, no longer do so. They are now educated and have taken up positions in the government and the private sectors, thanks to the policies of the OBC-dominated governments in UP and Bihar. They now belong to an aspirational class and would try to reach the level of the upper castes in terms of education and success. They have nothing to do with the Muslims, who have become increasingly backward in recent years. The aspiring class looks at the person who is ahead of them, not the one who is behind. There is nothing in the Muslim community that motivates others to emulate them or to form an alliance with them socially. Dalits will vote for their own candidate, but if their own candidate is weak, they will go to the BJP, and the same is true for OBCs as well.
Echoing his views, Quamar Ashraf, an independent media analyst, observed that “the exclusion of Muslims reflects a broader trend of Muslims being treated as outsiders in the country’s political system. In fact, Muslims are rarely treated as an integral part of the Indian body politic,” said Ashraf. However, he does not hold the current political setup responsible for the deplorable state of affairs. He held that Congress’s sustained move toward “Hindu majoritarianism” has paved the way for the emergence of right-wing politics in India.
Dr. Khan also underlined that, thanks to the pervasive Hindutva propaganda, which dubs any pro-Muslim act or statement as “appeasement of Muslims,” all political parties, with the exception of Communist parties, keep Muslims at bay. “Muslims are no longer given party posts, asked to be present on any stage during rallies, or asked to act as campaigners during elections. This is a great success for the Hindutva agenda. It also means that even if other parties come to rule India, nothing much will change in the foreseeable future. Muslims will remain pariah for all political parties”.
Asharf also held the same view, saying, “The media has played a key role in demonizing Muslims, leading to their social isolation. A significant portion of the media defends the government’s discriminatory actions against Muslims, citing the electoral victory.”
In fact, the media hasincreasingly blurred the line between democracy and mobocracy, he added. “While television channels rarely discuss anything positive, in the print media landscape there has been discussion on the representation of women, scheduled tribes, and scheduled castes, but Muslims remain on the fringe,” he said.
Both the ruling BJP and opposition parties have shied away from supporting Muslims publicly, creating a hostile environment where anti-Muslim sentiment is used for political gain. The portrayal of Muslims by Indian media is deeply troubling and must be addressed, he said. It is essential for Muslims to challenge and change this narrative, he said.
Dr. Khan said marginalization of Indian Muslims has never been as acute as it is now and warned that the situation will only get worse if Mr. Modi is voted back to power next May.
Aslam Sher Khan, former hockey Olympian and union minister who stood for Lok Sabha five times from the Betul constituency in Madhya Pradesh, has a different perspective on the marginalization issue. He told Radiance that there are two main reasons for the Muslim community’s decline in politics: first, they left the Congress party following the demolition of the Babri Masjid and divided their votes among the BSP, SP, and other parties in an effort to prevent the Congress party from winning power.
After the 1980s, the eligibility criteria changed; money and muscle power had become important factors in the selection of candidates by political parties earlier; it was candidates’standing in society and integrity that mattered, he said.
He also advised the community to come out of despondency and restart self-belief. Citing his own example, he said Betul constituency has only a four percent Muslim vote, but he won twice from that seat. He said Muslim votes matter in almost 150 seats, and they need to put India on a correction course.