Political Orphans

 

There was a time when the Muslim in Indian politics was not a ghost. He walked in daylight. He argued in Parliament. He even became Chief Minister — not by accident or charity, but because the system still had some sense of fairness left in its bones. Abdul Ghafoor in Bihar, A.R. Antulay in Maharashtra, half a dozen governors, cabinet ministers with real portfolios. This was not ancient history. I was alive then. Many of you were too.

Then came Ayodhya, and with it a shift as deep as tectonic plates.  A structure fell, but with it also fell something harder to rebuild: the idea that the Indian Muslim belonged naturally in the political mainstream. The Hindu grew wary. The Muslim retreated. And the political class — always the first to sniff advantage — learned to count votes like shopkeepers measure lentils.

In Uttar Pradesh, where Muslims form nearly a fifth of the population, their political influence can be carried in a shirt pocket. Mulayam Singh was once hailed as their messiah because he ordered firing to stop kar sevaks. For this, Muslims rewarded him with devotion that would make a Sufi blush. 

Yet through four governments, the chair of the Chief Minister remained firmly a family heirloom. A deputy chief minister? Not even that. The voter was necessary, the leader was not. Assembly tickets for Muslims shrank year after year. Representation became ceremonial — like inviting someone to a wedding and seating them by the water drum.

Bihar is an even more amusing story, if you enjoy black comedy. Tejashwi is the chosen prince. Mukesh Sahni, with a caste footprint the size of a postage stamp, is offered deputy chief ministership in political dowry. 

And the Muslim — 18 percent of the state, and 30 years of loyal service carrying Lalu’s political palanquin — is told to make do with murmura and rhetoric. A pat on the back. An Urdu couplet during election season. And of course, the old promise: “We are the ones who will save you from the BJP.” The toffee and the rattle.

The greater performance comes from those who call themselves custodians of secularism and the Constitution. They treat the Muslim vote as a hereditary entitlement. In return they offer reassurance — which fills no stomachs and wins no ministries.

Look at the ticket distribution in recent elections across these secular parties: Muslim candidates reduced to single digits in many regions. Even where Muslims form a large share of voters, seat allocations look like ration coupons — weighed in grams, not kilograms. The self-declared defenders of minorities now treat the Muslim as a liability — visible, but not powerful; counted, but not allowed to count.

The danger is deeper than under-representation. It is exclusion. A community pushed out of the mainstream does not stay quiet. It festers, fragments, internalizes despair. Once outside power, it becomes the subject of politics, not a participant in it. And nothing is more harmful to a democracy than citizens who feel they no longer belong to its central conversation.

Let us not entirely blame the BJP. At least they are honest in the transaction: We will not give you anything, and you will not vote for us. Mutual clarity is preferable to the romance of betrayal.

The greater performance is from those who proclaim themselves the custodians of secularism, pluralism, humanity, and the Constitution. They take the Muslim vote as if it were a hereditary tax. And in return they offer... reassurance. Reassurance fills no stomachs and wins no ministries.

But the Muslim voter is not blameless. Loyalty in politics is admirable only when it yields dividends. Loyalty that yields humiliation is a habit, not a principle. The Muslim has, for decades, voted not for who is good, but for who is not the BJP. This is a negative vote, like choosing your doctor based on who is least likely to kill you. And the result is the same: you survive, but you do not recover.

If the Muslim voter wakes up one day and says: “We will vote for whoever works, whoever builds, whoever treats us with dignity” — nothing more dramatic than this — the entire political market will shake. Many careers will collapse. And Indian politics might, for a brief moment, remember its conscience. The Ganga will flow a little cleaner.

But I have lived long enough to know that habits are stubborn. Communities, like individuals, cling to their fears more tightly than to their hopes.

Still, I am an old man. Allow me my optimism. And my cynicism. They coexist like Hindu and Muslim neighbors who quarrel in the day and share tea in the evening.

Bharat has not lost its soul. It has only misplaced it temporarily.

It will find it again — when both the voter and the politician stop treating each other like creditors and debtors, and remember they are citizens of the same Republic.