To think that Muslims as a community are not a herd, as one Samajwadi Party leader does, is wishful thinking. Muslim community’s and not Muslim voters’ votes have been solicited from the time of Nehru. Who can deny that “the farman” of the Shahi Imam until lately was waited with bated breath to judge which way the Muslim vote may swing. This time the Shahi Imam has appealed to Muslims to vote en bloc for Samajwadi Party. Even Atal Behari Vajpayee also has placated him on the eve of elections. This time the Congress is offering them 4.5% from the OBC quota. The Samajwadi Party is offering much more. Rahul Gandhi has been showing the Muslim bunkars the dreams of large soft loans. All parties line up with some sops or the other. Why would they do so unless they know Muslims to be voting like a herd? They have been voting as herd since Nehru days and they are being kept that way by their own leaders. Only when Muslim leaders – especially the apolitical and religious leaders – will start encouraging them to vote on national issues, Muslims will show their potential of being responsible voters. Otherwise a party like the BJP – whom the Muslims vote strategically against – will have no choice but to make the Muslim vote irrelevant and that can be done only by communal polarisation. In Gujarat they have succeeded. Today Modi in Gujarat does not need Muslim votes. The Congress, there, is hesitating to woo Muslims for fear that the Hindu votes, which the BJP has robbed them of, may not return.
Dr Mookhi Amir Ali
Mumbai, M.S.