Owaisi: How Owaisi’s ‘Muslims vs the rest’ pitch helps BJP

Just ahead of the October 2014 assembly polls in Maharashtra, Asaduddin Owaisi and his brother Akbaruddin took Mumbai by storm. Their openly religious impassioned oratory and their attack on the half-hearted secularism of the Congress-NCP government made young Muslims go wild with joy. But elders of the community fretted that their community, already a potential target under the newly-elected BJP government at the Centre, would get totally isolated if they voted for a party that started and ended its election speeches with “Allah.”They need not have worried. The Owaisi-led All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) got just 0.9% of the vote in Maharashtra, though two of its candidates did get elected. Its performance in Bihar and UP was not much better.Seven years later, what’s changed?Today, the AIMIM has added one more MP in the Lok Sabha, and five more MLAs in Bihar and corporators in Maharashtra, UP and Gujarat. Then, the Congress’ half-hearted secularism provided fertile soil for the Owaisis; today, the growing anti-Muslim nature of the government at the Centre allows Owaisi to project himself even more forcefully as the only counter. No one now expects his party to do anything concrete for Muslims. It’s enough that he speaks up for them when no other leader even mentions the ‘M’ word during election campaigns — though they do so forcefully in Parliament, a fact Owaisi would like Muslims to forget. medium89657008Owaisi’s prime target remains the same: not the BJP, but “secular’’ parties that get Muslim votes, for it’s those votes that he wants. Given the way these parties have neglected and even targeted Muslims, his attack on them rings true. Thus in UP, Owaisi is currently directing his fire mainly at the Samajwadi Party, though his target should be Yogi Adityanath, who called this election an 80% vs 20% contest.This anomaly is not lost on the ordinary Muslim in UP, who, as AMU Professor Mohammed Sajjad says, finds his everyday life made difficult by the Yogi government’s politics and policies. This voter knows Owaisi’s rhetoric won’t help achieve the desired goal of displacing Yogi. Indeed, it might do the opposite. When Owaisi declares that a 'hijabi’ will one day become PM — which he knows is an impossibility — a BJP MLA expectedly retorts that this assertion itself is evidence of a “conspiracy to increase the Muslim population.”Untitled Carousel 89540162It is curious how Owaisi’s rhetoric, with its twin themes of Muslim victimhood and Muslim identity, reflects that of the BJP, which too is fixated on Hindu victimhood and Hindu identity. Like the BJP’s rhetoric alienates Muslims, Owaisi’s “we Muslims vs the rest” pitch pushes fence-sitters among Hindus towards the BJP. This, and his putting up candidates even against those parties that constitute a credible challenge to the BJP, have made many Muslims feel Owaisi is out to help the BJP. Even the recent firing on his car is being seen by many as a mutually beneficial “setting”.Yet, Muslims continue to throng his rallies.The contrast between the turnout at Owaisi’s rallies and the election results is not the only contradiction with the AIMIM chief. Many Muslims are proud that the man now being projected as their leader by the BJP and the media is an ace Parliamentarian and an expert on the Constitution. But in the party’s fortress of Hyderabad, AIMIM MLAs are not exactly known for adherence to Constitutional methods. And it is these MLAs who oversee the selection of the party’s candidates outside Telangana. For them, the only criterion is the candidate’s ability to fund his own campaign.Little wonder then, that many Muslims are embarrassed by the AIMIM’s elected representatives. Aurangabad MP Imtiaz Jaleel, a former journalist with NDTV, is perhaps the only exception to the rule.Asaduddin Owaisi, thus, is today a phenomenon quite separate from his party, and that includes his younger brother. Akbaruddin, whose 2012 hate speech at Nirmal in Adilabad district of Telangana will remain an albatross round his neck, is no longer seen in campaigns outside Telangana. Partly, the reason is his deteriorating health; partly, it’s because he has become a liability for his elder brother. medium89657050This gives a clue to the change in Owaisi over the last seven years. He is now a mainstream leader, no longer just a four-time MP from Hyderabad who heads a Muslim party. The media, lapping up his belligerent repartee, has made him “The Muslim Voice”, even though his party’s vote share has never gone beyond 0.21% in the Lok Sabha elections and 2.7% in assembly elections. The English media especially, loves him not only because of his command over English, but also his knowledge of the Constitution.Interestingly, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Salman Khurshid both have these qualities, but they are perceived only as Muslim leaders in the Congress, not as “leaders of Muslims.” Those who fit that latter label are mostly maulanas, and what a change Owaisi is from them.Ironically, many of these maulanas who get short shrift from most TV channels are Owaisi’s companions in the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), as misogynist and regressive a body as could be. But no journalist would describe Owaisi in those terms though he supports the Board in all its stands. Like them, Owaisi too is uncompromising in the practice of his faith: on a padyatra in Aurangabad during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the ‘Naqeeb-e-Millat’ (a title conferred upon Owaisi by his followers. In English it translates to ‘leader of the nation’) waited outside a Buddh Vihar while his candidate Imtiaz Jaleel went in to pay his respects. Ironically, the AIMIM was fighting the election in alliance with Prakash Ambedkar’s Bahujan Vanchit Aghadi.Owaisi’s friends describe him as formal and stern, one who never lets his hair down. That’s understandable. With the media spotlight constantly on him, the image he wants to project — the unrivalled leader of India’ s persecuted Muslims — has to be flawless. medium89657095The image got dented when he, leader of a community whose poverty he constantly harps on, hosted a wedding to end all weddings for his daughter in 2018. Or maybe, given the feudal atmosphere he operates in, such grandeur enhanced his image. But otherwise, it’s the pursuit of this politically perfect image that explains his refusal to defend sedition-accused AMU activist Sharjeel Imam (much to the disappointment of many young Muslims); and his refrain that his forefathers rejected Jinnah’s two-nation theory.Not only do the origins of his party (in the Razakars of the erstwhile Nizam's state of Hyderabad) bely that claim, but like the character in Hamlet, Owaisi “doth protest too much.” For, despite his fielding Dalit candidates, the main thrust of his politics is the need for Muslim unity (“ittehaad”) to counter the political establishment that has denied the community its due.Indian politics has never seen any community vote unitedly. Additionally, we’ve had a long tradition of secular non-Muslim leaders who’ve spoken up for Muslims: from giants such as Nehru, Lohia and S M Joshi, to H N Bahuguna, Karpoori Thakur and Madhu Limaye, down to George Fernandes, V P Singh, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Lalu Prasad Yadav. medium89657126It fits Owaisi’s politics to obliterate this tradition. Forget secular Hindu leaders, he denigrates even Muslim leaders as sellouts, “darri bichhaaney waley”, whose only function is to lay out mats for so-called secular, Hindu-dominated parties.The idea Owaisi sells to his community is that only one among them, and that too one who belongs to a Muslim party, can truly represent them. This automatically casts Muslims as a distinct, separate bloc.What could suit the BJP more? It too wants Hindus to be one united, distinct bloc, represented by itself. Together, Owaisi and the BJP resurrect Jinnah’s two-nation theory; it suits both to consign “secular” parties to the dustbin.Luckily, the overwhelming majority of Muslims have shown through their votes that they reject this poisonous theory. But until an overwhelming majority of Hindus do the same, Owaisi has a long innings ahead.The author is a senior journalist based in Mumbai.Untitled Carousel 89547902