‘Dil na umeed toh nahin nakaam hi toh hai;
Lambi hai gham ki shaam magar shaam hi toh hai!’
(Oh yes, I grieve, but I do not despair,
The dusk of sadness is long, but it's just a dusk, that’s all)
Faiz wrote this couplet when he was saddened by the long wait for revolution which he and millions like him dreamt and worked to achieve in their own ways. I had read this couplet a decade ago, but suddenly this has become an instrument of both solace and courage.
The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Musllimeen (AIMIM) contested on 100 seats in UP, mostly Muslim and Dalit dominated areas, failing to register a single win. The result has sparked a plethora of debates online and offline, with a large section of savarna media houses accusing AIMIM of splitting votes to help BJP win. This is nothing new for us. We have for long been criticised by both the so-called ‘right wingers and left wingers’. Right wing hates us for the questions our party president Asaduddin Owaisi raises in parliament with facts and figures. In fact, there is no other opposition leader who grills the government like he does. Maybe it's his education as a barrister or maybe it’s his undying belief in our Constitution. He just refuses to stop questioning. The Left hates us because of our belief in Allah and the sunnah. For most liberal civil society groups and human rights NGOs, we are only props for protests: To be used and dumped as inconvenient after they have raised institutional foreign donations by exploiting our plight.
But beyond the emotional rant, let us analyse the data shared by the Election Commission of India website. For starters, I would like to remind the valued readers that UP has roughly 16 crore registered voters - 20% Muslims, 7% Yadavs, 20% Dalits, 4% Thakurs, 12% Brahmins & 20% non-Yadav OBCs. It was this 20% Muslim vote that AIMIM was eyeing in UP while hoping for some support from Dalits and non–Yadav OBCs. We secured 0.43% of total votes polled translating to nearly 5 lakh. Assuming that only Muslims voted for AIMIM in UP, we basically secured 2% of the total Muslim votes in UP (assuming 2.4 crore Muslim voters). This is a big win for a party that contested with literally no money, no propaganda machinery, and young internal teams. Compare that with the might of SP, BSP, BJP and INC; each of which have ruled the state at least once.
I fail to understand what to respond to. The allegations of us being vote katwas (vote splitters) or the mocking by right wing IT cells online for losing deposits in 99/100 seats contested. Logically, only one of them can be true, but with money to burn on propaganda, savarna media houses are attacking us mercilessly for both. While they accuse us of helping BJP win by showing how SP candidates lost due to small margins where AIMIM secured few votes, they are dead silent on INC and BSP splitting votes.
I agree that we were never in a position to form the government but was INC or BSP in the race ever? No one calls BSP vote katwas when they contest in states like MP, J&K, Kerala, Jharkhand, Himachal, Karnataka and Telangana where they have no party presence or cadre whatsoever. They don't accuse Congress of being vote katwa when they contest in states like Kerala, Telangana, Tamil Nadu , AP etc with no chance of winning. Why aren't they being accused then? Did Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad have a chance to become the CM? The maximum votes polled by Azad’s party was by Azad himself who secured 7,000 votes while we have many leaders who polled more than 5,000 votes, with 36,000 being the highest in Mubarakpur for Guddu Jamali.
Why don't they call Chandra Shekhar Azad a vote katwa for fighting on 100+ seats? Because the pseudo seculars know well deep inside that AIMIM has found a home in UP Muslims hearts! They know that if 2% of Muslims have voted for us this time when there was such a huge propaganda in favour of SP, we will poll far better in coming elections. And without Muslim votes, these parties will fall to single digits because they have lost all other vote banks. The vote percentage data is a clear indication of the fact that SP has lost hold over Yadav votes, particularly in the Yadav belt where it managed to win only 12/35 seats. I am not sure why INC with just 2.5% of total votes does not look like vote katwas to the savarna media houses.
I may be wrong in my assumption but more than half of the votes that Congress got were from Muslims. According to reports, a similar number of Muslims voted for BSP which could garner only 12% of total votes. So in today’s scenario, we basically have Muslim support base equivalent to parties that once ruled the state with Muslim support. This is no small feat. All those aware of how elections work know that elections are fought at booth level. AIMIM has a strong booth presence with committed workers in more than 100 assembly constituencies in UP. This is the basic foundation for any party to succeed in elections and we have been able to build this without spending a single penny. Most of our workers are young working professionals who give extra time to serve the country through AIMIM. They are driven by our ideology and not money or power. This is giving sleepless nights to SP, BSP and INC - all of whom can never form government without Muslim votes.
People also question what we would be able to achieve with MLAs alone, without forming a government. This is a sad question for a democracy. Democracy functions in a way that everyone should have representation to get their work done - both winners and losers by virtue of being MLAs. Demands for development are raised in the parliament/assemblies by local area MP/MLA and they then ensure public funds are disbursed and used honestly for hyperlocal development. It's no secret that Muslim pockets are least developed areas in almost all cities, districts. Those who accuse us should actually question the pseudo secular parties that why Muslim areas remain underdeveloped? Why are we only 4% in higher education? Why don't we have reservation while multiple government committees have reported that Muslims lag behind Dalits in education, financial status and multiple other development parameters? Why are we burdened to vote for pseudo secularists when their own core vote bank has abandoned them?
The point is this - Muslims alone can never form a government in UP even if 100% of them vote for any party - SP, BSP or INC. We have always been instrumental in bringing SP, BSP or INC in power in the state, possibly the largest vote bank to vote for them collectively. If we have been the largest vote bank helping these pseudo seculars form the government, then why on earth is Muslim community the least developed while our Dalit and Yadav brethren have progressed immensely? Because we don't have actual political representation to demand for our rights and development as Yadavs or Dalits have. We end up blindly voting for pseudo secularists, without any demands, because they create a fear psychosis that ‘ BJP aayegi toh kaategi’ (Muslims will be killed in riots and lynchings if BJP comes to power).
If you look at reports you can see that Muslims have been badly massacred and humiliated in these governments too. Muzaffarnagar happened while SP was in power. It was under Akhilesh Yadav’s Chief Ministership that the first known Indian, Akhlaque, was lynched by right wing mob in Dadri. No one has been punished till date. In fact, 139 incidents of communal violence against Muslims were reported under the SP rule, according to DOTO.
SP lost UP elections because they failed to get OBC votes. BSP has been run aground because Dalits abandoned it for BJP. Congress is dead because it has lost all its vote bank across social groups. Pseudo secular parties should work on ground to deradicalise the masses and win back their vote bank instead of accusing Muslims for their defeat. To get the power, there is a need of mass movement, converting that mass movement into votes, then converting votes into seats, further converting the seats into power at state level. Going on AC bus yatras five months before elections cannot help anyone to form a government even in normal situations, and this time the communal hatred was at its peak.
AIMIM has built a strong base in UP which will yield positive results in the upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha elections. With the support of Muslims and Dalits, we are confident of having strong voices in the parliament. We will not stop until we unite the victims of the system and overthrow the spirit of inequality and communal hatred in our country. For a long time we have been knocking at the doors of the pseudo secular parties, asking for justice and getting nothing, it’s time to break down those doors. We firmly believe that a community that doesn’t have representation in the political power, that community is dead. Until the time we won’t be successful in politics and not be able to have power in our hands, social and economic transformation of Muslims is not possible. Political power is the only key to success in a democracy.
To quote Kanshiram , “First election to lose, second to get noticed and third election to win”. Majlis will continue to do similar because Atlas cannot shrug, not today, not tomorrow!
(Zia Nomani is the spokesperson for All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen in Bengaluru)